In every community, there are people who care about the place they live in and work to make it better, and people who despair over their prospects for the future. There are people who run the show and people who feel ignored, dismissed, belittled and rejected.

When people lack opportunities to give meaningful input on decisions that determine their future, they lose faith in the democratic process. They’re wary of election-year appeals from political candidates — the very people they feel have abandoned them.

The way journalists cover politics and policy often contributes to this failure. When reporters focus exclusively on insiders and experts, they perpetuate a system in which Very Important People talk at the rest of us. The knowledge and experiences of “regular” people rarely informs these discussions.

That’s the kind of “journalism” people are most exposed to. And it’s very different from the kind of journalism democracy needs to survive. The gulf between them is a big problem if you believe, as I do, that the best hope for journalism’s future lies in public support.

Free Press’ News Voices: New Jersey project has been working to change that dynamic by connecting community members and the journalists who serve them to better understand their common interests and complementary roles. We want to encourage newsrooms not just to turn to experts for answers but to turn to the public for questions. Our ultimate hope is to create a constituency for journalism, a public motivated to advocate for open government, press freedom and local reporting. This will happen only if people feel that journalism represents them and supports their interests.

News Voices works at the local level, in individual cities and towns, and we meet people face to face. We talk about what’s going on in neighborhoods and local institutions to name and address each community’s challenges. We work at the human scale, the scale at which people can discuss their lived experiences. Journalism at the local level depends on understanding those experiences and giving people the information they need to participate in their communities.

When people put down their smartphones and sit across from neighbors they don’t know, they have the chance to truly listen. Doing that makes people realize what goals and struggles they share, and how their efforts in the community are, intentionally or not, interconnected. Face-to-face listening doesn’t just make people feel heard; it also develops a sense of mutual accountability. That’s one reason it’s important for reporters to sit at the same table with the people they serve.

After a full year of events and groundwork, News Voices is now moving toward the next phase: fostering relationships and nurturing projects in each community, linking these local networks across the state and building the constituency for journalism and press freedom — in New Jersey and beyond. To do that, we’re reaching out to people doing journalism-engagement work across the country to see what we can learn from their efforts.

A project in Ohio has provided an opportunity for us to share what we’ve learned and to see how another model can move toward similar goals.

As a swing state, Ohio is the site of intense political campaigning, which includes an onslaught of political advertising — much of it negative. Informed Citizen Akron is bringing together a select group of residents for substantive, informed discussions of the issues at stake in this year’s election. The goal: putting the public at the center of the political conversation.

Informed Citizen Akron is a joint endeavor of the Jefferson Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit that works toward democratic solutions through civic discourse, and Your Vote Ohio, a collaboration of Ohio media institutions including newspapers, TV stations and radio stations. The project uses the citizens-jury model, drawing on a set number of people who represent the community socioeconomically, racially and politically and engaging them for three days of conversation and deliberation. Statewide polling on the issues most important to Ohioans informs the entire process.

Doug Oplinger, managing editor of the Akron Beacon Journal and one of the project’s leaders, is concerned that the public is losing trust in journalism. He says that the people the media should serve are skeptical that there are reporters who truly want to help their communities.

“I have always been a reporter who believes that I’m most empowered by understanding the people I need to represent,” he told me. But his experiences talking to reporters, civic groups and others over the last several years have made him aware of a deep disconnect between the work reporters do and the image the public has of that work.

Informed Citizen Akron puts people at the center of the political conversation, and invites them to think about how the media could better represent their voices.

That very idea was a surprise to many participants, said Andrew Rockaway of the Jefferson Center.

“The biggest realizations people had were that media organizations see themselves as having responsibility to the community, and that they want to serve the needs of the community, which was not the sense people had going in of what the media’s role is,” Rockaway said. “Participants also really didn’t know what the job entails and what the realities were of being a journalist or the challenges journalists have to face.

“People see news organizations as black boxes, which is the problem in a lot of respects. It was good for people in newsrooms to see that they’re not doing a good job of communicating what the organization does and what the mission is.”

Across the board, regardless of cultural or socioeconomic background, people involved in this project were enthusiastic about the possibility of weighing in on how journalism could better include their perspectives.

Project organizers invited speakers from across the country to present ideas to the jurors. Southern Methodist University Professor Jake Batsell described strategies for engaged journalism, while Michelle Ferrier talked about her research for the Media Deserts Project. Engaged journalism projects across the country — including News Voices, Hearken and Groundsource — gave examples of tools, methods and philosophies, which informed the engagement strategies the citizens’ jury recommended in its report.

The jury proposed organizing information to make it more accessible, fact-checking statements from candidates and officials, creating interactive features like news quizzes to engage readers, using text messaging to reach broader and younger audiences, and treating news as a conversation between readers and journalists.

At the top of their list was a recommendation that gets to the heart of work News Voices is doing in communities across New Jersey:

Engaging all demographics to identify the most important issues to the community and use their input to frame media coverage. There is a great diversity of stories and interests in our community and they deserve to be heard. The inclusion of underrepresented individuals in this process is essential. Opening this dialogue helps articulate community needs and demonstrates the media’s value of these communities, which will in turn enhance the trust between the community and the media. This helps the community feel more engaged/empowered in the news/media, influencing them to become involved in the election.

The newsrooms across Ohio that sent reporters to participate in Informed Citizen Akron — including Oplinger and one of his reporter colleagues — have committed to heeding the jury’s recommendations and delivering coverage that’s responsive to community concerns.

“We will not allow candidates to come into Ohio and dictate the issues,” Oplinger said. “We’ll write stories so that Ohioans see themselves in the democratic process represented by the news media. We’ll go to the candidates and say, no, you stop. This is what Ohioans say.”

News that represents the people it serves: That’s the news democracy needs.

This post originally appeared on the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation blog.

During Election Season, We Need News That Puts People First was originally published in Free Press on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I was a reporter, I would sometimes find myself asking: How do I make people care?

Journalists often ask this question, especially when they’re tasked with writing about the minutiae of policy or political process in a way that conveys the high stakes involved. That can be tough.

But I recently advised a group of young journalism students to be wary of asking this question as it contains a sense of fatalism, an expectation that people would rather focus on pop culture and political scandal than pay attention to the things we think are important. The assumption underlying the question “How do I make people care?” is that people don’t.

That just isn’t true. In every community, there are people who care — deeply — about what’s happening around them and about the future they share with their neighbors. The people who care are a diverse group. They don’t all care about precisely the same issues, they don’t have the same perspectives, they face different obstacles to getting involved, and they often disagree on solutions. But they all need timely, credible, factual information on which to base their actions and inform their advocacy.

At some point, I began to make a habit of asking better questions: Who cares about this issue, and why? What do they want to know? If they wanted to make change, what information would they need?

These questions always led to better reporting, and to a stronger bond with my readers — along with a stronger sense of accountability to the people I was writing for. On my braver days, I backed up further and began with a bigger question: What do people in my community care about, and why?

From the start, News Voices: New Jersey has set out to bring people who care together with the newsrooms that serve them, and to create a space where we can all ask these questions together.

The News Voices team recently shared the lessons we’ve learned during the first six months of our project. Now, as we plan for our next event and continue engaging with the communities where we started our work, we’ve been reflecting on how our activities relate to our goals and our theory of change.

A theory of change helps nonprofit organizations guide strategic planning. It’s a way to look up from day-to-day work and think broadly about what impact the work you’re doing will have in the long term: If we do this, what do we think will happen, and how?

So here is News Voices’ theory of change, developed in consultation with ORS Impact.

IT’S A BIT DENSE, SO LET ME BREAK IT DOWN.

First, we engage and mobilize the communities we’re working in — New Brunswick, Atlantic City, Asbury Park, Morristown and Newark — by catalyzing conversations between community members and news organizations. We then lay the groundwork for community-driven partnerships and collaborations, letting them take shape according to the needs and drive of local participants.

As the project expands, we’re also exploring state-level opportunities to work with media organizations and consider policies that can help support journalism and press freedom across New Jersey. We’ll share what we’re learning, build networks locally and statewide, and set the stage for what may come next.

Our hope is that the work we’re doing will affect many different stakeholders, which are labeled in the theory of change with colored dots: newsrooms, residents and groups in local communities, decision-makers at the local and state levels, funders, and Free Press members across the state.

Changes in awareness, capacity, networks and local news set in motion what we think of as a virtuous cycle between community engagement and journalism. Stories become richer, presenting a greater diversity of perspectives and reflecting the needs of community members.

As newsrooms engage their communities and allow them to help set the news agenda, outlets will have greater insights about community concerns and start to regard their readers, viewers and listeners as constituents, not consumers.

As community members see their perspectives are heard, valued and reflected in local coverage, they will trust their local newsrooms more. This sense of empowerment and investment in local media will lead to deeper support for journalism and press freedom.

Down the line, this virtuous cycle will influence the actions of leaders as well.

IF ALL OF THIS SEEMS CRAZY-AMBITIOUS, IT IS. BUT WE’RE NOT DOING THIS WORK ALONE.

News Voices is part of a network of projects, organizations and people working toward the same goals. We work collaboratively with many of the Dodge Foundation’s grantees across the state. We work with local news outlets and journalists of all kinds: reporters and editors from daily newspapers; hyperlocal news sites; ethnic print newspapers; documentary filmmakers from public television; and independent voices from local radio, public access TV and social media. Within communities, we’re working with church groups, arts organizations and activists, and people who may not have been part of conversations about journalism until now.

AND WHAT WE’RE DOING SO FAR IS MAKING AN IMPACT.

In the months since our first event in New Brunswick, journalists and residents have become invested in creating a community advisory board. Advisory boards are a common tool for journalist engagement, but most tend to initiate from a single newsroom. What’s exciting to us is that multiple newsrooms in New Brunswick are interested in taking part. We continue to work with this group as its hones its plans. They hope to host their first public meeting in late spring.

The Press of Atlantic City has done a lot since the forum we hosted in Atlantic City last December. Managing editor Buzz Keough told us that meeting residents face-to-face and hearing their stories led to several articles, including a profile of a local artist and entrepreneur. While the paper had already planned to do special coverage for Black History Month, the News Voices event helped the paper connect with new sources and ideas.

This led to a series of profiles of Black leaders in South Jersey, a multimedia story about Atlantic City’s civil rights garden, and a five-minute video, narrated by a former mayor, about the African American experience in the community. The paper is also planning long-term projects that will focus on poverty throughout the region, and on what Atlantic City can do to rebound economically. We hope to help the Press continue to incorporate community voices into their reporting process.

Our next News Voices: New Jersey event will be in Asbury Park on Wed., March 23.

Once again, we’re excited to bring together members of area organizations with local media to explore how journalism can unite communities.

In Asbury Park as elsewhere, we will build the network, set the stage, listen, connect — and support the great work that will follow.

Click here to learn more about the News Voices: New Jersey project.

This post was originally published on the blog of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation: http://blog.grdodge.org/2016/02/24/free-press-listen-to-people-who-care/#sthash.KdXA7RfJ.dpuf

Listen to People Who Care was originally published in Free Press on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Atlantic City is a place of riches — not in terms of material wealth, but in terms of people, local history, neighborhoods and the overall sense of community.

That message came through loud and clear Tuesday evening during the News Voices: New Jersey event at the Noyes Arts Garage, where more than 80 people came together for a conversation about how residents and journalists can work together to tell Atlantic City’s story.

Cole Goins on Twitter

Out here in Atlantic City for @freepress' #NewsVoices. Great model for connecting media + community. pic.twitter.com/smcz9cpYfy

We heard from Robert Wyatt, who’s lived his entire life in Atlantic City and works at a local social service agency. “I hope you can write some positive things about Atlantic City,” Wyatt said to the dozen journalists present, “because life is hard out here.”

Alejandra Sulpizio, who works with many nonprofits in the area and has a special interest in youth empowerment, told a story about how a convening of local youths helped elevate the voices of Atlantic City teens who often feel ignored. Dawn Belamarich of the group This Is AC pointed to the need to build a grassroots movement to underscore positive happenings in the city and act as a connective tissue to the various initiatives going on.

Press of Atlantic City reporter Donna Weaver spoke about the need to highlight community voices. “There are so many stories, not just casinos,” she said. “I got into this business to tell stories about people and give voice to people who otherwise would not be heard.”

The refrain of these conversations was that despite hardships, the city and its people endure through their bonds with one another, their entrepreneurial spirit and their desire to make Atlantic City a fair place to live and work.

We heard over and over that there is much about the city that few people know — about its history and the many projects that aim to empower those living there. “Atlantic City is a phoenix,” one person said, and many in the audience contemplated aloud what its next incarnation could be.

Economic issues were front and center in people’s minds. Attendees conveyed the pain of living in economically depressed neighborhoods even as the city’s casinos pull in revenue for the state. People noted how many local residents rent, and one young man said that his generation has had little opportunity to own their own homes.

Molly de Aguiar on Twitter

Communities that consistently endure negative media coverage are hurting. They deserve more empathy, more humane coverage. #newsvoices

But rather than lament these problems, residents said they wanted the media to pay attention to possible solutions. Local civil rights activist Steven Young said that after all the bailouts of banks and corporations, it’s time for a bailout of people and neighborhoods in places like Atlantic City. Others proposed specific ideas concerning taxes and local economic development.

After nearly an hour of small-group conversations, attendees were invited to choose among three separate breakout sessions with media organizations working on projects about Atlantic City.

WNET reporters Nina Chaundry and Lauren Feeney used a story booth to interview residents for a documentary project on the ongoing impacts of casino closures on the city and its people. This will appear as part of the station’s Chasing the Dream series.

Cole Goins and Scott Gurian, who work on Dirty Little Secrets, a collaborative investigative reporting project, presented an interactive map of toxic sites in flood zones along the Jersey Shore and invited residents to help them gather more information about such spots in their own backyards.

Bryan Mercer and T.C. Owens of the Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) screened a 15-minute film, Building a Sandcastle, that documents local union members’ struggles against casino owners. They then discussed how MMP uses media to empower people to make social change. Atlantic City resident Belinda Manning said she was drawn to MMP’s work because it provides an opportunity to tell stories about the resilience and creativity she sees in her community.

Meanwhile, reporters and editors from the Press of Atlantic City hosted a listening session in which participants talked about the stories they want to see coverage of.

Donna Weaver on Twitter

Thank you @freepress I am so motivated & excited to get back in the #acpress #newsroom tomorrow #newsvoices #DoAC #AtlanticCity

Tuesday’s event was the second Free Press has hosted in New Jersey since the launch of the News Voices project back in May; the first was held last month in New Brunswick. News Voices will continue to engage community members and newsrooms in Atlantic City and other communities across the state through 2016.

Scroll below to check out more photos from the event and visit NewsVoices.org to learn more about our project.

But how might Atlantic City’s story be different if it were told by — and for — the people who live there?

Because of its history and importance to the state economy, regional and national media outlets keep their eyes on this city of fewer than 40,000 residents. But the attention is less on the residents than on their aggregate woes. The stories that trickle up to a national audience tend to be sensationalistic, hewing to either a rise-and-fall or rebirth narrative, with the starring roles played by casinos, real estate magnates and politicians.

A 2014 NPR story was headlined “Atlantic City Falls from Glittering Resort to Bargain Basement.” A similar story from Bloomberg proclaimed “Atlantic City Will Soon Disappear Alongside Its Casino Economy.” An 2015 Fusion article called the city the “foreclosure capital of the U.S.” While national stories like these tend to include quotes from a handful of local residents, the people in these stories are presented in two-dimensional terms, defined by their hardship. We see only a sketch, not the full picture of their day-to-day experiences.

The news that makes national headlines isn’t the same kind of coverage local people need to tackle problems head on and forge a shared future. If journalism is to contribute to a civic, democratic response to community problems, it must provide people with a sense of how to work toward solutions. That’s especially true in places like Atlantic City, where so many critical questions about the city’s future are in the hands of powerful outsiders — state-government officials, investors, judges — rather than the people who live and work there.

That’s the kind of journalism we’re trying to foster through Free Press’ News Voices: New Jersey project, and it’s why we’re convening a gathering in Atlantic City on Tues., Dec. 8. We’ve invited small-business owners, artists, social workers, teachers, pastors and many other folks who call Atlantic City home to sit down with journalists and explore how they can work together to create the news that will sustain the city’s future.

Across the country, newsrooms are exploring ways to provide better coverage by inviting the public into the work of journalism. In Flint, Michigan, an investigative reporter was able to stop poisoned water from flowing through the city’s taps by enlisting hundreds of residents to collect samples from their homes for testing. A newspaper in Peoria, Illinois, filled gaps in its newsroom by inviting members of its most underserved neighborhood to become part of an advisory group that’s helped produce solutions-oriented coverage of crime and unemployment. In Sacramento, California, a public radio station brought people experiencing food insecurity together with other members of the community for small-group conversations and broadcast parties. Staying engaged with the ongoing conversation it initiated, the station reported not just on the problem of hunger but on solutions that emerged from community collaborations.

These types of collaborations between newsrooms and communities can happen in Atlantic City, too. Our public forum is part of News Voices: New Jersey’s investment in helping to make those relationships happen. In the coming months, we’ll be working with journalists from local and regional outlets to help them explore new ways of engaging with the readers they serve. We’ll also work with community members and organizations to help them figure out how to build relationships and work with members of the news media.

Journalism plays a critical role in gathering facts, holding leaders accountable and providing people with the information they need to make change. When journalists listen to the people in their community, recognize their insights, respond to their questions and produce coverage that helps people navigate through challenges, then journalism becomes an important part of revitalizing the community.

We believe that Atlantic City’s greatest asset is its people: Their knowledge and experiences can help move the city forward. People who have weathered job losses are experts on how to cope with hardship. People working for a better future know best which aspects of the system are broken. Those who have weathered crises know how to look for opportunities. That’s why listening to the people is the first step toward reporting the news they need.

Free Press’s News Voices: New Jersey community forum in Atlantic City will be held on Tues., Dec. 8, from 6–8:30 p.m. Click here to learn more and to RSVP.

What Would Atlantic City’s Story Be If It Were Told by — and for — the People Who Live There? was originally published in Free Press on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.