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The Lexington Commons
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CONTACT INFO
Seungahn Nah
Dept. of Community and Leadership Development, University of Kentucky
514 Garrigus Building
Lexington, KY, 40546-0215
(859) 257-1509
A University of Kentucky partnership will build a digital neighborhood newspaper. While it will highlight Lexington news, the leaders also hope to build a sense of community across lines of race, ethnicity and income. The university’s Department of Community and Leadership Development is spearheading the project in partnership with the University’s Cooperative Extension Service, which will help recruit citizen reporters, and the Department of Agricultural Communications, which will launch and maintain the project’s website.
Check back for future news and updates.
July 2010
July 2009
March 2009
November 2008
July 2010
In the spring of 2008, the Kentucky Citizen Media Project (KCMP), created in part by the University of Kentucky and funded by New Voices, launched an online citizen journalism initiative to give new, diverse voices a local outlet.
The goal of Lexington Commons was to encourage dialogue among citizens and build community through digital communication. It was envisioned that the Lexington Commons website would be a place for citizen journalists to post stories, pictures, videos and information they gather from the Lexington community. There was also a desire to host blogs and forums where residents could converse and network.
Essentially, the Lexington Commons was to be a nonprofit, digital neighborhood newspaper, created by the people, for the people. Workshops and ongoing training for citizen journalists, along with high quality of contents and discussions among community members, were key to the project concept, as citizen journalists were meant to be the primary content creators.
The site was launched in late January, 2009. Since then the staff has continued working towards fulfilling the mission and vision.
Non-profit Support
Lexington Commons has received growing support from nonprofit organizations throughout the community. Seungahn Nah, director of the project, wrote: “We have been producing a significant amount of citizen stories covering these different organizations and those volunteers who have been working for the nonprofit sector. We feel that these stories have continued to be a great way to enhance both PR for the different organizations as well as promote the Lexington community. Recently, we have been building our neighborhoods section, continuing the goal of encouraging local citizens to participate in forums and blogs.“
Accomplishments
Nah indicated that the staff has been striving to reach the original mission. Overall content creation has increased significantly and production of stories has become more frequent.
The Commons staff is encouraged to report that the nonprofit organizations it works with are tremendously happy with their work and generally appreciate the platform for outreach.
The webmaster is expanding information on the site as a tool to bring neighborhood associations closer together. “Although we have maintained partnerships with university and community organizations, we also have a goal of partnering with the City Council,“ Nah said, “which will bring us closer to our goal of connecting with citizens around the community… and continue to pursue partnerships with other institutions and organizations.“
In July 2010, Lexington Commons counted 269 Facebook fans, a number it says steadily rises, as does the number of visitors to their site. They credit their social media presence with driving traffic growth.
Challenges
“We have reached a point in our project where we would like to expand our influence,“ explained Nah. But like other university-based projects, it faces a lack of employee dedication and support because it relies heavily on students and student interns for content creation. “We are experiencing a sense of immaturity,“ said Nah. “Employees regularly miss deadlines given and find their priorities lying elsewhere.“
His hope is to re-energize staff and keep the project infused with fresh, cutting-edge ideas. They also hope to increase participation at citizen journalism workshops. And, perhaps most importantly, their challenge remains to find secure and sustainable financial funding, from internal and external funders.
Content Creation
The founders of Lexington Commons believe the local nonprofit community is “seriously camouflaged” by the local mainstream media, and so the Commons will remain a place to highlight local nonprofits and celebrate their impact on the community.
Citizen journalists interview local nonprofits and produce multimedia reports - articles, video and photos - which they believe bring more life to the story.
“We continue the hope to expand out from strictly nonprofit news and have the ability to cover neighborhood and community local news as well as we have planned,“ wrote Nah. In addition, they have a community event and social calendar that highlights local nonprofit events.
Lexington Commons has partnered with: University of Kentucky Agriculture Communication Services, University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, University of Kentucky Nonprofit Leadership Initiative, University of Kentucky Public Relations and WUKY Public Radio.
Conclusion
Although Lexington Commons has encountered various challenges, founder Seungahn Nah expects the project to contribute to community by continuing to highlight nonprofit organizations and their volunteers, create more public discussions, and enhance social networking of readers.
July 2009
For The Lexington Commons project, the first months of 2009 were tough ones. A lack of workshop participants and citizen journalists meant the project’s website, which launched in January of 2009, was not able to create much content, according to Seungahn Nah, director of the Kentucky Citizen Media Project.
“This fall will see a renewed effort to recruit citizen journalists through various media and community sources.“
But Nah says Lexington Commons will begin a renewed effort this summer to bring information and news to the site with interns doing stories on local nonprofits.
Nah says the fall of 2009 will see that effort continue with a drive to recruit citizen journalists through various media and community sources, especially established print and online local media outlets like Smiley Pete Publishing, whose publications focus on the Lexington community and neighborhoods.
Once they have received training, Nah hopes these citizen journalists will cover community issues and problems (e.g., local politics, the economy, city development, environment, agriculture, education, health, youth, culture, etc.) with a focus on specific neighborhoods. Nah also hopes that trained citizen reporters will participate in online discussions regarding community issues and problems. Nah says the site will also post profiles for those individuals who have contributed to the Lexington community as members, volunteers, and donors.
Lexington Commons has also reached out to local journalism classes. Starting in fall 2009, approximately 100 Univerity of Kentucky community journalism students, who can create content on a regular basis, will work with the site.
To further boost content, Lexington Commons will exchange community news and information with local partners: the University of Kentucky’s Public Relations Department and the Agricultural Communication Services, along with WUKY public radio. WUKY will not only exchange news and information with the Lexington Commons but will also provide technical support for citizen journalism workshops.
Lexington Commons plans to invite community leaders and bloggers as guest columnists and plans to aggregate links to community blogging sites on the citizen media site.
Finally, Nah says plans for 2009 call on Lexington Commons to encourage ordinary citizens to help build social networks under Community Connects Citizens on the citizen media site.
Taken all together, Nah says Lexington Commons will make every effort to produce content on a regular basis, which he hopes will attract general users and contributors to the citizen media site.
—Tom Regan
March 2009
The Lexington Commons launched its website in late January 2009. Still a work in progress, the site allows users to navigate in various ways, including by area of town. A map on the home page (www.kylexingtoncommons.org) divides Lexington into quadrants, each of which contains a list of live links to the area’s neighborhoods.
The website also groups information by issues - there are 14 - including politics, business, culture, sports, environment, housing, schools and youth. Citizen reporters can tag their stories by neighborhood and/or issue when they upload material to the site.
Other Lexington Commons features are an interactive poll (a recent question: “Will the CentrePoint project improve downtown?“) and a weather box and forecast. The “Lex Wire” provides links to local news published elsewhere and to blogs that discuss all things Lexington.
Local nonprofits and neighborhood associations can log onto the site to post news of events on the community calendar.
Coming soon is a social-networking feature - Community Connects Citizens - that will allow website users to post a profile and meet others in Lexington with similar interests.
The second round of citizen journalism training began in February, with free classes scheduled for the first Saturday of each month. These classes follow a series of workshops held in fall 2008, in which five citizen journalists were trained. The workshops cover basic journalism training, with discussions of journalism ethics, media law, how to recognize news and how to write a story. Participants are taught how to use the Lexington Commons website and how to post stories, blogs and podcasts. Class exercises help participants build skills such as writing ledes, structuring stories and interviewing. Citizen journalists must complete at least one training session to be able to write for the Lexington Commons. To date nine journalists have been trained.
Niki King, project coordinator and workshop instructor, says attracting citizen journalists has been a challenge. Efforts to partner with the Lexington Herald-Leader have not panned out, but the Lexington Commons has joined forces with local nonprofit radio station WUKY. Station staff broadcasts news of the free journalism classes and in the future might help teach them.
The first two Saturday workshops this year drew about five people each, King says. To boost attendance, she has linked up with a local high school journalism teacher, who has recruited 10 to 15 students to take part in the next workshop.
“Our hope would be that they’d tell whatever stories that they think need telling,“ King says.
- Hope Keller, 3/18/09
November 2008
When Seungahn Nah got his doctoral degree at the University of Wisconsin, he studied with Lew Friedland, the creator of the Madison Commons, a hyperlocal citizen site funded by New Voices in 2005. Nah was inspired by this model for community news.
Now a professor at University of Kentucky, Nah created the Kentucky Citizen Media Project (KCMP) and with New Voices funding will launch Lexington Commons, which Nah said will be a “nonprofit, digital neighborhood newspaper, created by the people, for the people.“
According to Nah, “Lexington Commons will give new, diverse voices a local outlet, encourage dialogue among citizens and build community through communication.“ The project has begun recruiting and training citizen journalists who will contribute stories, photos, videos, blogs, and other content.
Over the summer, KCMP hired a graduate student (who has a B.A. in journalism) to design and implement tutorials for citizen journalists. These sessions will be offered quarterly, but Nah hopes to eventually host monthly workshops. These sessions will cover the basics: news value, writing, interviewing, computer-assisted reporting and ethics. The workshop will also provide extensive background on the history of Lexington and major issues facing the city.
Nah says five people signed up for the first training, which was promoted through the university, community media groups and the project’s MySpace and Facebook pages. Participants in the initial trainings will create the content that will be posted on the project’s site when it’s up. Nah expect that to happen by the end of October 2008. Graduates of three-part series will be given a “citizen reporter press pass” which Nah hopes will seal their commitment to contribute to the site in the future.
Also over the summer, KCMP hired a computer science grad student to design the website, which is in the final stages of design. KCMP originally hoped to use BlogSpot, a site created through the University of Kentucky’s Department of Community and Leadership Development, “but it didn’t provide enough space for the kind of Web 2.0 technologies and content the site will feature, like podcasting audio and video files,“ said Nah. Instead, he purchased a new server for $4,500 and reached out to the site developer of Madison Commons, a decision he’s certain will enhance the project’s technical capabilities. The server will be hosted at U.K.‘s College of Agriculture.
“We have brainstormed some ideas to attract audience to the site,“ said Nah. “The Lexington Herald-Leader has expressed interest in a partnership. They can post what our citizen reporters write and vice versa. Once we have a partnership with the major newspaper company in town, we can more easily publicize our project.“
In addition, Lexington Commons is working with the cooperative extensive service whose county station agents work on a wide range of community issues beyond agriculture and natural resources. The site plans to host neighborhood association newsletter content and a special section dedicated to news and information from local nonprofits. These services will widen the circle of interest in the site. “We’re wide open to the public,“ said Nah. “I don’t think there is a magic number in terms of audience visiting our citizen media site or number of citizen reporters or number of posts. What matters, in my opinion, is how we can make a news audience that can deliver news and information and discuss issues in the community.“
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