A new way to cover meetings that matter to local citizenry

Now, our reporting from those meetings might take two forms. First will be the actual report from the government meeting. It is a just-the-facts approach that names the government body, who was present, and hits on the highlights of votes and discussion in bullet-point fashion. In addition, we might also flesh out a story about a particular point of interest. These stories that were once “located” in a government meeting — about local land use or policing powers or new housing development — are only tangentially about the government vote. Part of our motivation is to limit the number of “process-oriented” stories that begin and end with a council vote and instead turn them into stories about you, the people who have to live with these decisions.

If you like what you are seeing, please send your cards and letters to the editor of this newspaper. If you don’t, blame Documenters.org.

We didn’t invent this approach. It was pioneered by nonprofits like Documenters and City Bureau, which seek to empower citizens as watchdogs of their own communities. Those organizations, buoyed by philanthropic money and fundraising efforts, employ enviable training programs that end with people like you providing news reports for their neighbors. Our approach, which came after consultation with Lawrence Caswell, managing editor of community reporting for the Ohio Local News Initiative, begins with Tribune staff covering meetings in this way and is evolving to include handpicked local journalists who learn exactly what we want. Eventually, we may invite you and your neighbors to help us cover even more government meetings.

Our hope is to increase our watchdog reporting from some of the more arcane government entities that are nonetheless doing real work in the community. We simply can’t make it to every San Mateo County Harbor Commission meeting, for instance, much less spend sometimes unproductive hours taking it all in. But perhaps we can create a sustainable model that pays citizens to serve as watchdogs who keep their own neighbors up to date on their communities. That would free up our journalists to produce trend stories like Grace Scullion’s story in last week’s newspaper, explaining why we should all be concerned that local government meetings are getting longer (and longer).

Consider this a soft opening of our new meeting coverage. We’ll continue to tweak the format and hope to cover more meetings this way going forward.

And tell me what you think. You can always reach me at clay@coastsidenewsgroup.com.

— Clay Lambert