WDET, City Bureau to Launch Effort Turning Residents Into ‘Documenters’
The three journalism organizations are coming together to provide Detroiters with the opportunity to report news stories that today’s newsrooms do not have the resources to cover.
Next week, WDET launches a partnership with City Bureau and Citizen Detroit that will help turn residents into reporters.
On August 13th, City Bureau, WDET, and Citizen Detroit will host a public newsroom workshop open to all Detroit residents.
This will be a free a public event that will introduce a program called “Documenters” which will partner with Detroiters in documenting public meetings.
Detroit Today host Stephen Henderson speaks with Candice Fortman, WDET’s Marketing and Engagement Manager, on this new program.
Fortman explains how the program will provide citizens with the opportunity to contribute to local news coverage in areas where most newsrooms lack resources.
Fortman says, “It’s not citizen journalism but it is a chance to teach citizens some of the skills of journalism and then also send them out to public meetings to take notes from those meetings because you know as much as I do that newsrooms do not have the same resources that they once had.”
“Often times, public meetings that are happening are not being covered because they don’t have enough people to send out to those meetings,” explains Fortman.
“So for the next few months, we will be training folks to go to those meetings, and all of the meetings we’ll be sending people to will be education meetings so public school meeting, charter meetings, and even some surrounding Detroit suburban community meetings to make sure that we understand what’s happening.”
Click on the audio player above to hear the full conversation.
