Primary Contact Name
Describe your project
The Opinion Pool is a project that seeks to build and quickly bring to market model online templates and tools that deliver high quality, interactive opinion journalism — much of it local — and that move beyond traditional opinion-page content to cultivate a new generation of citizen contributors trained in the values of professional journalism and empowered to use new media to promote civic dialogue and community problem solving. The Opinion Pool is an unprecedented collaboration of more than 500 opinion journalists at large and middle-sized metropolitan newspapers, along with dozens of community and college newspapers, all associated with the National Conference of Editorial Writers. Project funds would be used to advance two goals:
* Develop model opinion Web sites that expand the reach of local editorial pages to diverse new media platforms, invite community collaboration and raise the level of local civic involvement. New media features and tools would seek to balance impact and sophistication with practicality, sustainability, and ease of use.
* Develop a national Web site hosted by NCEW that
o (a) showcases best practices in opinion journalism and civic involvement strategies in new media and
o (b) offers training and other how-to advice to citizen and professional journalists.
Up to 10 newspapers would serve as pilot sites, committed to working together and sharing information as each builds and tests its own tools and template. Each would share content and create practical journalistic and financial strategies for sustaining a dynamic online forum. The pilots also would involve the larger community in designing and managing their model sites, and would develop systems to help ensure that community participants adhere to standards of fairness and accuracy. Other NCEW members and interested community members, meanwhile, may join The Opinion Pool and contribute to its progress by following the pilot sites’ work, experimenting with elements of the model templates, and widely sharing their results.
Organization or Business Name
Who would want to use it and why?
Citizens in the geographic communities served by pilot sites would be the first wave of users — especially younger members (21-35) who have not been reading the print edition of opinion pages but would be closely involved in development of the model new media templates. The object would be to create local forums for lively exchanges of informed opinion on local and national affairs and community problem solving — an alternative to shouting matches and one-sided partisan offerings. Pilot sites thus far include: The Chicago Sun-Times, The Dayton Daily News, The Des Moines Register, The Kansas City Star, The Scripps (Florida) Treasure Coast Newspapers, The Seattle Times, The Tampa Tribune, and The Wausau (WI) Daily Herald.
Why are you the best person or organization to develop this project?
The National Conference of Editorial Writers is a professional organization of more than 500 members who work for newspapers, broadcast outlets and web publications, primarily in the United States and Canada. Founded in 1946, the NCEW is dedicated to the craft of opinion writing. Its programs include an annual convention, regional conferences, domestic and international fact-finding tours, quarterly publication of The Masthead, a Web site and list serve, and the Minority Writers Seminar at Vanderbilt University (now in its 13th year, with a nearly $350,000 operating endowment raised from corporate and philanthropic givers), offering training to aspiring and seasoned opinion journalists. The Opinion Pool proposal comes after more than 18 months of preparation, beginning in 2005, when the NCEW engaged former San Francisco Chronicle publisher John Oppedahl to help lead a strategic planning process. In June 2007, the Kettering Foundation hosted an NCEW meeting to discuss the future of opinion journalism, moderated by Mr. Oppedahl and focusing on new media, democracy and the marketplace. Executives from Cox Newspapers and Gannett Co., Inc, and senior staff from Stanford Graduate Journalism School and Missouri University Journalism School's Reynolds Institute participated in the meeting. The Reynolds Institute has become a research partner, with a special focus on identifying and analyzing news sources and other media younger people in pilot site communities rely on to inform their opinions on matters of public affairs. Gannett Co. is providing technical assistance in conducting focus groups in pilot markets, while Kettering Foundation staff continues to be a sounding board on the project and its progress. The NCEW Foundation, an independent 501(c)(3) organization, supports the work of NCEW through development initiatives. NCEW members’ professional expertise and deep connections with local communities, combined with a proven organizational capacity, makes NCEW uniquely qualified to undertake a project as ambitious as The Opinion Pool.
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What potentially bigger thing might happen if everything went perfectly and the stars all aligned?
The Opinion Pool’s ambition is to adapt the best traditions of daily opinion journalism to new media. Here’s what that could lead to: The opinion writers and editors at The Opinion Pool’s pilot properties could offer valuable insights into how news organizations can achieve transformative change without the expense, risk and grinding delays experienced in many enterprise-wide projects at large media companies. By working together across the ownership lines, they can experiment and rapidly build online templates that combine (a) digital technology’s most dynamic means for enabling community deliberation, participation and problem solving with (b) journalism’s enduring values of fairness, accuracy and effective advocacy. Pilot sites would partner with members of their communities to design, build and maintain practical, sustainable online hubs — with the goal of their becoming the places of choice for engaged citizens to go and read, experience, debate and exchange informed opinion on matters important to their shared quality of life. Pilot sites can compare notes on what their audiences find useful and engaging, and what experience is proving to be the most productive workflows for specific online features. As each pilot develops its own vision for complete, fully integrated online template, other NCEW members will be able follow their progress and offer their advice and assistance on matters in which they have direct experience or expertise. The network formed to build these model templates also could form the nucleus of a sort of national neighborhood that connects not just news organizations but citizens and civic organizations with a common interest. Citizens and community groups working on an affordable housing project in Des Moines, for example, could seek advice from peers by posting queries on Opinion Pool sites in Dayton, Chicago, Kansas City and Seattle. Many hands thus can make light, and fast, work — hands that are exceedingly skilled and joined together with a common purpose and a solid plan in The Opinion Pool.
How will you be able to measure whether or not your project has really made a difference?
The business of opinion writers and editors is to “make a difference” in the communities they serve — as honest brokers championing public causes, as facilitators, commentators and provocateurs who promote public debate and deliberation, explain choices and their consequences, observe milestones, celebrate triumphs, mourn losses, defend leaders who make responsible but unpopular choices, help citizens demand accountability from the rest, and speak truth to power as few institutions are able or willing to do. The Opinion Pool seeks to adapt that mission to new media, and expand it through the involvement of citizen journalists. The project’s first year will be devoted to experimenting, developing and building model online templates, finding the forums, features and work flows that work best, recruiting and involving the community in their design and maintenance. Helping communities outside the pilot sites implement their most promising strategies will be the focus of Year 2 of the project. Year 3’s emphasis will be on continuing this work, and evaluating the project’s impact, seeking community-by-community feedback. Each pilot property is a part of an established media company that has a full range of sophisticated systems for measuring readership and audience — online and in print. The pilots will establish their own baselines and benchmarks for measuring whether features, forums and other offerings are attracting interest. Ultimately, ordinary citizens will be the best judges of whether the project has made a difference — not just civic, business and political leaders, but members of neighborhood organizations, church groups, students doing service projects, and other quiet doers in the community. They will be in the best position to explain whether and how the project has affected community life. They will tell us whether we are in the game.
Requested amount from Knight News Challenge
What unmet need does your proposal answer?
Shifts in media landscapes haven’t altered citizens’ fundamental need to judge how well local institutions and office holders serve the community — or to debate opportunities for civic progress and reform. Nor do news industry trends diminish the importance of honest, non-partisan places where communities can turn for evaluations of candidates’ qualifications for public office. New media, in recent times, have exploded onto the scene with offerings that fall within the general category of public affairs and political opinion. Some have brought high quality content that is interesting, engaging and useful. Much of the proliferation has not. The overall result is media milieu that is increasingly atomized and highly partisan. And largely absent from the mix is a reliable, sustainable institutional force with deep experience in the local community that can serve as a trusted and discerning facilitator and moderator of public debate, all while offering an informed, independent voice in community affairs. Communities thus benefit from opinion journalists that have a sophisticated, clear-eyed and compassionate understanding of civic life, who act as a community resource without fear or favor, and who diligently seek to achieve accuracy and fairness in their commentary. Historically editorial pages have strived to serve in this way. But if they fail to adapt quickly to new media, nothing is poised to take their place. The Opinion Pool seeks to assure opinion journalism’s successful transition to new media, especially on the local level — so capable, experienced opinion journalists can help meet community needs for informed opinion in the digital era.
Total cost of project, including all sources of funding
What specific, unique opportunity do you see that will make this project more successful than others trying to fill that general
Eighteen months of planning and organizing have created a unique opportunity for The Opinion Pool to succeed in moving daily opinion journalism to new media. By the time the Knight Foundation News Challenge grants are announced, the NCEW and its partners will be completing empirical research that bears directly on the project goals and the geographic communities that make up the pilot sites. Gannett Co.’s national research department is helping to guide professionally recruited and facilitated focus groups in Seattle, Des Moines, and in a community served by one of the Scripps (Florida) Treasure Coast Newspapers. By early Spring 2008, by in-depth readership surveys will be underway in all pilot markets — conducted by the Missouri Journalism School’s Reynolds Institute. The focus groups and readership surveys will concentrate on younger community members, and will be geared to help The Opinion Pool discern where younger community members now turn to inform their opinions on matters of public and community affairs. A work group of research representatives from pilot sites and other NCEW member properties will help manage the process — offering comments and suggestions on focus group strategy and the readership survey instrument. The research results will be widely distributed through NCEW and other journalism and academic organizations, thus providing a broad range of input and reaction as the pilot sites proceed to recruit members of their local communities and begin building model templates.
Expected amount of time to complete project (in whole years):
How will people learn about what you are doing?
The combined daily circulation of the eight pilot sites already on board currently averages about 1.5 million. Each property has an established Web presence and experienced marketing staff. The Opinion Pool thus has access to all publicity tools news organizations customarily use to inform their audiences of special projects. The Opinion Pool’s success, though, ultimately will depend on people not just learning about the project but becoming actively involved in the design, construction, evaluation and maintenance of the model templates. Opinion page staffs at the pilot properties have deep connections in their communities. They have experience in organizing readers/audience to serve as regular advisors and contributors. More nuanced and personal reaching-out of this kind will be essential for people not just to learn about, but also to get involved in the project. NCEW members not associated with the pilot sites will be able to follow the project’s progress through the NCEW list serve, a Facebook group devoted to the Opinion Pool and The Masthead, NCEW’s quarterly magazine. The NCEW’s annual meetings — in Little Rock in 2008, St. Lake City in 2009 and Dallas in 2010 — will offer substantial programs on the project and its progress. Regional meetings could be used for training professional opinion journalists and citizen contributors how to adopt and manage model templates developed by pilot sites.
Do you have any other funding or investment? We’re interested in knowing who else is interested in your project.
Properties that thus far have committed to serve as pilot sites are a part of the following news organizations: Cox Newspapers, EW Scripps Co., Gannett Co., Inc., McClatchy Company, Media General, Seattle Times Co., and Sun Times Media Group. Lee Enterprises, Media News, the Tribune Company and other news organizations have expressed interest in having properties become pilot sites. The participation of 10 pilot sites will involve a considerable investment in the project. Assuming that each site simply devotes the services of one highly-skilled, full-time equivalent (made up of several employees’ part-time-contributions to the project) we estimate a total three-year-investment of $3,750,000 just from the pilot properties — calculated on the basis of an average of $125,000 per year in salary, benefits and overhead per site. (10 x $125,000 x 3 = $3.75 million). We believe this to be a conservative estimate, one that does not take into account the resources that other NCEW members will put to the project as they experiment with elements of the pilot sites’ work, and develop their own model templates in Years 2 and 3 of the project.
Are you working with anyone else to complete this project? If so, please give names and what they would do?
In June 2007, the Kettering Foundation hosted a meeting organized by the NCEW on the future of opinion journalism — paying participants’ travel to and lodging expenses at the foundation’s Dayton, Ohio , headquarters. Discussions there led to The Opinion Pool’s formation, and the foundation since has offered staff as a sounding board for conversations about project possibilities. The NCEW and Kettering Foundation are exploring potential research partnerships and a series of national meetings relating to The Opinion Pool and its progress. The foundation recently posed following questions for purposes of discussion and as a means of exploring potential common ground between the foundation’s goals and those of The Opinion Pool:
* How does this project help align the practices of editorial writers with the work a public needs to do in order for democracy to work?
* How does the project help draw out the ways in which the public understands its problems and deliberates on ways to move forward?
* What new practices is the project developing that can help journalists rethink their own practices, self-understanding, and norms?
The scope of the Kettering Foundation’s future participation in The Opinion Pool should be fully resolved well in advance of Knight Foundation News Challenge grants announcements
Who else is working in this area? How does your work fit into the larger context of work in this area?
Every digital media project that seeks to promote public discussion of community issues is, in a sense, “working in this area.” The Opinion Pool is being organized as a complementary, rather than a competing, project. It seeks to serve as institutional ballast for the best of these projects — a hub through which reasoned and informed community conversation can flourish and be sustained from many sources. But in a very real sense this project is the first of its kind. Readership of newspaper opinion pages — the reality and potential — has never been systematically studied. Former San Francisco Chronicle Publisher John Oppedahl said that part of what got him “really interested” in working with the NCEW was: “The NAA does massive, industry-wide studies of advertising market changes and circulation trends, the ASNE studies foreign news, national news, online news, Washington news, how bloggers cover the news, etc, and Pew and other think tanks and research outfits study use of media in all its forms by all kinds of readers and viewers. But except for the effort that Clark Hoyt was leading at McClatchy before he went off to be an ombudsman, there has been to my knowledge no other large scale, and certainly no industry wide, effort to study the practice, and function and changing nature of institutional opinion journalism (put) to the purpose of making real-world, actionable recommendations for the future.” This is what The Opinion Pool seeks to accomplish — taking institutional opinion journalism and connecting it to local communities as never before, adapting it to new media and achieving economic self-sufficiency by driving audience/readership and delivering revenue.
What do you guarantee will happen if you complete the activities in this proposal?
When the activities in this proposal are completed:
* The pilot sites will have developed and tested a wide range of practical strategies for using digital technology to partner with local citizens and to offer and manage online places where citizens gather to discuss public affairs and solve community problems.
* Professional opinion writers and editors will have gained considerable skill in managing new media and imparting journalistic values to a new generation of citizen contributors.
* All interested parties will have been able to follow The Opinion Pool’s progress in real time, as the results of each stage of the project will have been documented and widely published.
* The news industry and interested citizens will have a greatly deepened understanding of opinion journalists’ potential to become local leaders in new media — through interactive programs that can be managed by a small staff and that are practical, sustainable, useful and commercially viable.
