Your input is needed as TCCJ rolls out new project

By Austin Lewter, director Texas Center for Community Journalism

Are you a news ambassador?

If you are running a community newspaper, you sure are. And that means you have a role with a new initiative we are rolling out at the TCCJ. 

We look to build a Texas cohort collaboration of News Ambassadors, a collaborative journalism project under the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

Our cohort will be particularly focused on rural and other under-reported communities in Texas. We want to start a conversation about how to better serve our communities with news coverage they can use.

As such, we want the conversation to include:

• Journalism educators, especially those from audio journalism or advanced audio journalism classes (multimedia/podcasting/radio reporting/audio storytelling professors may be interested as well).

• Public Radio and/or community radio station newsrooms.

• Local newsrooms (including print/online/radio), especially those reaching (or interested in reaching) under-reported communities in Texas.

• Civic engagement partners in rural or other local under-reported communities in Texas.

As you can see, there is a place at the table for everyone.

Essentially, it breaks down like this:

News Ambassadors has a three-fold mission that integrates well with our mission at the TCCJ. 

This is a multifaceted collaborative journalism project that enlists college journalism students to help local newsrooms fill gaps in local coverage. News Ambassadors does this by training students on strategies to create reporting that explores solutions and common ground, and by working with community newsrooms to solicit local input.

 Students report stories informed by the community input and by their training in solutions journalism.

Professors help surface the strongest pieces from each cohort to share with newsrooms for possible dissemination. 

Adding to the process, News Ambassadors also connects participating journalism school classroom cohorts with counterparts at other journalism programs in similar locations to collaborate.

We have held some initial Zoom calls, and the interest is there, but we want to talk to more folks.

We are working with News Ambassadors project director Shia Levitt on this. She is a longtime public radio reporter, producer and editor and has taught audio journalism at multiple institutions in New York City, the Bay Area and abroad.

You can learn more at www.newsambassadors.org.

If you are interested in learning more about News Ambassadors, drop me a line at alewter@tarleton.edu or give me a call at 254-968-0528.

You can also reach Levitt at  sojonewsambassadors@gmail.com.

The future of our industry is strong as long as we are willing to think outside the box. 

News Ambassadors could be a key piece of the puzzle.

Let’s talk more soon.