Building Democracy Fellowship
Program Years: 2024-Current
The Building Democracy Fellowship is a nine-month program in which journalists from 14 newsrooms are building skills they need to adopt solutions-focused coverage of government.
In September 2024, 14 newsrooms took up the challenge of rethinking how and why they cover government and democracy, expanding the vital coverage of what’s going wrong with newsworthy stories highlighting efforts that are going right, and what communities can learn from them. Over nine months, participating newsrooms learned the skills needed for solutions-focused government coverage, and put them into practice. Partners for this effort include Big Local News, the FrameWorks Institute and Partnership for Public Service.
Reimagining Coverage of Government and Civic Life
Journalism spends plenty of time covering government failures. But what about when policy succeeds or makes significant progress? Learn how the newsrooms in the Building Democracy Fellowship helped the news feel informative rather than defeating by shifting how they approached their reporting.
The participating newsrooms are:
- Atlanta Civic Circle – Georgia
- Dallas Free Press – Texas
- Honolulu Civil Beat – Hawaii
- LINK nky – Kentucky
- Northwest Public Broadcasting – Washington
- Richland Source/Knox Pages – Ohio
- Texas Standard – Texas
- The Current – Georgia
- The Current – Louisiana
- The Haitian Times – New York and Ohio
- The Journal – Kansas
- The Philadelphia Citizen – Pennsylvania
- The Salt Lake Tribune – Utah
- WUWM – Wisconsin
Stories From the Program
- Police Reform: How To Fix A Watchdog That Will Barely Bark, Let Alone Bite (Honolulu Civil Beat, Jun. 1, 2025)
- Flexible zoning in NKY builds more varied housing (Link NKY, May 14, 2025)
- Affordable housing alternatives in NKY: Tackling cost & supply (Link NKY, May 14, 2025)
- Dallas County’s vote centers increase voter convenience but not turnout (Dallas Free Press, Apr. 25, 2025)
- Vernal Takes a 'Pretty Big Step' to Help Add Businesses and Homes to its Downtown (The Salt Lake Tribune, Apr. 8, 2025)
- Amid a Housing Crisis, This Utah Program is Helping Increase Homeownership Opportunities (The Salt Lake Tribune, Apr. 3, 2025)
- These cities give residents a say in the budgets. Is Atlanta next? (Atlanta Civic Circle, Apr. 2, 2025)
- NKY by the Numbers: Learning loss in BCSD (Link NKY, Mar. 31, 2025)
- Could participatory budgeting give Atlantans a voice in city spending? (Atlanta Civic Circle, Mar. 19, 2025)
- Louisiana Expanded Internet Access Through a Federal Program — Now the Future is Uncertain (The Current, Mar. 18, 2025)
- How One Washington County Is Making Progress on Homelessness (Northwest Public Broadcasting, Mar. 12, 2025)
- How to give students a quick start in chip manufacturing (Knox Pages, Mar. 5, 2025)
- Community Connections: How Indianapolis Partnered Up When the Haitians Came (Haitian Times, Mar. 4, 2025)
- Kansas Sought Homelessness Success Stories. It Stumbled On a Cautionary Tale, Too. (The Journal, Feb. 26, 2025)
- Beyond the Chip: What can Mount Vernon learn from Sherwood’s growth strategy? (Richland Source, Jan. 23, 2025)
- Where Art Thou, Rebuild? (The Philadelphia Citizen, Jan. 22, 2025)
- How The Pandemic Shutdown Opened Up Public Access To The Legislature (Honolulu Civil Beat, Jan. 19, 2025)
- How do the Atlanta Inspector General’s powers compare to other cities? (Atlanta Civic Circle, Dec. 19, 2024)
- Wisconsin Advocates Push Home Energy Efficiency Program Funded With Inflation Reduction Act Dollars (WUWM, Nov. 19, 2024)
