#KleinCamp18: Lessons from Broke in Philly

The benefits and challenges of mass city-wide collaboration among local media outlets.

Presenters:

Kerith Gabriel, Philadelphia Weekly

Danya Henniger, Billy Penn

Martin Pratt, WURD

Emma Restrepo, El Zol Radio

Moderator: Ariella Cohen, PlanPhilly at WHYY

Broke In Philly: The Rundown

• 21 Organizations: 19 newsrooms and 2 academic institutions
• Year 2: building on a solid and successful model
• Diversity of partners: general interest newsrooms, community and ethnic media, legacy publications, start-up/digital, two languages, commercial broadcast TV
• Financial collaboration: one shared pot of money, administered collectively
• Solutions oriented reporting
• Engagement is the core of the project
• Coordinated and cross-newsroom reporting

Broke in Philly homepage.

Operations

• A central website, link out
• Separate and join reporting with Broke tagline and logo; some “group projects”
• All work available for republication

Back-end coordination

• Editorial: reporters guide, story ideas doc, contact list, upcoming story doc
• Engagement led by editors: coordinated event planning, focus groups, open lines of communication with audience and close feedback look
• Partner Point People (mainly ME’s, EIC’s)
• Weekly Informative Emails
• Phone Calls
• In person Meetings every 4–6 weeks

The content:

Categories:

Some of the topics that the site covers. Notice the “En Español” section, another way that the initiative is accessible to more people.

Broke in Philly Categories

Language Guide:

One thing that impressed me was the site’s language guide: a definitive guide on the words/terms used (and avoided) in the collaborative reporting.

Reporters working on Broke in Philly stories will ask the people we are reporting on how they describe themselves, or how they would like to be described in the article or broadcast. We will give people the power to define themselves - — and then follow through by using that language in our stories. When referring to those we did not have a chance to ask, here are our guidelines:

GENERALLY ACCEPTED TERMS

• economic reality
• economic hardship
• economic success
• economic mobility
• economically thriving
• trying to break out of poverty
• struggling to break out of poverty
• experiencing poverty
• neighbors/community

TERMS WE TRY TO AVOID

• the poor
• poor people/person
• a low income person
• fallen on hard times
• economically disadvantaged
• citizens/poor citizens
• the needy, or in-need
• dependency (relating to welfare)

We can’t guarantee to get this 100 percent right; change in habits and behaviors take time. We also expect our reporting to unveil new and better ways to tell these stories, and this guide will evolve with those developments.

Engagement

Broke in Philly has made engagement a priority in its reporting:

We’re Listening

• Many of the articles have an 👂on the site. This signifies that the article originated with a question, idea or tip from the audience.
• Examples: This Philly housing project helps residents double their income; The power of coaching: This Philly housing project helps residents double their income

Challenges

• “Stickiness” within larger newsrooms
• Metrics!
• Continually ensuring an equitable environment
• Time
• Engagement led by newsrooms
• Cross-newsrooms work: reporting and republication