[Printable Version]

For communities to respond to their challenges, they must resolve, for themselves, that their capacity to solve problems requires revitalization. Outside consultants can make recommendations, but without local ownership of a strategy and implementation plan, it is not likely that the community will take action. The Civic Index, a twelve point community self-evaluation tool, helps communities develop their problem solving capacity by providing a method and a process for first identifying and recognizing their strengths and weaknesses, and then structuring collaborative approaches to solving shared problems. Today's column discusses the Civic Index component of Community Information Sharing.

Responsible And Open Community Information Sharing
Creates Positive Atmosphere For Community Problem Solving

Whether it is the media, a civic organization, a university or a school system, communities must have mechanisms for gathering and sharing information, and educating the public about the issues. Community information sharing is the composite of all these mechanisms. Without comprehensive and accessible information sharing, a community's ability to work toward solutions to the challenges they face, make balanced judgements and head off contentious disputes is impaired.

Futurists say our society has left the industrial age and entered the information age. The link between information access and citizen participation is irrefutable. Citizens must understand the vital issues of their communities so that they can make informed decisions.

Riverside, CA, a 1998 winner of the National Civic League's All-America City Award, provides a fine example for communities of making sure that everyone in their community has access to information. Riverside established "The Eastside Cybrary Connection." This program has 10 networked computer stations with Internet access and serves as the library service site for 16,000 residents of the Eastside. Ninety-eight percent of Eastside residents are of low and moderate income and have limited access to computers or the Internet.

However, it must be remembered that, just as it is the responsibility of local media and government to make the information readily available to citizens, citizens have a similar responsibility to search out a true cross-section of opinions and viewpoints. The responsibility is reciprocal.

The local media also plays a major role in the quality of a community's information sharing capacities. While the media should play a watchdog role in a community, they also need to understand that they are not neutral observers of the game; they are players. Every decision made by the city editor of a newspaper reflects a value judgment about the community, and helps create the atmosphere in which community problem solvers must operate.

Unfortunately, the National Civic League often hears from communities across the country that the media has increasingly become a barrier to getting things done. Media has become fixated on the negative; the sensational; the fights across perspectives. The media plays a powerful role in creating the state of the community psyche. This heavy inclination toward the negative helps perpetuate the public's cynicism, suspicion, and anger. The result is that people, living in this media environment, often become dubious of their community's ability to produce positive change.

In 1997, the American Society of Newspaper Editors revised their "core values," hoping to motivate and guide local papers to break free of this cycle of negativity. Among their recommendations were that papers should shift from "simply being accurate and reliable to understanding that a newspaper is intimately connected to its community and shares some responsibility for how the community views itself," and to shift from "simply telling readers the news to trying to help communities better understand the news and how it affects them."

The Civic Index encourages to communities to both evaluate where their local media stands in relation to these recommended core values and then use the answers as the rallying point to urge local media to adopt these core values. Communities should ask themselves:

• Do ALL citizens have the information they need to make good decisions?
• Has the government made relevant information available to the public?
• Have schools, libraries, and civic organizations played their role in informing the public?
• Has the local media contributed to a positive or negative problem-solving environment?

The answers to these questions can provide the basis for a community to begin building responsible and open community information sharing capacities.

For information on how the concepts and techniques presented in this column can be applied in your community or to order the 1999 Revised Civic Index, contact the National Civic League by e-mail at ncl@ncl.org; on the world wide web at www.ncl.org; or by phone at (303) 571-4343.

<< Back to Community Services Articles