Results and Interpretation: Part I – Who Is Doing the Work?
This section reviews and interprets how the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service declared its intentions to the communities it hoped to serve and the public at large. It also analyzes the resulting media coverage and what the five informants and others said of its mission, standards, leadership and staff. It is all an attempt to answer three of this study’s four research questions: 1) How does NNS imagine its work? 2) How have others discussed its work? 3) Who is doing the work on its behalf?
BEGINNING: "NEWS FROM THE NEIGHBORHOODS"
The Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service began operating at Marquette University, inside the J. William and Mary Diederich College of Communication in Johnston Hall, in November 2010 – a few months before www.milwaukeenns.org launched and at the time reporting on two communities: Clarke Square and Lindsay Heights. Milwaukee Magazine media writer Erik Gunn introduced the public at large to NNS via his “Pressroom Buzz” blog in September 2010. Sharon McGowan, the project coordinator and editor-in-chief, told Gunn that “the broader Milwaukee community” did not accurately perceive the two neighborhoods due to limited and “often negative” coverage. NNS’ work would meet professional standards, focus on neighborhood revitalization efforts so nonprofits could learn from each other’s successes and failures, and be available for other media to republish or rebroadcast, she said.
In December 2010, NNS released a one-page Q-and-A worksheet declaring its intentions. The document described “an online source for objective, professional reporting about revitalization efforts in central city communities.” It also echoed Gunn’s report, looking ahead to interactive community sites – initially for Lindsay Heights and Clarke Square – that would provide residents information about community events and activities, and a forum on local issues. “Professionally trained” NNS “beat reporters” would fill the void left by “limited media coverage of the comprehensive and systematic efforts” of groups and people to improve the neighborhoods’ quality of life. The reporters would “cover the successes and failures of revitalization initiatives, regularly assessing progress toward achieving” the communities’ goals in economic development, education, employment, health and wellness, housing, neighborhood beautification, public safety, recreation and youth development. Moreover, the document said, NNS would allow local and statewide newspapers, radio and TV stations to “publish, broadcast or post” its work on their websites “at no cost” – so long as it received appropriate credit. NNS also intended to provide news tips and a calendar of community events. These posts would include “polished enterprise pieces” featuring text, video and images. Marquette faculty and “highly experienced journalists skilled in print and multimedia storytelling” would help McGowan with editing; website coordinators would help to gather, design and disseminate content, and to drive traffic to www.milwaukeenns.org.
In March 2011, NNS announced itself in a one-page news release: “Online News Service to Cover Community Issues.” Naming McGowan as “editor and project director,” and unveiling a new logo, the release described NNS as a “new multimedia website that provides objective, professional reporting on urban issues” in the “pilot communities” of Lindsay Heights, Clarke Square and, now, the Layton Boulevard West neighborhoods of Burnham Park, Layton Park and Silver City. It added “articles” and “audio reports” to the types of journalism other media could use for free if crediting NNS.
The news release said NNS had “garnered significant community support.” Tony Shields, executive director of the United Neighborhood Centers of Milwaukee and the news service’s publisher, stated that the coverage would allow the “wider Milwaukee community” to learn more about the neighborhoods and their leaders to learn from their shared experiences. The Diederich College would provide training, equipment and a multimedia editor, a home for a newsroom and students for internships. Dean Lori Bergen would serve on the NNS advisory board. “Our purpose is to tell a balanced story about successes and challenges in bringing new vitality to these historic neighborhoods,” McGowan said. The release ended with a call to action from John Gurda, noted local author and historian and another advisory board member: “People who care about the city and understand its importance to the region will want to bookmark this site.”
MEDIA COVERAGE: "REALLY A GREAT OPPORTUNITY"
The launch quickly garnered media coverage as well. McGowan told the Journal Sentinel that NNS would provide objective and professional reporting on urban issues in neighborhoods. It would focus on education, public safety, economic development, health and wellness, recreation, employment and housing rather than on crime and fires, she said. The Journal Sentinel also said the website would be updated each Monday and Wednesday and that McGowan hoped NNS could expand to other areas in the city. She told The Marquette Tribune that media should better serve “their whole readership” but are unable to consistently focus on issues important to “these communities” and that NNS provides “real-world experience” for journalism students. McGowan and Shields told NNS’ story in a 10-minute segment on the WUWM-FM public affairs show “Lake Effect.” She again stressed the importance of telling and disseminating balanced stories that emphasize successes as much as challenges in the inner city. Shields described NNS’ work as “really a great opportunity” for community residents to know more about “what’s going on and what’s of interest.”
In May 2011, Gunn weighed in again for Milwaukee Magazine, writing that NNS aimed to “remedy Milwaukee mass media’s habit of ignoring the city’s neighborhoods except for stories about crime and decay.” McGowan told him that “we’re pleased so far” with the “very positive reaction to the site” and “our reporters are developing sources and turning out high quality work.” In June 2012, Urban Life, a blog produced by high school students participating in a Diederich College program, wrote that NNS covers “neighborhoods that no one else cares about.” Four months later, by which time the news service had expanded its coverage to 15 communities, Michael Horne began a post on UrbanMilwaukee.com by asking if NNS was an outreach project or an academic project. “No, and no. It is a professional journalism project,” McGowan said. The editor added that “we work on deadlines like a news organization” about stories, events or issues that “directly affect our communities,” “tend to go uncovered” and are “relevant to our users.” She told RadioMilwaukee.org, “I have been astounded by how many stories there are to tell about people who are spending their lives trying to make their communities better.”
Two publications based at the university where NNS has its newsroom took stock in early 2013. Marquette, a magazine for 110,000 alumni, said the “team of roving reporters covers territory that is often low priority” for other media, and quoted McGowan saying they tell a “balanced story” about efforts to bring “new vitality to these historic neighborhoods.” Marquette Matters, a monthly newsletter for faculty and staff, wrote that NNS is “giving an electrifying jolt” to its targeted areas. Kenya Evans – one of the two initial part-time reporters and who hails from Lindsay Heights but has since moved to South Korea – told the publication that NNS tells “the hard stories” and “the good things” about the communities and that “the work we’re doing is really important.” Writing about it for the third time, in Milwaukee Magazine in March 2013, Gunn noted that NNS had introduced several students from Marquette and other schools to community journalism, and that other media outlets were using its content on their websites. He also focused on the new service’s sustainability before ending with McGowan acknowledging that changing perceptions about central city communities is a long process.
Altogether, it was a significant amount of positive media coverage for a modest community experiment created to do what leaders of this new newsroom told anyone who would listen that the ones now writing about it were not doing. The coverage also served notice that novice journalists could gain as much from NNS as the neighborhoods.
IDENTITY: "DOING PROFESSIONAL, OBJECTIVE REPORTING"
In the interviews, the five informants agreed with Evans’ assessment that NNS tells “hard stories” and reports on good things happening in the communities. The staff draws its identity from doing work that it considers different from that of mainstream media. Indeed, 25 months after the launch, McGowan’s mantra remained consistent: “We’re doing professional, objective reporting” and “hoping to create a more balanced portrait of the neighborhoods and the people in them.” She said NNS was committed to accuracy, “telling stories that are not typically told,” “giving a voice to sources who are not typically interviewed” and “understanding that there are more than two sides to a story.” Part-time reporters Andrea Waxman and Edgar Mendez concurred. “I quote our mission statement,” Waxman said, “which includes professional and objective … it’s a very, very important part of it.” Mendez described NNS as an “online, objective, professional news service dedicated to reporting on central city neighborhoods” and that covers stories that mainstream media “might not care about.” They also stressed that NNS strives to capture local voices and give visibility to little-known but worthwhile community-based programs and services.
Slattery, the Marquette faculty member and former broadcast journalist, also emphasized that NNS uses traditional journalistic standards and practices to report on community issues not covered by legacy media. Waxman said: “We’re about the people who live in the community. They are the first priority. What their goals and aspirations and challenges are. What they have to say to about anything. That’s our focus.” Former intern Heather Ronaldson said NNS often covers social justice issues and human interest stories that other media would not pick up. Mendez said that even when other news agencies cover the same events, the news service tends to report on them differently.
Ensuring that NNS produces professional and objective journalism is challenging. Its reporters, interns and volunteers are culturally sensitive yet mostly novice journalists. McGowan recruits and trains them to tell the balanced stories NNS believes must be told. All of the informants praised her as one who never settles, yet cares for their professional and personal development as much as the news service itself. Waxman described her former editor at The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle as talented, but from a creative writing background. McGowan is “a much more professional journalist” with a “career full of newspaper and television journalism” focused on urban affairs and race relations. Waxman said “the journalism went up several notches for me” after joining NNS, mostly because “Sharon has very high standards” and “clearly enjoys teaching journalists how to be better journalists, which I think is one of the best things about working here.”
Mendez agreed. He, too, had worked with editors elsewhere before NNS. Their critiques, however, amounted to “Oh, I got a typo in here” and the stories otherwise being published as submitted. McGowan, he said, “basically molded me … really put me through all the motions, all the functions of a professional reporter.” Grammar was particularly a struggle at first. McGowan hammered home the basics. “Before it would be 10 grammatical errors,” he said. “Now it’s down to one or two.” Then again, McGowan’s true measure is with the hardest assignments. Mendez said she “helps a lot – because what I do is over-report.” Besides helping him to see “what I’m missing,” he said, she teaches how to “tell the story” so it is “more entertaining – in a way that makes sense” – and how to explain the data” compiled for the more complicated reports.
Slattery said what happens at weekly NNS staff meetings is “exactly the same sorts of things you do in a newsroom anywhere.” Reflecting on her few assignments as a volunteer, Slattery said McGowan is “a tough, tough editor” with “a lot of muscle” when it comes to improving stories. Ronaldson first met McGowan as a student in a journalism class that produced content for NNS in fall 2011. She had only been edited by college instructors and peers in campus media, so “I thought it would be wise” and a “good networking opportunity” to interact with McGowan – “a very scrupulous editor who was not from Marquette” – outside of class. While also describing McGowan as “a very confident and self-assured woman” with a “very high standard,” Ronaldson said she knew she could not “get by producing a subpar project” as an NNS intern – and that pleasing McGowan would be a “huge vote of confidence.”
STAFF: "THESE ARE TALENTED PEOPLE"
McGowan deflects all this praise while rejecting the premise that the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service started with inexperienced reporters. Indeed, she said, “these are talented people” who, perhaps more importantly, given her Chicago roots, could relate to NNS’ initial communities “in a way that I never will.” Mendez came with the “highest recommendation” from his UWM teacher and mentor, was “totally dedicated to journalism” and “knew everybody in Clarke Square,” McGowan said. Evans had done a fair amount of writing, mostly about the arts and fashion; had written a regular community-focused column in the Journal Sentinel’s op-ed section, and had “deep connections to the community” in Lindsay Heights, the editor said.
McGowan concedes, though, that she shoulders “a lot of responsibility” having no other editors to help protect NNS’ credibility. Yet she flatly said “I’m an editor” more so than a teacher, then added: "I want everything that I publish on the site to be good enough to have my own name on it. And so, therefore, I have to teach people to do it the way I do it, which may or may not be perfect – but at least it’s professional."
Is she giving more than she is getting? “No, I’m giving a ton, but I’m also getting a ton.” In lieu of a huge salary, “the satisfaction of working with young journalists” and influencing how they view covering a city is “important to me.” McGowan added, “What makes me feel the best is working one on one with a reporter to make their story better.”
Nonetheless, the NNS experiment relies heavily on recruiting and coaching reporters who may remain on staff for relatively short periods of time. A total of 32 people have bylines on at least one of the 229 news service reports reviewed for this study. Not surprisingly, Waxman and Mendez have the most, with 32 and 30 stories, respectively. After Evans (eight stories) left for South Korea, McGowan hired Brendan O’Brien, a full-time journalist for Reuters with a M.A. in public policy, as a part-time reporter; soon after she hired recent UWM graduate Shakara Robinson for a similar position. O’Brien and Robinson wrote 19 and 17 of the stories, respectively.
NNS interns account for the next highest totals. All earning experience but no pay, they include Maggie Quick, a student attending Northeastern University in Boston who wrote 15 stories while home for summer break in Wisconsin; UWM students Maria Corpus (13) and Tom Momberg (10) – and six journalism students from Marquette, including Ronaldson (8) and Eric Oliver (9). The sample also includes work by five other interns who signed on after learning about NNS by word of mouth.
As noted earlier, a partnership between the Diederich College, the Public Policy Forum and NNS enabled Mendez to pursue a master’s degree while also still reporting. The next graduate students to join NNS as part of the joint program, Scottie Lee Meyers and Rick Brown, each have 10 stories within the sample. Several other people produced reports as volunteers, including Alex Perry (5) and Slattery’s husband, Mark Doremus (4). Finally, 18 students in my digital journalism class created nine of the stories during spring 2013 – the fourth consecutive term that McGowan teamed with such a class to produce content for NNS. Several of them, including Ronaldson and Oliver, have become interns or created content as volunteers.
BEGINNING: "NEWS FROM THE NEIGHBORHOODS"
The Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service began operating at Marquette University, inside the J. William and Mary Diederich College of Communication in Johnston Hall, in November 2010 – a few months before www.milwaukeenns.org launched and at the time reporting on two communities: Clarke Square and Lindsay Heights. Milwaukee Magazine media writer Erik Gunn introduced the public at large to NNS via his “Pressroom Buzz” blog in September 2010. Sharon McGowan, the project coordinator and editor-in-chief, told Gunn that “the broader Milwaukee community” did not accurately perceive the two neighborhoods due to limited and “often negative” coverage. NNS’ work would meet professional standards, focus on neighborhood revitalization efforts so nonprofits could learn from each other’s successes and failures, and be available for other media to republish or rebroadcast, she said.
In December 2010, NNS released a one-page Q-and-A worksheet declaring its intentions. The document described “an online source for objective, professional reporting about revitalization efforts in central city communities.” It also echoed Gunn’s report, looking ahead to interactive community sites – initially for Lindsay Heights and Clarke Square – that would provide residents information about community events and activities, and a forum on local issues. “Professionally trained” NNS “beat reporters” would fill the void left by “limited media coverage of the comprehensive and systematic efforts” of groups and people to improve the neighborhoods’ quality of life. The reporters would “cover the successes and failures of revitalization initiatives, regularly assessing progress toward achieving” the communities’ goals in economic development, education, employment, health and wellness, housing, neighborhood beautification, public safety, recreation and youth development. Moreover, the document said, NNS would allow local and statewide newspapers, radio and TV stations to “publish, broadcast or post” its work on their websites “at no cost” – so long as it received appropriate credit. NNS also intended to provide news tips and a calendar of community events. These posts would include “polished enterprise pieces” featuring text, video and images. Marquette faculty and “highly experienced journalists skilled in print and multimedia storytelling” would help McGowan with editing; website coordinators would help to gather, design and disseminate content, and to drive traffic to www.milwaukeenns.org.
In March 2011, NNS announced itself in a one-page news release: “Online News Service to Cover Community Issues.” Naming McGowan as “editor and project director,” and unveiling a new logo, the release described NNS as a “new multimedia website that provides objective, professional reporting on urban issues” in the “pilot communities” of Lindsay Heights, Clarke Square and, now, the Layton Boulevard West neighborhoods of Burnham Park, Layton Park and Silver City. It added “articles” and “audio reports” to the types of journalism other media could use for free if crediting NNS.
The news release said NNS had “garnered significant community support.” Tony Shields, executive director of the United Neighborhood Centers of Milwaukee and the news service’s publisher, stated that the coverage would allow the “wider Milwaukee community” to learn more about the neighborhoods and their leaders to learn from their shared experiences. The Diederich College would provide training, equipment and a multimedia editor, a home for a newsroom and students for internships. Dean Lori Bergen would serve on the NNS advisory board. “Our purpose is to tell a balanced story about successes and challenges in bringing new vitality to these historic neighborhoods,” McGowan said. The release ended with a call to action from John Gurda, noted local author and historian and another advisory board member: “People who care about the city and understand its importance to the region will want to bookmark this site.”
MEDIA COVERAGE: "REALLY A GREAT OPPORTUNITY"
The launch quickly garnered media coverage as well. McGowan told the Journal Sentinel that NNS would provide objective and professional reporting on urban issues in neighborhoods. It would focus on education, public safety, economic development, health and wellness, recreation, employment and housing rather than on crime and fires, she said. The Journal Sentinel also said the website would be updated each Monday and Wednesday and that McGowan hoped NNS could expand to other areas in the city. She told The Marquette Tribune that media should better serve “their whole readership” but are unable to consistently focus on issues important to “these communities” and that NNS provides “real-world experience” for journalism students. McGowan and Shields told NNS’ story in a 10-minute segment on the WUWM-FM public affairs show “Lake Effect.” She again stressed the importance of telling and disseminating balanced stories that emphasize successes as much as challenges in the inner city. Shields described NNS’ work as “really a great opportunity” for community residents to know more about “what’s going on and what’s of interest.”
In May 2011, Gunn weighed in again for Milwaukee Magazine, writing that NNS aimed to “remedy Milwaukee mass media’s habit of ignoring the city’s neighborhoods except for stories about crime and decay.” McGowan told him that “we’re pleased so far” with the “very positive reaction to the site” and “our reporters are developing sources and turning out high quality work.” In June 2012, Urban Life, a blog produced by high school students participating in a Diederich College program, wrote that NNS covers “neighborhoods that no one else cares about.” Four months later, by which time the news service had expanded its coverage to 15 communities, Michael Horne began a post on UrbanMilwaukee.com by asking if NNS was an outreach project or an academic project. “No, and no. It is a professional journalism project,” McGowan said. The editor added that “we work on deadlines like a news organization” about stories, events or issues that “directly affect our communities,” “tend to go uncovered” and are “relevant to our users.” She told RadioMilwaukee.org, “I have been astounded by how many stories there are to tell about people who are spending their lives trying to make their communities better.”
Two publications based at the university where NNS has its newsroom took stock in early 2013. Marquette, a magazine for 110,000 alumni, said the “team of roving reporters covers territory that is often low priority” for other media, and quoted McGowan saying they tell a “balanced story” about efforts to bring “new vitality to these historic neighborhoods.” Marquette Matters, a monthly newsletter for faculty and staff, wrote that NNS is “giving an electrifying jolt” to its targeted areas. Kenya Evans – one of the two initial part-time reporters and who hails from Lindsay Heights but has since moved to South Korea – told the publication that NNS tells “the hard stories” and “the good things” about the communities and that “the work we’re doing is really important.” Writing about it for the third time, in Milwaukee Magazine in March 2013, Gunn noted that NNS had introduced several students from Marquette and other schools to community journalism, and that other media outlets were using its content on their websites. He also focused on the new service’s sustainability before ending with McGowan acknowledging that changing perceptions about central city communities is a long process.
Altogether, it was a significant amount of positive media coverage for a modest community experiment created to do what leaders of this new newsroom told anyone who would listen that the ones now writing about it were not doing. The coverage also served notice that novice journalists could gain as much from NNS as the neighborhoods.
IDENTITY: "DOING PROFESSIONAL, OBJECTIVE REPORTING"
In the interviews, the five informants agreed with Evans’ assessment that NNS tells “hard stories” and reports on good things happening in the communities. The staff draws its identity from doing work that it considers different from that of mainstream media. Indeed, 25 months after the launch, McGowan’s mantra remained consistent: “We’re doing professional, objective reporting” and “hoping to create a more balanced portrait of the neighborhoods and the people in them.” She said NNS was committed to accuracy, “telling stories that are not typically told,” “giving a voice to sources who are not typically interviewed” and “understanding that there are more than two sides to a story.” Part-time reporters Andrea Waxman and Edgar Mendez concurred. “I quote our mission statement,” Waxman said, “which includes professional and objective … it’s a very, very important part of it.” Mendez described NNS as an “online, objective, professional news service dedicated to reporting on central city neighborhoods” and that covers stories that mainstream media “might not care about.” They also stressed that NNS strives to capture local voices and give visibility to little-known but worthwhile community-based programs and services.
Slattery, the Marquette faculty member and former broadcast journalist, also emphasized that NNS uses traditional journalistic standards and practices to report on community issues not covered by legacy media. Waxman said: “We’re about the people who live in the community. They are the first priority. What their goals and aspirations and challenges are. What they have to say to about anything. That’s our focus.” Former intern Heather Ronaldson said NNS often covers social justice issues and human interest stories that other media would not pick up. Mendez said that even when other news agencies cover the same events, the news service tends to report on them differently.
Ensuring that NNS produces professional and objective journalism is challenging. Its reporters, interns and volunteers are culturally sensitive yet mostly novice journalists. McGowan recruits and trains them to tell the balanced stories NNS believes must be told. All of the informants praised her as one who never settles, yet cares for their professional and personal development as much as the news service itself. Waxman described her former editor at The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle as talented, but from a creative writing background. McGowan is “a much more professional journalist” with a “career full of newspaper and television journalism” focused on urban affairs and race relations. Waxman said “the journalism went up several notches for me” after joining NNS, mostly because “Sharon has very high standards” and “clearly enjoys teaching journalists how to be better journalists, which I think is one of the best things about working here.”
Mendez agreed. He, too, had worked with editors elsewhere before NNS. Their critiques, however, amounted to “Oh, I got a typo in here” and the stories otherwise being published as submitted. McGowan, he said, “basically molded me … really put me through all the motions, all the functions of a professional reporter.” Grammar was particularly a struggle at first. McGowan hammered home the basics. “Before it would be 10 grammatical errors,” he said. “Now it’s down to one or two.” Then again, McGowan’s true measure is with the hardest assignments. Mendez said she “helps a lot – because what I do is over-report.” Besides helping him to see “what I’m missing,” he said, she teaches how to “tell the story” so it is “more entertaining – in a way that makes sense” – and how to explain the data” compiled for the more complicated reports.
Slattery said what happens at weekly NNS staff meetings is “exactly the same sorts of things you do in a newsroom anywhere.” Reflecting on her few assignments as a volunteer, Slattery said McGowan is “a tough, tough editor” with “a lot of muscle” when it comes to improving stories. Ronaldson first met McGowan as a student in a journalism class that produced content for NNS in fall 2011. She had only been edited by college instructors and peers in campus media, so “I thought it would be wise” and a “good networking opportunity” to interact with McGowan – “a very scrupulous editor who was not from Marquette” – outside of class. While also describing McGowan as “a very confident and self-assured woman” with a “very high standard,” Ronaldson said she knew she could not “get by producing a subpar project” as an NNS intern – and that pleasing McGowan would be a “huge vote of confidence.”
STAFF: "THESE ARE TALENTED PEOPLE"
McGowan deflects all this praise while rejecting the premise that the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service started with inexperienced reporters. Indeed, she said, “these are talented people” who, perhaps more importantly, given her Chicago roots, could relate to NNS’ initial communities “in a way that I never will.” Mendez came with the “highest recommendation” from his UWM teacher and mentor, was “totally dedicated to journalism” and “knew everybody in Clarke Square,” McGowan said. Evans had done a fair amount of writing, mostly about the arts and fashion; had written a regular community-focused column in the Journal Sentinel’s op-ed section, and had “deep connections to the community” in Lindsay Heights, the editor said.
McGowan concedes, though, that she shoulders “a lot of responsibility” having no other editors to help protect NNS’ credibility. Yet she flatly said “I’m an editor” more so than a teacher, then added: "I want everything that I publish on the site to be good enough to have my own name on it. And so, therefore, I have to teach people to do it the way I do it, which may or may not be perfect – but at least it’s professional."
Is she giving more than she is getting? “No, I’m giving a ton, but I’m also getting a ton.” In lieu of a huge salary, “the satisfaction of working with young journalists” and influencing how they view covering a city is “important to me.” McGowan added, “What makes me feel the best is working one on one with a reporter to make their story better.”
Nonetheless, the NNS experiment relies heavily on recruiting and coaching reporters who may remain on staff for relatively short periods of time. A total of 32 people have bylines on at least one of the 229 news service reports reviewed for this study. Not surprisingly, Waxman and Mendez have the most, with 32 and 30 stories, respectively. After Evans (eight stories) left for South Korea, McGowan hired Brendan O’Brien, a full-time journalist for Reuters with a M.A. in public policy, as a part-time reporter; soon after she hired recent UWM graduate Shakara Robinson for a similar position. O’Brien and Robinson wrote 19 and 17 of the stories, respectively.
NNS interns account for the next highest totals. All earning experience but no pay, they include Maggie Quick, a student attending Northeastern University in Boston who wrote 15 stories while home for summer break in Wisconsin; UWM students Maria Corpus (13) and Tom Momberg (10) – and six journalism students from Marquette, including Ronaldson (8) and Eric Oliver (9). The sample also includes work by five other interns who signed on after learning about NNS by word of mouth.
As noted earlier, a partnership between the Diederich College, the Public Policy Forum and NNS enabled Mendez to pursue a master’s degree while also still reporting. The next graduate students to join NNS as part of the joint program, Scottie Lee Meyers and Rick Brown, each have 10 stories within the sample. Several other people produced reports as volunteers, including Alex Perry (5) and Slattery’s husband, Mark Doremus (4). Finally, 18 students in my digital journalism class created nine of the stories during spring 2013 – the fourth consecutive term that McGowan teamed with such a class to produce content for NNS. Several of them, including Ronaldson and Oliver, have become interns or created content as volunteers.
