Over the last few months, more than 300 mostly Akron-area and Northeast Ohio residents helped identify positive actions they thought would most likely bring about improvement in the community.
Signal Akron, the Akron Beacon Journal and Ideastream Public Media, along with the non-profit Fighting to Understand, led the brainstorming effort, called We Can Disagree!
What people said was so informative that newsrooms and community engagement specialists across the country took note. We’ve been invited to speak at the American Bar Association annual convention, National Issues Forums Network, The Intermovement Impact Project and helped other newsrooms consider similar exercises.
More importantly, though, for Northeast Ohio, those ideas that were generated by people trying to thrive in area communities were used by local journalists to hold candidates accountable, design election coverage, candidate endorsements and polling questions.
People were heard, and their ideas were respected by being incorporated into daily work.
Your future is our future
The elections will be over in four weeks. Local newsrooms don’t want this hard work to go to waste. Nor do funders – the American Press Institute, the Akron Community Foundation and the Akron Bar Foundation have invested in this effort.
So now we’re into the next phase: What do you want local newsrooms to do next?
This question will be answered in several steps.
- First, you are asked to participate in an online brainstorming exercise on the Polis app at https://pol.is/84dxfsumfr. Post your ideas on what you want local media to do for you. You can watch as others vote on your ideas and ideas of others. We’ll see ideas rise to the top.
- In an in-person community dinner and conversation, we’ll go deeper on expectations of local media. The meeting begins promptly at 6 p.m. Oct. 22 at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, 129 S. Union St., Akron. You must register at this link — donations will help continue the project.
- Journalists and a few participants will meet again later to digest what was heard in the Oct. 22 conversation.
- And, future local news coverage will incorporate what was learned from the community.
A little reflection
These are the ideas for improving the community that people of all persuasions liked the most:
- “We need leaders who we can trust to address complicated issues for all of us rather than divide us.”
- “We are concerned about jobs for the future.”
- “We need mental health care for police for their tension, PTSD, ability to engage constructively.”
- “We need to work for peace in our homes … and the world.”
If you want to participate in that brainstorming, the question is, “Let’s block out for a moment the issues that candidates want us to debate. Instead, thinking about you and your communities, what is needed to help people have a better life?”
The Polis app for voting on proposals and adding your own is still in operation here.
Because jobs and policing were two top priorities, we also opened brainstorming opportunities on those:
