Engaged Journalism at Ideastream Public Media: Bridging the Gap Between Media and Community

By Marlene Harris-Taylor , Director of Engaged Journalism, Ideastream Public Media

Many people would love to peel back the curtain to understand better how newsrooms work. When an Ideastream reporter or producer begins work on a new story for our radio or digital platforms, there is a pretty typical process that happens. The genesis of a story can come from many different places – a trusted source, a friend, social media, an email even an anonymous tip.

What happens next, in most cases, is the journalist will begin researching, reading, calling, basically doing everything they can to find out more about the topic. They call people that know something about the topic and interview them. They also seek out people who are impacted by the issue to interview. Then they organize all the information they have learned into the story that is shared with our audience.

This tried-and-true process has been around for decades - The modern era of journalism is considered to have begun in the early 1900s with newspapers and investigative journalism - and the formula was adopted by radio and television news organizations. There are indications, however, that this formula is in need of some tweaking. There is a growing chasm between news organizations and the public with more people expressing a distrust of news and the organizations that create it.

According to a 2022 report from the Gallup organization :

Just 7% of Americans have "a great deal" of trust and confidence in the media, and 27% have "a fair amount." Meanwhile, 28% of U.S. adults say they do not have very much confidence and 38% have none at all in newspapers, TV and radio.

News organizations have been searching for new ways to overcome these statistics and rebuild trust with their audience. One way that is being embraced by Ideastream is Engaged Journalism.

Building trust with Engaged Journalism

The idea that average people, not trained journalists, can engage in acts of journalism has a long history. You may have heard terms such as: community journalism, citizen journalists, collaborative media, participatory journalism, and democratic journalism. These terms represent different ways media organizations have been trying to solve the puzzle of telling stories and reporting on events in an inclusive way.

Engaged Journalism is a relatively new twist on the tried-and-true formula used by news organizations. It is designed to create better transparency in our news gathering process and to involve the community in the news creation process from beginning to end. With Engaged Journalism, we often ask the public, “What stories are we missing?” Or if we are working on a particular topic, we not only consult the experts, but we involve interested community members as we formulate how we are going to approach a story. We strive to include community partners in some key decisions including who to interview and how to frame an issue.

We then continue to seek feedback as we produce the content to ensure we are reflecting a variety of opinions from the community in the product. The end product, the news story, talk show segment, podcast, social media post, etc. is meant to be an authentic representation of the issue or topic, influenced by a diverse array of viewpoints inside and outside of the newsroom.

We also work to amplify voices that are not often heard in media stories. With some of our content projects we want to make sure we include the perspective of underrepresented communities. This can sometime help to challenge the conventional or dominant narrative about issues. This more inclusive approach can empower communities who up to this point have felt like they have been left out of the conversation by news organizations.

Engaged Journalism at Ideastream

As Director of Engaged Journalism, I lead a team that is using this practice in content creation. We are also helping our entire newsroom understand and use Engaged Journalism as much as possible in our daily news production for radio and web, on our talk show the Sound of Ideas and in our social media content.

We recently held a Listen and Learn session with members of the Black community where some people lamented that many news media organizations only show up when something bad or negative happens in underserved communities. Engaged journalism seeks to create connections in multiple communities by showing up at county fairs, coffee shops and meetings just to talk to people about what’s on their minds, even when there is no story to report on.

Out of those encounters, our reporters and producers can find out what’s important to people.

A recent story from Engagement Producer Richard Cunningham is a great example. Richard is new to Cleveland and has been going out to community events just to meet people. At one of those meetings, he learned about how important the Doan Brook Park Restoration project is to people who live in Shaker Heights and border communities. The story that Richard eventually produced on the topic A hidden gorge is becoming a green oasis for Cleveland’s East Side is a direct result of engaging with the public and was one of the most read stories on our website for several days.

In addition to this type of quality reporting from our team, we also have three major Engaged Journalism projects that are long-term and time intensive. They are Connecting the Dots between Race and Health 2.0 Gun Violence, Sound of Us and Community Story Tellers.

Connecting the Dots 2.0 – Gun Violence??

The Connecting the Dots project began in 2020 as an examination of how racism impacts health outcomes. There were some elements of Engaged Journalism used in the project including working with 16 community partner organizations to independently create content for the project. Ideastream provided small grants to groups and individuals to create events and content on this topic. We also included community input and feedback on the creation and implementation of the award-winning Living For We podcast which was an offshoot of this work.

In 2024, the project transitioned and is fully embracing engaged journalism. Connecting the Dots 2.0 - Gun Violence is exploring ideas and examining solutions just as the U.S. Surgeon General has declared gun violence a public health issue. Mass shooting incidents often receive a large portion of media coverage, but it is the persistent violence happening in communities across Northeast Ohio involving guns and impacting our youth that is insidious and seemingly ignored by large swaths of our society.

The team is engaging communities, including youth, on the issue of gun violence, gathering insights on how a reporting and engagement project will help to empower them and inform the larger community. We are working with grassroots community organization who are well-informed about community gun violence in Cuyahoga, Lorain, Summit and Stark counties.

We are focusing on engagement before we create content and listening to the wants and needs of these communities. We have hosted five listen and learn events in those communities to inform our journalism and developed an advisory group who we will meet with monthly throughout the project.

We are also developing a new season of the Living For We podcast that is focusing on Black men and teens caught up in the cycle of violence and on the community leaders who are working to stem the tide of gun violence and retaliation.

Sound of Us?

Sound of Us is an ongoing Engaged Journalism project that presents people-driven stories by providing a platform for Northeast Ohioans to tell the stories they want to tell. Sound of Us flips the traditional media dynamic by putting people before problems, going into communities without an agenda and creating space for people to lead conversations about what’s most important to them.

After we select ideas from those submitted by people from across Northeast Ohio, we then connect with community partners to help us meet people who want to tell their stories on a particular topic. The regional scope of the Sound of Us provides opportunities for people to hear the voices and perspectives of those they might not encounter in day-to-day life.

“Sound of Us” Community Story Tellers?

The Sound of Us also has a community story telling component. We offer practical training in storytelling so diverse groups of people across the region have the tools and skills to tell their own stories.? We provide training in audio storytelling and work with communities whose members want to share their stories with a broader audience. The outcome is a diverse cohort of trained citizens who have concrete skills in community-led storytelling.

We have connected with a? wide variety of community organizations to help people in those communities learn basic journalism skills to tell their stories including students at Richmond Heights High School ,? LGBTQ+ young people , in partnership with the LGBT Center of Greater Cleveland and Poetic Reentry a group of stories that mixed poetry with personal reflections on life both inside and outside prison --? told in the voices of formerly incarcerated men.

Engaged journalism represents a transformative shift in how news is produced and consumed. By prioritizing community involvement, fostering trust, and amplifying diverse voices, this approach also enhances the quality of reporting, but it can take more time than traditional journalism. As we navigate an increasingly complex media landscape, Ideastream’s embrace of Engaged Journalism may be key to ensuring that the stories we tell reflect the realities and aspirations of the communities we serve. In doing so, we can create a more informed and engaged public, better equipped to face the challenges of our time.