Results and Interpretation
Milwaukee has as many distinct communities as any large American city. Pinpointing the primary sections of Wisconsin’s largest municipality is easy: Downtown, East Side, North Side, South Side and West Side. Within those areas are scores of neighborhoods, many with storied identities and clear-cut focal points. But not every Milwaukee community is easily identified, either on a map or in conversations with lifelong residents. As an alumnus of and now faculty member at Marquette University, located just west of downtown, it always interests me when native friends cannot readily tell me what neighborhood they live in when asked for driving directions. Students in my digital journalism courses have reported the same thing when they leave campus on assignment for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS).
Before digging deeper into the work NNS has produced, let us again consider a term that our informants and their supporters all use often while discussing its mission and actions: community. Editor-in-Chief Sharon McGowan, for example, describes it as “a somewhat artificial boundary created by the city that has a name and has borders and that has people who live, work, worship, serve there, who care about it.” Karen Slattery, chair of Marquette’s journalism and media studies department and who studies the concept as a researcher, said it “means people living in relation to one another.”
So what led to choosing the 17 communities in which the news service focuses its efforts, particularly since other related terms used often are central city or minority or low-income or poor or even black and Latino? The initial three – Lindsay Heights on the city’s North Side and Clarke Square and Layton Boulevard West on its South Side – were part of the 10-year, $50 million neighborhood revitalization initiative funded by the Zilber Family Foundation, which is also one of NNS’ primary funding sources. It is notable that the foundation’s executive director, Susan Lloyd, seemed to agree with my earlier point when she told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – in October 2010 and five months before NNS published its first story – that “Milwaukee, unlike Chicago, is not neighborhood centric.” That is why the Zilber Initiative decided to “drill down on south and north side neighborhoods and expand the footprint to adjacent areas,” Lloyd said.
All of which explains why the news service now also covers Amani, Harambee, Metcalfe Park and Sherman Park to the north; Havenwoods and Thurston Woods to the northwest; Lincoln Village, Menomonee Valley and Walker’s Point to the south; and Capitol Heights, Concordia, Enderis Park, Martin Drive and Washington Park to the west. McGowan said these neighborhoods all have an “organized effort of some sort” to improve the community’s quality of life and “some resources to do that.”
This chapter reviews how NNS declared its intentions to the communities and public at large as well as the resulting media coverage and what my informants and others say of its mission, standards, leadership and staff. It then looks at NNS’ work based on topic areas; special reports; page views and efforts to increase audience and correct mistakes; student assignments; and awards. It also reviews from who and where NNS draws its coverage, what is said about community and neighborhoods in that coverage, and what the informants have learned about journalism and community because of NNS.
Before digging deeper into the work NNS has produced, let us again consider a term that our informants and their supporters all use often while discussing its mission and actions: community. Editor-in-Chief Sharon McGowan, for example, describes it as “a somewhat artificial boundary created by the city that has a name and has borders and that has people who live, work, worship, serve there, who care about it.” Karen Slattery, chair of Marquette’s journalism and media studies department and who studies the concept as a researcher, said it “means people living in relation to one another.”
So what led to choosing the 17 communities in which the news service focuses its efforts, particularly since other related terms used often are central city or minority or low-income or poor or even black and Latino? The initial three – Lindsay Heights on the city’s North Side and Clarke Square and Layton Boulevard West on its South Side – were part of the 10-year, $50 million neighborhood revitalization initiative funded by the Zilber Family Foundation, which is also one of NNS’ primary funding sources. It is notable that the foundation’s executive director, Susan Lloyd, seemed to agree with my earlier point when she told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – in October 2010 and five months before NNS published its first story – that “Milwaukee, unlike Chicago, is not neighborhood centric.” That is why the Zilber Initiative decided to “drill down on south and north side neighborhoods and expand the footprint to adjacent areas,” Lloyd said.
All of which explains why the news service now also covers Amani, Harambee, Metcalfe Park and Sherman Park to the north; Havenwoods and Thurston Woods to the northwest; Lincoln Village, Menomonee Valley and Walker’s Point to the south; and Capitol Heights, Concordia, Enderis Park, Martin Drive and Washington Park to the west. McGowan said these neighborhoods all have an “organized effort of some sort” to improve the community’s quality of life and “some resources to do that.”
This chapter reviews how NNS declared its intentions to the communities and public at large as well as the resulting media coverage and what my informants and others say of its mission, standards, leadership and staff. It then looks at NNS’ work based on topic areas; special reports; page views and efforts to increase audience and correct mistakes; student assignments; and awards. It also reviews from who and where NNS draws its coverage, what is said about community and neighborhoods in that coverage, and what the informants have learned about journalism and community because of NNS.
