I was one of a handful of Kansas and Missouri journalism graduates selected to work on a Kansas City Star microsite, dedicated to civic engagement and voter education on the Web. While covering breaking political news and one of Missouri’s high-profile political races, I also helped train staffers on social media use and crowd-sourced reporting.

Here’s the description of the project from the Star’s website:

At its heart, The Midwest Democracy Project is a grand experiment to find new and better ways for citizens to get informed and engage in civic debate. Our project aims to be the go-to source for trustworthy information as we vote on and discuss significant civic issues in our communities.

That information will come from a variety of sources: from local media in the Midwest, from candidates and public officials – and most importantly, from citizens themselves. The Midwest Democracy Project is a collaboration of The Kansas City Star, the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and the University of Missouri School of Journalism and its Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. In addition, Kansas State University’s Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy has partnered with the project to lead a series of community conversations on the economy and public education.

As part of the fellowship, I reported on the Missouri Senate race, and helped the Star staff experiment with new strategies to engage the news audience in political content.  We piloted the use of CoverItLive at the Star during three public forums, then launched an all-day effort on Election Day. We also discussed how political journalism should function in a democratic society with partners from the Dayton, Ohio based Kettering Foundation.

About Juana

Political journalist. Social media addict. DC transplant by way of Missouri.