audience engagement

IowaWatch Hosting Journalism Workshop for the Public

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UPDATED AFTER THE EVENT: Story ideas, public feedback during April 24, 2019, citizens’ journalism workshop:

You’re interested in your community and current events and wonder how news about them is reported and written. Now, you have a chance to not only learn that but to be part of a workshop that takes you through the steps of reporting, writing and editing a news story in your community. The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism, which runs the news site, IowaWatch.org, will host a journalism workshop on April 24, 2019, from 6 to 8 p.m. to inform and engage the public in news reporting. The workshop, “Creative Minds: Journalism Workshop Engaging Citizens In the News,” will be in the Iowa City Public Library, Room D, at 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City. REGISTER HERE
This workshop will be open to the public but we recommend confirmation that you will attend through Eventbrite, an online event management platform.

broadcast excellence

IowaWatch Connection Hits Milestone — 200 Programs

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The IowaWatch Connection radio report, part of a statewide audience engagement program, premiered July 5-6, 2014, as a 13-week experiment that would spread reporting by IowaWatch.org to a statewide radio audience. Two-hundred programs had been produced as of the weekend of April 27-29, 2018. This is a podcast of the 200th program. It revisits two stories that took top honors in the recent Iowa Broadcast News Association awards contest:

First place: Farm and Business reporting, for a report on foreign farmland ownership in the Midwest that featured a Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting story on that topic. First place: General Reporting, for a report on Iowa’s capacity for future rail traffic.

nonprofit news

Thank You: IowaWatch Fund Drive Draws $19,000 Matching Grant

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Thanks to 179 generous donors The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism – Iowa Watch was able to raise $21,214 during its end-of-year News Match fund drive. Of that total, $19,021 was matched by the Fund for Nonprofit News at The Miami Foundation. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Democracy Fund, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation provided funds for the News Match drive for Institute for Nonprofit News members. IowaWatch is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, a consortium of nonprofit news organizations in the United States that, for this drive, provided fund-raising training and support. [Ed note: This paragraph was updated March 13, 2018, to reflect IowaWatch’s receipt of the News Match funds.]

The grant will be used to fund news reporting.

Education

Search For Civil Speech On College Campuses Collides With First Amendment

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An IowaWatch college media journalism project in late winter and early spring found a general aversion to limiting speech and expression on several Iowa campuses but willingness among some to regulate speech – hate speech for instance – that threatens someone. One of several stories in this report.

Making Boundaries

IowaWatch Connection Podcast: With Speech on College Campuses, How Far Is Too Far?

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College traditionally is considered a place where open speech and expression are learning tools, taking students deeper into issues. But does a line exist where speech on campus goes too far? This podcast is part of an IowaWatch college media journalism project in which 14 college student journalists spoke to students, faculty and administrators on six Iowa campuses to discuss whether or not limits exist, or should exist, for speech and expression on campus.