2007 Grantees

NeighborMedia

CONTACT INFO

Cambridge Community Television
675 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 661-6900
E-mail

Web site

Cambridge Community Television will embed citizen journalists in each of the five neighborhoods of Cambridge, Mass., to report on local issues and events, feature local viewpoints, and facilitate participation in local issues. Five neighborhood segments will be produced and edited into a monthly 30-minute program to air four times each week, streamed live on CCTV’s web site and archived. Segments will be incorporated in the Cambridge Media Map.

Check back for future news and updates.

• March 2008
• November 2007
 
 

March 2008

Since September 2007, Cambridge Community Television’s NeighborMedia project has been giving its six citizen journalists the tools they need to cover the homefront. A new Blogging 101 class is assisting reporters in strengthening their posts. And reporters have been using CCTV’s easy-to-use BeLive set to host discussions about local concerns. In fact, between November and February, the NeighborMedia team hosted 10 half-hour BeLive programs that aired Wednesday and Sunday evenings on Cambridge Channel 9 and streamed live on CCTV’s Web site.

Each NeighborMedia citizen reporter zooms in on the ZIP Code where they live, posting and hosting about a slew of issues:  Gentrification and development, traffic issues and snow emergencies, energy efficient homes, and even a coyote sighting in a local cemetery. A new project called “Cambridge Eyesores” invites residents to help photograph and document abandoned businesses that cause urban blight.

The recent gunshot death of a Haitian-American teen prompted messages in memory of a promising young man.

“I knew not Lucien, but his face is familiar to me. Surely I have bumped into him on some basketball court around the city, I must have said ‘hey now’ ... with a ‘y’all be safe’ to boot. I must have seen him amongst the gaggle of teens who weekly liven up the CCTV hallways - and matter of fact he made his mark by getting involved at CCTV in 2005.”

While NeighborMedia members have been writing, uploading photos and anchoring on-camera conversations, they haven’t yet leapt into the heart of field production. To address this challenge, CCTV has recruited a seasoned community TV producer to serve as a technical mentor.  They’ve also offered a new four-session class in news production, which will lead students through the stages of planning, shooting and editing stories for broadcast.

In the meantime, a CCTV video editor is creating monthly wrap-up shows using segments produced by the NeighborMedia team. Those shows are airing on Channel 9 and on Blip TV.

And, the citizen journalists are hitting the streets to promote NeighborMedia, attending community meetings throughout the city to make residents aware of the project and get their input about issues of concern.  As NeighborMedia coordinator Julie Adler described in her year-end blog post, one clear goal of this outreach is to inspire more engagement from the community.

November 2007

Over the last few months, Cambridge Community Television (CCTV) staff has been implementing a comprehensive outreach plan, hiring a project coordinator, recruiting 7 citizen journalists, and a team of news correspondents for Neighbor to Neighbor, newly renamed NeighborMedia. CCTV has promoted the program to city departments and community organizations that are searching for ways to promote their issues.

In April of 2007, CCTV began a collaboration with the CTC VISTA, a program that connects Americorps*VISTA members with nonprofits that use information and communications technologies to address the needs of low-income communities.  Through this program, CCTV recruited a Boston University College of Communications graduate Julie Adler to coordinate all aspects of the NeighborMedia project. 

Over the summer, CCTV interviewed candidates for its citizen journalist positions. Each must have a history of working in the neighborhoods in the Zip Code to which they are assigned. The citizen journalist’s job is to identify important local issues not adequately explored in the media, and lead the planning and production of news segments to cover those concerns. 

Seven journalists were invited to join the NeighborMedia team. These individuals attended a training program where they learned about the project and some basics of citizen journalism with Lisa Williams, founder of Placeblogger and H2otown.  After orientation, participants jumped right in, creating blogs on CCTV’s Web site.  They’ve written about topics such as greening of Cambridge schools, the delay in opening a much-anticipated public park, and the Arts Central festival in Central Square.

The citizen reporters have been using CCTV’s BeLive single-camera studio to hone their interviewing skills and get comfortable on camera.  Since mid-September, the NeighborMedia team has produced six 27-minute BeLive programs which aired on Cambridge Channel 9 and streamed on the CCTV Web Site.

“While NeighborMedia journalists have been producing a wealth of content, many are struggle with the technology,” says CCTV Director Susan Fleischmann.  So, CCTV staff members are recruiting technical mentors to assign them in field production. And they are seeking an intern to edit video segments into a monthly NeighborMedia program.

The project is also monitoring closely NeighborMedia’s effectiveness in facilitating civic engagement, while working on building CCTV’s Web capacity to foster more participation and interactivity on local issues. Recently CCTV launched a Groups feature on its Web site in an effort to foster a dialogue about events at CCTV and in the larger community.

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