Journalists’ mission is to provide information to the public, but our priorities are often out of balance. We often report on important issues like poverty or inequity in abstract ways, for audiences that are not directly impacted by our coverage. That’s why a group of journalists from around the country earlier this year began collaborating on creating a new, structural approach to evaluate how our work meets people’s information needs; one that could be used by newsrooms, funders, and community members.
Using Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs" as a framework, this working group asked: What if journalists thought about a community’s information needs in a similar framework and prioritized our work accordingly?
In this session, three of the group’s co-founders from City Bureau, Free Pressm and Spaceship Media will discuss how the idea came about and evolved, how journalists can determine whether their work is aligned with their community’s needs, and invite participants to challenge and refine this emerging framework. Those in attendance will walk away with a framework for understanding community information needs that can strengthen their own work and an opportunity to join this collaborative effort to reimagine how journalists can serve the public.
