Award-winning journalist, educator and former SOJC senior instructor, Lisa Heyamoto shares her insights on the intersection of media startups and community-centered journalism. As the director of Teaching & Learning at Local Independent Online News Publishers, she’s seeing that “the path to a successful news business isn’t simply about doing great journalism — it’s about meeting communities where they are, understanding their information and civic needs and providing clear utility and value.” In September, Lisa served as the guest curator on Gather, the platform led by the Agora Journalism Center to support community-minded journalists.
Source: Gather
Recommendations for moving toward an antiracist journalism education
Agora director Andrew DeVigal collaborated with the Engaged Journalism Exchange to host a Gather Lightning Chat and contributed with other academic scholars to produce this list of recommendations to shift journalism education closer to antiracism.
Peek behind the scenes of 14 community-centered journalism projects, including what worked and lessons learned
Agora’s initiative Gather launches a new batch of case studies. Every case study is a deeper dive into what worked and lessons learned from community-centered journalism projects. This batch shares how organizations built relationships, offered actionable news, investigated issues, or created conversation spaces
The Finalists and Winners of the 2020 OJA Gather Award for Engaged Journalism
The Agora Journalism Center and Gather are, once again, honored to sponsor this year’s Gather Award in Engaged Journalism with the winners of two categories, each receiving $2,500 prize money. Similar to last year, we are recognizing projects for overall excellence.
The Ethics of Engaged Journalism
Agora’s inaugural director Mike Fancher argues that engaged journalism involves the public as true partners, enabling journalism to become complete, more accurate, more trusted, and more meaningful.
Reflecting on the Work of Engaged Journalism
We present the Reflective Practice Guide, a methodology that journalists can use to document and reflect on their work in engaging with their community.
Finding Reason in Difficult Conversations
Thanksgiving, an opportunity to express our gratitude over a meal, can also be a time for us to find common ground with those with different perspectives.
The Importance of Collaboration Between Newsrooms and Their Communities
What role should communities play in the journalistic process? Strategic Communication masters student Keegan Clements-Housser takes on that question in his new report.
Studying Emerging Engagement
How do we know that audience engagement works? And how do we define success in the first place? Thomas R. Schmidt takes on these questions.
The Continuum of Engagement
The question we often forget to ask ourselves is: How can we motivate more journalists (and journalism students) to put the community at the center of their work, be better listeners, and understand more precisely the needs of the public? Until we can think of the public not just as “audiences” and “consumers,” but also as experts and partners in the communities we aim to serve, we shouldn’t expect to receive the public’s complete trust.