Who's reviving civic journalism? These Indiana students aim high

Vernon G. Smith has a wealth of stories to share. The 80-year-old legislator is one of 10 Black Democrats in Indiana's House of Representatives. He's spent decades making better education his signature issue. And if you've got time, he can tell you about the first time he met Michael Jackson, more than a half-century ago.

In a different era, a press-core veteran at Indiana's state capitol would do a classic "look-back interview" with Smith. But most of those grizzled reporters are gone. Layoffs and retirements have gutted newsrooms across the United States.

So what's the future of civic awareness, if mainstream coverage is vanishing? Look around, and you can find plenty of grim talk about "news deserts ." Look even closer, though, and you'll see some fascinating newcomers entering the scene.

That's where DeMarion Newell comes in.

Newell (pictured above, in the gray sweatshirt) is in his early 20s. He's a college junior at Franklin College , getting course credit for working in a student-staffed newsroom at Indiana's state capitol. There, at TheStatehouseFile.com , Newell is part of a college crew that provides steady political coverage.

So if you're curious about Rep. Smith's political career -- or just a Polaroid glimpse of what the future legislator looked like at age eight -- Newell's full story is here .

For these Franklin College students, part of the payoff for stepping into political reporting is the chance to see their work republished in mainstream newspapers (or websites) across Indiana. What they've set up with TheStatehouseFile.com isn't exactly Indiana's version of Reuters or The Associated Press. But the comparison isn't preposterous, either.

Nationwide, about 120 campus-supported reporting programs have sprung into action, according to a recent University of Vermont analysis . Participants range from UC-Berkeley to St. Bonaventure and the University of Oklahoma.

In total, the UVermont analysis concludes, we're talking about more than 10,000 stories a year. These are shared with at least 1,500 mainstream outlets, collecting a total of about 14 million page views.

Coverage ranges from local-news basics such as city council meetings to some detailed investigative work that University of Maryland students conducted on the full backgrounds of candidates for office. (Look who hasn't paid their taxes!)

At TheStatehouseFile.com , Franklin College alumna Colleen Steffen has been serving as executive editor since December 2020. She paid her dues in a 15-year journalism career, both as a reporter for newspapers in Florida, Indiana and Kentucky, and as an instructor at Ball State University.

In her current role, Steffen says, "I'll talk about the stories with the students, but they do the work."

Steffen's attentive but hands-off approach means that student editors take charge, slowly learning how to improve their peers' work. It's not the most efficient approach; one student feature went through 66 drafts before it was ready to publish. But it's a crucial part of developing a fully capable next generation of journalists.

Publications such as The (Columbus, Ind.) Republic News and The (Evansville, Ind.) Courier & Press regularly republish some of the Franklin students' work. A piece earlier this year about gun rights -- with footage of an Indiana legislator pulling back his jacket to show his holstered handgun -- was cited in follow-up coverage by news sites ranging from USAToday to The Indiana Citizen .

Will such college-level involvement inspire students to make their careers in journalism? Or will today's newsroom adventures be only indirectly relevant to the workforce paths that graduates choose?

Steffen contends that society -- and graduating students -- win either way.

Working on the front lines of journalism teaches tudents "how to talk to people," she says. "It teaches them how not to get upset when people come after you. Self-esteem is born." Such universal skills are at least 50% of the education, she adds.