“Deep listening” is a different kind of listening than what we, as journalists, are used to, and adopting the practice is easier said than done. Luckily, we can find inspiration in the rich historical and cultural roots of deep listening.

Voters are often confronted at the polling booth with a list of judicial candidates. For civil court judge. Appellate court judge. Surrogate’s court judge. These positions are important because local and state judges, by the nature of the job, hold massive sway over people’s lives every day. Yet many voters have no idea who the candidates vying for these positions are or what kinds of work the various judges do. 

Network Mapping is a tool we can use to visualize the invisible infrastructure that makes up every community. The people, organizations, and physical or digital places you identify as part of that infrastructure become your on-ramps to that community — potential partners or sources for you to reach out to.

In June 2020, WFAE in Charlotte, North Carolina initiated a partnership with La Noticia, a Spanish-language newspaper serving North Carolina, to better serve their region’s growing Latino population.

For many public media stations, community engagement journalism has been a game changer in terms of fundraising and membership. But articulating to potential donors all the ways engagement makes an impact and serves audiences can be challenging. To help get you started, we’ve put together some examples that make the case.

How can your media outlet choose to frame your coverage of and engagement with Latino voters? Here are a few tips to help you tell richer election stories for this growing constituency.

Accurate and reliable information is crucial during a natural disaster. Understanding your community’s information needs will help your newsroom respond quickly in times of great need. 

There are a lot of reasons why many newsrooms are embracing a different approach to election coverage these days. With vast amounts of mis- and disinformation circling, voters don’t know whom they trust. And these days, it is rarely their local public media station or newspaper.