community

Making the Most of Your Local Advantage
A one-day seminar for Boston's neighborhood and community reporters
Date: Saturday, October 20, 2007
Time: 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Cost: $25 (includes lunch)
Location: The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University
One Francis Ave, Cambridge, MA
This conference is for published, working neighborhood and community reporters, editors, publishers.

Workshops include:

* Ordinary people, extraordinary profile writing: Lane DeGregory, St. Petersburg
Times
* Using "Impact" and "New Readers" studies to grow readership: Dean Miller, Idaho

Brad Seawell of the MIT Communications Forum writes to note that a free public forum on Thurs., Sept. 20 launches a new center studying the relationship between emerging media and civic engagement. A key area of inquiry is how virtual worlds such as SecondLife affect civic engagement in the real world. The "MIT Center for Future Civic Media," is funded with a $5-million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Journalists Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson have created a six-part series for The New England Futures Project to help identify the challenges facing New England as a region. In this first article they examine the states' separateness and how a strong history of individualism is now hindering the region's ability to draw upon its combined strengths. As a result, New England is facing population loss, talent shortage, flight of youth, deep income divisions, and a high cost of living. In this series, the authors will identify challenges that can only be solved when New England faces the world as a single state.

As New England faces a migration of its talent and youth work force, agencies that promote and advise on sustainable communities become important resources. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, based out of Minnesota and Washington D.C., has for over 30 years promoted the notion of sustainable, urban communities.

Newspapers are looking for new ways to connect with their community. In Madison, Wis., the Wisconsin State Journal, one of the largest papers in the Lee Enterprises chain, named in 2005 an advisory board of leaders from the non-profit sector. "We thought the first group would be primarily interested in learning about how the newspaper and www.madison.com work," said Ellen Foley, the newspaper's editor. "Instead, the group was keenly intent on educating the State Journal on how the nonprofit community operates." LINK TO FOLEY COLUMN.