The American Press Institute news summit last month in Pittsburgh was unlike any journalism conference I’ve attended. A two-day, invitation-only event, it brought together editors and publishers from around the country, as well as leaders from nonprofits, foundations and universities, to discu ss the impact of local journalism — how we define, measure and explain it. Because the number of journalists in the U.S. has dropped by more than 81 percent since 2002, there have been a lot of opportunities to study what happens to a community when its news outlets disappear. According to Rebuild Local News, a nonprofit that aggregates this research and advocates for solutions, the closure of local newspapers causes a decline in civic engagement and an increase in government waste and corruption. It leads to more political polarization, too, because residents turn to more partisan national news sources. But how can we tell whether local media is doing its job well? We know the presence of a local newspaper increases community connection, but how do we quantify and track that? How do we show that our work is having a positive impact? If we want local media to survive, we need to figure out how to make a case for it — fast. API didn’t bring in celebrity speakers to answer those questions for us. Instead, its staff brought together attendees doing innovative work and structured sessions so that we’d talk with and learn from each other. They asked a couple dozen attendees to facilitate small-group conversations about promising projects. That’s how I wound up leading two sessions about the Good Citizen Challenge, the youth civics project that Seven Days and Kids VT organize with support from the Vermont Community Foundation and the Canaday Family Charitable Trust. The Challenge encourages K-8 students to learn about and get involved in their communities, while introducing them to reputable sources of local news. We give kids 25 fun, educational activities to attempt. Easy ones, such as borrowing something from a library and reading a community newspaper, are worth one star. The most difficult activities — talking with a local journalist, taking a three-day screen break, raising money for a local charity — are worth three stars. Every star earned is an entry in prize drawings. We raffle off $50 gift cards to Phoenix Books every week. At the end of the Challenge, we give away a free trip for two to Washington, D.C. We measure the Good Citizen Challenge’s impact by the number of kids who have participated: around 1,000 since 2018. We measure the project’s impact by the number of kids who have participated, which is roughly 1,000 since we started it in 2018. Also by the number of activities completed — 838 this summer and growing daily — and what the kids say about their experiences. In June, 8-year-old Rowan Frederick Young of Derby Line went to the Haskell Free Library Opera House, which sits on the border between Vermont and Québec. “I thought it was cool that the library has books in French and English,” he said in his entry. “I asked my mom to download a language app on my iPad so I can start learning French.” Another 8-year-old, Theo Moore of Burlington, organized a mini farmers market with his friends to sell homemade baked goods and produce from his garden. He wanted to help pay for a mural project at his school, J.J. Flynn Elementary. “We were able to donate $200!!” he told us. Scarlet Martin, 10, of Hinesburg went on a group tour of WCAX-TV Channel 3, one of our Challenge partners. “I saw a meteorologist preparing the weather report and then going live on TV. Then I went to the control room.” She learned that “it is important to plan, prepare and check each story.” I can’t divulge anything about the people in my small groups at the API summit, but I can say that, in the first one, the leaders of two entities from the same city started talking about working together on a similar youth civics program. I asked them to let me know if it gets off the ground — that would be more evidence of Seven Days’ impact. You can find more information about this summer’s Good Citizen Challenge, and submit entries, at goodcitizenvt.com. The post From the Deputy Publisher: Good Points appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less