Most of this town isn't in a flood zone. So why does it flood so much?

Hi readers, 

Big news: we got our first monthly recurring donor 💸 Special shoutout to Matt from Detroit! If you care about strengthening communities and better supporting democracy, help us by following us on Instagram, donating or forwarding this newsletter to a friend.

We’re excited to catch you up on the News Ambassadors program and highlight the amazing work done by our partners. 

📻One big story 📻 

A neighborhood nestled in the small town of Little Falls, N.J. faces significant flood risks – partly because it shouldn’t exist there in the first place. 

FEMA maps show that houses in the Singac neighborhood are built “in the river itself,” said Josh Gouster, professor and flood risk mitigator. Even with just three to four inches of rain, residents anticipate potential flood damage because of the town’s struggle with infrastructure management. Proposed solutions such as dredging or creating levies would cost taxpayers a big chunk of change. Enhanced drainage systems, and improved stormwater drainage are potential avenues to explore. 

News Ambassadors student reporter Nino DeNino’s story explains the town’s flooding problem, its response, and potential ways forward. 

Why we like it: The story is a good example of solutions journalism because DiNino explores both short-term and long-term solutions as well as the limitations of each approach. Listen to the full story here which aired on WMSC at Montclair State University. 

Broader context: 

Support from the bi-partisan Infrastructure Bill from 2021 will help the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) update its methods for gathering data to include climate as a factor in forecasting precipitation frequency estimates used by floodplain managers, city planners, civil engineers, developers and communities across the nation. The statistics would be used to improve infrastructure planning and could help communities like Little Falls better understand when extreme events may lead to flooding. This is welcomed news, considering FEMA’s Flood Insurance Rate Maps don’t consider climate change as a factor and may downplay flood risks for some homeowners, according to a report from National Geographic. 

Tip: Local stories that have to do with climate change and infrastructure should also check when national government data is the most up to date. FEMA flood insurance maps and NOAA models for flood predictions can be inaccurate without taking into account the effects of climate change. Both are used to make important decisions about how cities are built and maintained.

✨Alumni story spotlight✨

This month, we’re spotlighting a recent New York Times story by News Ambassadors alumna Trisha Mukherjee, chosen for columnist Nicholas Kristof’s “win-a-trip” contest to highlight issues that deserve more attention. Mukherjee was part of our very first News Ambassadors cohort between Columbia University and the University of Missouri. 

Reporting from Pamplemousses, Mauritius, Mukherjee dives into the stigma that girls face when on their period while in school. For millions of girls across Africa and Asia today, menstruation means staying home from school. Often, a lack of period products means these girls miss up to a week of class every month. For many families, pads are too expensive, too difficult to access or too taboo to prioritize over other needs. Even in the United States. Read Mukherjee’s piece for the New York Times here. 

Why we like it: Mukherjee’s piece has good balance. She acknowledges that there could be more research on the most effective interventions but also provides a space for interviews. 

Mukherjee participated in News Ambassadors with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in our very first pilot in Fall 2022, launched as part of InterAct’s Digital Citizen. She worked alongside counterparts at the Missouri School ofJournalism on a community-responsive story about housing difficulties in both urban Brooklyn, and rural Moberly, Missouri. The pieces from these two matched cohorts in dissimilar areas aired back-to-back on KBIA radio. Take a listen to the very first News Ambassadors piece ever aired.  

Your donation helps build bridges between journalists and communities they serve. Take it from KBIA’s former News Director Ryan Famuliner who worked on News Ambassadors’ Fall 2022 community meeting to engage audiences in rural Moberly, Missouri.

🌱Knowing and Growing🌱

 Q & A with Kristine Villanueva by Shia Levitt

News Ambassadors enlists college journalism students to help local newsrooms fill gaps in coverage –  and move the needle towards best practices that uplift solutions, common ground and strengthen communities. As part of this work, we help partners apply community-responsive reporting to their work to help address local information gaps and concerns.  While traditional journalism often involves reporting stories journalists come up with (and hope audiences and communities find relevant), the best practices of community-responsive journalism involve us first asking communities or audiences what information gaps exist and what stories are important to them, so that our reporting can reflect those priorities). We spoke with News Ambassadors’ engagement strategist Kristine Villanueva, who brings a wealth of engagement experience from organizations such as ProPublica, Resolve Philly and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. 

What is the main idea behind engagement journalism, or “community- responsive reporting”? 

First and foremost, engaged journalism is a service to your audience. Engaged journalism includes communities in all aspects of the reporting process from active listening to shaping stories, reporting, and publication. Getting community feedback could look like launching surveys, community listening sessions, and collaborations with newsrooms, trusted community members, and different kinds of civic organizations. The kind of engagement work that excites me the most is around information access. While the reporting could be helpful and responsive to community needs, it’s equally important for communities to have access to information that is critical to how they navigate civic life. 

At Resolve Philly, my focus was on building and managing a grassroots reporting cohort, print newsletter and SMS text newsletter. Stories were also copublished by local newsroom partners. The idea was to engage the city’s most disenfranchised communities, which primarily consist of people without steady access to reliable internet. 

Before News Ambassadors, you worked at Spaceship Media as a moderator and reporter for “The Many” project, a closed Facebook group for women across the political spectrum that enabled them to speak with one another about the country’s most contentious issues at the time. What lessons from that work are most applicable to your work with News Ambassadors classrooms and newsrooms?

For News Ambassadors and other organizations that do similar work, it’s important to balance nuance and truth. So many conversations have become inherently polarized and mass media has a role in perpetuating this toxic dynamic between newsrooms and communities they serve. These skills should not be exclusive to journalists but are also an important asset in community building across differences, which strengthens trust between communities and newsrooms at a time when trust in media remains at a historic low. We should model the same curiosity it takes to better understand communities in depth as we better meet people’s information needs. I use similar techniques when teaching my students, opening up dialogue and encouraging curiosity, especially when a student shares an experience that may be vastly different from their own.

You’ve taught engagement journalism at CUNY’s J-School, one of the first engagement journalism programs in the country and you’ve also led engagement journalism projects for major newsrooms. How are the challenges doing engagement work different for these two groups (newsrooms vs journalism school students) and what are the benefits of collaboration between the two?

Journalists and schools broadly share a similar mission of educating the public. Journalism education is not just important for aspiring reporters. I think the best educators use news and current events to help students become more informed citizens, whether they want to be journalists or not. 

Student reporters share similar problems to professional newsrooms much more closely than people may recognize. Schools may lack resources, funding, or access to certain communities that distrust large institutions. This past summer, we’ve also seen students in the thick of police violence covering student encampments.

The plus side is that student journalists can learn how to navigate these challenges at schools to better prepare them for the ever-changing industry. Schools also have resources outside of journalism and media departments that could be helpful in producing more robust storytelling. Collaborating with schools opens avenues for strengthening pedagogy and coverage that should not be left on the table. 

👓 What we’re reading👓 

For those who are fans of Solutions Journalism, check out Connection Cure, a book packed full of awesome Solutions Journalism reporting on the benefits of social prescribing for health, mental health and well-being - and written by Solutions Journalism Network’s Jules Hotz, a longtime supporter of News Ambassadors.

Bonus: News Ambassadors Director Shia Levitt was a guest speaker for a workshop hosted by our friends at Citizen University alongside speakers from PACE and Cinereach. The event yielded a guide of resources for journalists and storytellers who want to help strengthen our shared civic culture. Check it out. That’s all we have for you this month, folks. We hope you’ll have a wonderful holiday season and we’ll see you in February!