Conclusions
This case study of the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS) has examined the extent to which it has achieved its mission of providing professional and objective reporting about 17 low-income communities in the city. The study also has focused on the individual and shared experiences of the news service’s staff as it uses journalism to help construct a sense of community. In addition to how media and institutions have reacted to its work, the study has examined how NNS is contributing to the ongoing discussion of journalism and community journalism – and how and why journalism matters to how a neighborhood, particularly in the inner city, is perceived.
The study analyzes some of the news service’s founding documents as well as grant applications and consultant reports, interviews with key staff and a review of nearly a third of the 750-plus articles published its first three years – all in order to help draw informed conclusions. It reviews the vast critical thinking concerning the concepts of community and sense of community as well as journalism, community journalism, public (or civic) journalism and online journalism – all in hopes of better understanding how NNS does its work and thinks about the communities it serves.
The social construction of reality is used as a theoretical framework from which to create four guiding research questions: 1) How does the news service imagine its work? 2) What kinds of work has it produced and from what kinds of sources and places is its content most often drawn? 3) How have others in the community and elsewhere discussed or endorsed its work? 4) Who is doing the work and what have they learned about journalism and community?
NNS aims to increase the amount of news coverage of quality-of-life efforts by residents and organizations in its targeted neighborhoods, to present a case for further revitalization efforts in the inner city, and to motivate more residents in these neighborhoods to become involved in civic affairs. The news service has consistently produced quality journalism that goes beyond what is typically done by community-based and -focused news outlets, especially one with its staff’s size and relative inexperience as journalists, not to mention very limited financial resources.
Led by its experienced nurturing editor-in-chief, Sharon McGowan, the staff has produced special reports and award-winning work about topics vital to central city neighborhoods, including education, public safety, health, economic-development and arts and recreation. The work continues to improve as its staff gains confidence and experience and generates more ambition. Its relatively limited demand for corrections and clarifications is a testament to McGowan’s high bar for professionalism.
NNS seems to depend mightily on community-based organizations and institutions for its story ideas, as it mostly publishes work about their programs and projects and ventures to events, meetings and rallies to connect with its sources. Make no mistake, though, the news service has increased coverage of the multitude of quality-of-life efforts of people living and working in its targeted neighborhoods exponentially.
NNS has earned a significant amount of positive media attention for its efforts; to a lesser extent, it can show that community groups endorse its work by sharing it via their newsletters, websites, email alerts and word of mouth. Mainstream media – whom NNS and its supporters insist have long presented news about neighborhoods that is mostly about crime and despair – have republished the news service’s work, notably the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and NPR affiliate WUWM-FM. This added exposure extends NNS' coverage of otherwise ignored residents and small nonprofits, who are eager to tell their stories of resiliency and optimism. NNS has also enabled its staff to learn a great deal themselves about journalism and community, particularly as it relates to how people think about their neighborhoods and themselves based on what someone else reports.
The study analyzes some of the news service’s founding documents as well as grant applications and consultant reports, interviews with key staff and a review of nearly a third of the 750-plus articles published its first three years – all in order to help draw informed conclusions. It reviews the vast critical thinking concerning the concepts of community and sense of community as well as journalism, community journalism, public (or civic) journalism and online journalism – all in hopes of better understanding how NNS does its work and thinks about the communities it serves.
The social construction of reality is used as a theoretical framework from which to create four guiding research questions: 1) How does the news service imagine its work? 2) What kinds of work has it produced and from what kinds of sources and places is its content most often drawn? 3) How have others in the community and elsewhere discussed or endorsed its work? 4) Who is doing the work and what have they learned about journalism and community?
NNS aims to increase the amount of news coverage of quality-of-life efforts by residents and organizations in its targeted neighborhoods, to present a case for further revitalization efforts in the inner city, and to motivate more residents in these neighborhoods to become involved in civic affairs. The news service has consistently produced quality journalism that goes beyond what is typically done by community-based and -focused news outlets, especially one with its staff’s size and relative inexperience as journalists, not to mention very limited financial resources.
Led by its experienced nurturing editor-in-chief, Sharon McGowan, the staff has produced special reports and award-winning work about topics vital to central city neighborhoods, including education, public safety, health, economic-development and arts and recreation. The work continues to improve as its staff gains confidence and experience and generates more ambition. Its relatively limited demand for corrections and clarifications is a testament to McGowan’s high bar for professionalism.
NNS seems to depend mightily on community-based organizations and institutions for its story ideas, as it mostly publishes work about their programs and projects and ventures to events, meetings and rallies to connect with its sources. Make no mistake, though, the news service has increased coverage of the multitude of quality-of-life efforts of people living and working in its targeted neighborhoods exponentially.
NNS has earned a significant amount of positive media attention for its efforts; to a lesser extent, it can show that community groups endorse its work by sharing it via their newsletters, websites, email alerts and word of mouth. Mainstream media – whom NNS and its supporters insist have long presented news about neighborhoods that is mostly about crime and despair – have republished the news service’s work, notably the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and NPR affiliate WUWM-FM. This added exposure extends NNS' coverage of otherwise ignored residents and small nonprofits, who are eager to tell their stories of resiliency and optimism. NNS has also enabled its staff to learn a great deal themselves about journalism and community, particularly as it relates to how people think about their neighborhoods and themselves based on what someone else reports.
