[Crossposted at thataway.org] Recently a couple of news items have caught my attention as exemplary of what NCDD’s Dialogue Bureau aspired to achieve. Readers might recall that during 2004 and 2005 NCDD sponsored research into the feasibility of a service that would: 1) assist news outlets make better use of dialogue and deliberation techniques to augment reporting; 2) help dialogue and deliberation practitioners make better use of partnerships with news outlets to expand reach, recruitment, and coverage; and 3) help track and promote dialogue and deliberation in the news.This week, two news items caught my attention for their salience to how dialogue and deliberation can enrich the coverage of local and national issues. The first is the City of Portland’s Restorative Listening Project sponsored by the city’s Office of Neighborhood Involvement headed by NCDDer Judith Mowry. The second is the recent establishment of a National Commission on Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.

(more…)

I’m excited to be part of an advisory group to new effort to look at the way the evolving landscape of media channels and content impacts the contemporary democratic experience in the U.S. Its something I’ve thought alot about since carrying out a research project for the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation about 5 years ago – we were looking at the ways democratic deliberation can better inform news coverage of urgent local, regional, national and international issues (think about it perhaps as if the media relied on how informed people talk about issues in representative groups at least as much as they do on opinion polls). In particular the way these stories are framed and the way public values are ascribed to trade-offs and policy alternatives.

Anyway, AP recently distributed an article on the public face of the effort:

Local News Loss Focus of New Commission

By JENNIFER C. KERRWASHINGTON (AP) — As people turn increasingly to the Internet for their news, there is concern whether they are learning enough about what goes on in their communities.

With “the thinning down of newspapers and local television in America, there is measurably less local, civic information available,” said Alberto Ibarguen, president and chief executive of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. “So what are the consequences of that?”

The foundation and the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, hope to find out.

They are setting up a commission, funded by the foundation, to analyze whether people are getting the local news they need to make decisions in their communities. The panel will make recommendations that might include actions by the Federal Communications Commission or tax policies aimed at helping communities better meet their information needs, said Ibarguen, former publisher of The Miami Herald.

The commission will be led by Theodore Olson, former solicitor general who represented George W. Bush before the Supreme Court in the contested 2000 presidential election, and Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google. The foundation said Olson was selected for his expertise in First Amendment issues and Mayer for her experience with new media and technologies.

About a dozen other members, including those with a journalism background, will be chosen.

(more…)