Two years into its mission, the Madison Commons citizen journalism project continues to provide residents a vibrant place to find neighborhood news and an open forum to discuss community issues. As of May 2007, Madison Commons has trained about 70 people throughout the Wisconsin city and nearby communities to be citizen reporters.
But while the response to the training workshops has been good, only about 10 of those volunteers have continued to be active contributors.
To recruit more participants, The Commons reached out and formed partnerships with neighborhood planning councils, local daily and weekly newspapers, television outlets, non-profit groups, and the City of Madison’s Department of Planning. They offered two six-week series of workshops teaching people the basics of journalism and how to write profiles and issue-based pieces. During this past year, they also included a session on developing blogs.
Getting volunteers to follow through has been an enormous challenge. While most participants complete their writing assignments during the training, and their stories are published on the Madison Commons website, many trainees just fall off the radar. Founder Lew Friedland says perhaps it’s “been a flaw in our original design. We believed that it would be most difficult to recruit people, but that once they attended workshops, they would continue writing for the Commons.” That hasn’t been the case. And it’s been hard to get writers to submit fresh content. “As a result, we rely on content from our media partnerships with the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times to populate much of the website,” he says.
To address this dilemma, Madison Commons has begun posting stories originally published in neighborhood association newsletters and websites. “These newsletters provide a bird’s-eye view of people and issues in specific neighborhoods,” says Friedland. “Often times, the stories don’t appear in large media outlets but provide rich ideas and accounts from which people around the city can learn.” And the relationship is mutual. Several neighborhood associations now provide links to Madison Commons from their own websites. Undergraduate students also serve as Madison Commons neighborhood reporters for an entire semester. This experience gives them a deeper understanding of the communities they will cover as professionals.
Other media have also benefited from the citizen reporters trained by Madison Commons. Some “graduates” have been published in neighborhood newspapers. One individual is leading a project to help neighborhood youth create video podcasts. And the Wisconsin State Journal and Isthmus’ Daily Page have both picked up some stories from the Madison Commons.
Beyond the neighborhood lines, the editors have also started reaching out to people who may be interested in covering beats that have citywide appeal, such as public transportation or housing developments.
Madison Commons plans to expand its reach in the coming years. With the help of a $100,000 Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment grant, they expect to branch out to other Wisconsin communities between 2008 and 2010.
Other plans:
- Focus recruitment efforts on residents of the city’s west side neighborhoods, which have not received the same kind of coverage or citizen participation as other parts of town.
- Concentrate greater efforts on training senior citizens and youth.
- Include more photojournalism and audio stories to invite contributors most comfortable expressing themselves through images and sound.
- Modify the training program by offering an introductory session and making the full series of workshops available to those most committed to writing for Madison Commons after the training.
