Student journalism, statehouse reporting and community news

A couple of interesting things today from the University of Vermont's Center for Community News for faculty involved in running or developing community news projects and especially  those trying to fill the loss of statehouse reporting.

Statehouse reporting report

The decline in statehouse reporting across the US has been well- documented. It's also been documented how damaging this is to public knowledge since it can be argued that what hapoens at state legislatures has far more impact on people than what happens in Congress or at City Hall.

University journalism journalism programs have in some cases stepped in to fill the gap. The University of Vermont's Center for Community News now counts about 20 such programs.

The center has put out a report taking a deep look at such programs. It's worth downloading.

https://www.uvm.edu/sites/default/files/Center-for-Community-News/pdfs/Final_Statehouse_Report_HK_3.31.2023.pdf

Resources for faculty

There are a couple of interesting community journalism conferences this month https://www.uvm.edu/ccn/events

One focuses on university-sponsored news operations covering statehouses Sept. 28-30 at Missouri.

The other (Sept. 8 online) is aimed at improving the faculty resources page put out by the Center for Community News. You can find the page here. 

 https://www.uvm.edu/ccn/faculty-resources