July 6, 2005

Manuel Chavez, writing a report for the Center for Communications and Community (C3) at UCLA, says when it comes to citizen participation in the news media "the model for change is in Mexico – not the United States."

Chavez writes that citizen participation has roots going back to 1991 at Grupo Reforma, a family-owned organization of four major newspapers in Mexico ’s largest cities.

He writes in part:

In 1991, in Monterrey, the newspaper El Norte created the first editorial council to connect the citizens it served with the newspaper. The two primary objectives of the council was to help the newspaper determine what the readers wanted to see published and to obtain readers feedback. The councils provided input about their interests but they also reviewed the newspapers for errors, omissions, biases, and ethical issues. Explaining the philosophy, El Norte publisher Alejandro Junco in 2002 called the editorial councils “a mechanism of the community for the community.”

Every year, staffers at each section at all Grupo Reforma newspapers – hard news sections, feature sections and zoned suburban editions – recruit a voluntary editorial council of citizens. Members of the councils are not compensated. Each council is composed of twelve individuals who are readers, opinion leaders, and people who are experts on the general focus of each newspaper section.

The “readers” are community members who read Reforma’s newspapers whether they are subscribers or non-subscribers. The “opinion leaders” are community stakeholders who have a relevant and leading position in their professions, institutions, and organizations. Among them are leaders from the private, public, civic, and non-profit sectors, as well as academic institutions and religious organizations.

“Experts,” the third group, are those who have a high degree of skill or knowledge relating to the theme or focus of each newspaper section – from city news, to business news, to the national section, to the sports section, for example. These experts are invited to councils that focus on the various newspaper sections.

In 2004, Grupo Reforma established a new layer of participatory journalism – thematic councils. The thematic councils are comprised of experts on important topics – education, trade, energy, agriculture, tourism, environment, and security and rule of law among them. For these councils, the main objective remains the same –advise the newspaper. This is mostly a pool of academics, policy makers, and practitioners who contribute with their expertise to the preparation of investigative reports for the newspapers. Primarily two newspapers – Reforma in Mexico City and El Norte in Monterrey – recruit and consult thematic councils. Reforma has four thematic councils and El Norte has three.

Since 1991, the editorial councils have evolved from a small suburban group of 10 readers providing feedback to El Norte to a national network of 63 councils with more than 900 participants for the entire newspaper group in 2005. Candidates for council positions are selected from a list of nominations made by editors, reporters, out-going council members, high-profile members of society and proactive readers – those who have written Letters to the Editor or called an editor’s desk.

Here is the public journalism connection– or public journalism improvement:

Upon first examination, the model seems comparable to the American movement called “public journalism,” well documented by Rosen and Corrigan. Also known as “civic journalism,” advocates of public journalism encourage news organizations to increase the level of contact with communities. The idea of linking readers, community and newspapers was a response to the widely held conclusion that the U.S. mainstream media is disconnected from the communities it serves.

The movement’s advocates encourage news organizations to identify specific community, civic, or socio-economic issues that a newspaper would cover completely from beginning to end. Common coverage issues included race relations, job creation, education improvement, crime prevention, and economic development.

In public journalism the newspaper usually selects the agenda, determining special reporting projects that are community development and social issues. However, in the case of Reforma, members of the editorial councils help determine the special community issues to be covered. Also, there is no consistent frequency in when and how civic journalism projects are launched and there are no uniform mechanisms for community input. In the Reforma councils, on the other hand, the newspaper and the community examine issues and priorities on a weekly basis. Simply put, the Reforma model relies much more on community input.