We kicked off the fall semester of Public Affairs Reporting for New Media at UNC yesterday by brainstorming in 10 minutes at least 50 questions that we were going to need to answer in order to create a new “Everyblock”-style community information database for small newspapers.
It’s a great example of how the design thinking school of innovation intersects well with the world of journalism. Good reporters should always be asking themselves “What don’t I know about this?” And great reporters take that question to a diverse group of collaborators and ask “What don’t we know about this?”
Here’s what my students and I don’t know:
I’m teaching a 400-level community journalism class this semester where we will be writing on school financing. We’re starting the semester off with background briefings on how school financing works in Nebraska so that the student reporters know something about their topic before they start asking questions.
REH