Journalism skills are civic skills

This guide offers ideas and tools to help you set up a Documenters-style participatory media program that trains and pays local residents to cover public meetings in their area. Participatory media can mean many things, but our understanding of the term rests on one core idea: Journalism skills are civic skills, they belong to everyone. 

Our network equips people to be active producers and distributors of information that impacts their lives. Participants are paid, trained, and supported by communities of practice. Their work is fact-checked and shared through a local information ecosystem by media partners, civic organizations and Documenter word of mouth.

The Documenters Network style of participatory media is rooted in how we understand civic participation. Below are academic models that map what civic or democratic participation can look like. Our work aims for the top step of these models — represented as “co-owning,” “empower” and “citizen control” respectively. 

The civic information produced by Documenters, and the community they produce it in, reinforces their learning and the ability to get the information to the people who need it most. 

Learning from the field

We know this working isn't happening in a silo, there are so many great folks working on participatory models across disciplines. Check out these other frameworks specifically oriented toward participatory and civic media—all of which are included in full as resources throughout this guide:

• • 1. jesikah maria ross’s Participatory Journalism Playbook identifies these five principles of participatory journalism (we'll talk more about that in theProgram Development section of the guide):

       • • Inclusion

         • Co-creation

         • Face-to-face events

         • Public Service

         • Civic infrastructure
           
           

    2. Erhardt Graeff’s Empowerment-based Design Principles for Civic Technology and Monitorial Citizenship explores how civic design technologies -- that is, the tools and practices we use to get people involved– can and should empower citizens (we'll talk more about that in the  "Tools + Scoping" section): 

       • • Give Users Agency

         • Provide Opportunities for Reflection and Discourse

         • Foster and Respect Communities

         • Tell Stories with Data

         • Anticipate Breakdown and Evaluate Rigorously
           
           

    3. Nico Carpentier’s 2011 book “Media and Participation: A site of ideological-democratic struggle” draws a distinction between maximalist and minimalist versions of media participation. Characteristics of each include:

       • Minimalist participatory media:                 

• 1. 1. • • Controlled by media professionals

          • Limited to access and interaction activities, e.g. polls, comments

          • Focused on one-way, audience-to-newsroom participation

          • Views media as non-political

          • Treats the audience as homogeneous

        • Maximalist participatory media: 

          • Seeks a mix of professional control and participation

          • Tries to maximize participation as opposed to access and interaction

          • Understands media as a political actor

          • Attempts two-way and multi-dimensional participatory activities

          • Attends to the heterogeneity of audiences

(We’ll talk more about these different ways of approaching participatory media in the "Program Development" section of this guide.)

Step 1. Drafting a statement of purpose

Why not jump right in with assignments and training? For your participatory media program to bring about the change you seek, writing a mission statement right off the bat might not be enough — we think that a mission statement should draw from a theory of change. But, plug “theory of change” into a search engine and you’ll find thousands of essays and complex diagrams mapping out how to create a theory of change. Consider yourself warned! Our experience is that just three elements — mission, vision and values — are more than enough to draft a living theory of change.

A collaborative process pays dividends down the road: When your team is invested in crafting a collective theory of change, they’re more likely to be ambassadors and advocates for the work. Know that your answers will change over time; watching how your values and outcomes play out on the ground will improve your mission statement.

Here are some things to consider:

• Values: What do you love? Who do you love? What drives you? Why?

• Outcomes: What will be different because of your work? Who will benefit when your work succeeds? 

• Process: What is your plan to contribute to those outcomes? What’s your work, and who is it for? How do your values shape your activities?

Here’s an example of how City Bureau’s value and desired outcomes helped us identify the what and how of our theory of change — and translate that theory into a mission statement. 

Values:     

• We don’t believe in heroes. We believe in holistic, structural change focused on equity and inclusivity.

• We want to build this movement together. We value collaboration, responsiveness and exchange. We know we are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, just as we will hoist others to stand on ours.

• We value and respect the process as much as the product. We will always be open and honest about our successes, failures and the processes that led us there.

• We believe in place. Though we may have an impact nationally and internationally, we are committed to Chicago.

Outcomes:   

• We will develop inclusive, civically oriented communities of practice. 

• We will harness local knowledge, skills and relationships to produce and distribute relevant civic information.

• Documenters and program sites will be recognized as trusted information producers and distributors.

• More people will engage with public meetings, public policy and local elected officials to build civic power.

Mission:  

Our mission is to equip people with skills and resources, engage in critical public  conversations and produce information that directly addresses people’s needs.  Drawing from our work in Chicago, we aim to equip every community with the  tools it needs to eliminate information inequity to further liberation, justice and self-determination.

Dig Deeper:

Here are more mission and vision statements from partners we admire:

• Outlier Media: “Outlier Media is a Detroit-based service journalism organization. We identify, report, and deliver valuable information to empower residents to hold landlords, municipal government, and elected officials accountable for longstanding problems. By keeping residents first, we hope to give more than we take and leave people with the information they need to create change in their own communities.

• PhillyCam: PhillyCAM provides transformative opportunities for people and communities to express themselves, to learn from each other, and to produce and share media reflective of experiences of everyday people. We envision an equitable society in which media reflects and represents our communities, builds community power, and enables all people to have access to media tools to critically analyze media and to participate in media creation.

• Free Press: Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what’s actually happening in their communities.