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The Herald News in Fall River, Mass., has launched an ambitious, multi-year project aimed at tracking turn around efforts at an elementary school facing the city’s highest suspension and lowest attendance rates, among other tough statistics.
In the editorial accompanying the weekend kickoff in print and online, the Herald News editorial board writes, “With the assistance of Fall River Superintendent of Schools Meg Mayo-Brown, The Herald News has gained unprecedented access to Viveiros, and acclaimed Herald News Staff Reporter Will Richmond will be our embedded reporter in the school community every week, bringing readers insights that only an insider can reveal.”
Online product manager Will McGuinness points to time saving elements from News Cube as the key to allowing Richmond the time to devote to such a large project.
“Our successful implementation of ASFs and crowdsourced approach to CPJ content freed up the time Will Richmond needed to put in.,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Readers are invited to fill out HTML-based forms hosted on a section of our website called ‘heraldnews.com/community.’ It's a big time-saver.”
He goes on to outline the online layers he plans to add to the story.
”Our focus is on quality storytelling, but we’ll sprinkle in innovative methods and slick features our audience has come to expect from online journalism. For example, we’ve integrated census data, a bus route map and google mapping software to provide a nice resource for readers that breaks down the communities this elementary school serves with data on citizens’ income, education and living conditions.”
They also plan to use social media tools to get story ideas and encourage community conversation.
“We’re bringing our social audience easy-to-use html forms to share their stories, memories, concerns and old photos. Beyond pooling these stories to share on our website, we hope to use these to generate story ideas and sources while getting helpful feedback,” McGuinness writes.
Take a hard look at your workflow surrounding community partner journalism, and make sure it's meeting the News Cube guidelines and freeing up reporting resources, not tapping them.
The Herald News in Fall River, Mass., has launched an ambitious, multi-year project aimed at tracking turn around efforts at an elementary school facing the city’s highest suspension and lowest attendance rates, among other tough statistics.
In the editorial accompanying the weekend kickoff in print and online, the Herald News editorial board writes, “With the assistance of Fall River Superintendent of Schools Meg Mayo-Brown, The Herald News has gained unprecedented access to Viveiros, and acclaimed Herald News Staff Reporter Will Richmond will be our embedded reporter in the school community every week, bringing readers insights that only an insider can reveal.”
Online product manager Will McGuinness points to time saving elements from News Cube as the key to allowing Richmond the time to devote to such a large project.
“Our successful implementation of ASFs and crowdsourced approach to CPJ content freed up the time Will Richmond needed to put in.,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Readers are invited to fill out HTML-based forms hosted on a section of our website called ‘heraldnews.com/community.’ It's a big time-saver.”
He goes on to outline the online layers he plans to add to the story.
”Our focus is on quality storytelling, but we’ll sprinkle in innovative methods and slick features our audience has come to expect from online journalism. For example, we’ve integrated census data, a bus route map and google mapping software to provide a nice resource for readers that breaks down the communities this elementary school serves with data on citizens’ income, education and living conditions.”
They also plan to use social media tools to get story ideas and encourage community conversation.
“We’re bringing our social audience easy-to-use html forms to share their stories, memories, concerns and old photos. Beyond pooling these stories to share on our website, we hope to use these to generate story ideas and sources while getting helpful feedback,” McGuinness writes.
Take a hard look at your workflow surrounding community partner journalism, and make sure it's meeting the News Cube guidelines and freeing up reporting resources, not tapping them.
