In coming months, we’ll be seeking out Wichita’s ‘Unheard Voices’ | Editorial
We’ve got some good news to share today.
The Wichita Eagle and Kansas.com have received a grant from the American Press Institute to facilitate a journalism project that we’re excited about.
We’re calling it “Unheard Voices.”
Over the next four months, we’ll be recruiting members of our community to write guest columns for our Opinion page about the Wichita and Kansas experience, seeking out people who don’t generally get to tell their story to a mass audience.
These will be people you probably haven’t heard from before: members of marginalized groups within our midst, residents of ethnic enclaves that dot our city, immigrants and refugees.
When necessary, we’ll be using our grant funds to pay for translation services. There are 109 languages spoken in the homes of children in the Wichita school district, and while we won’t be able to hear from them all, we don’t intend to let any language barrier stand in the way of people having their say.
We’ll be asking them to tell us — in their words, not ours — how they came to be here and what keeps them here.
But the goal of our project is more than a good story well told.
We’ll be asking each of our guest writers to consider why they remain separated from the mainstream of Wichita life, and what it would take to get them into it.
Our hope is that we will be able to identify barriers to inclusion — those invisible walls that keep some of us apart, rather than uniting us as friends and neighbors who are all in this together — and maybe figure out a way to work through them or around them as a community.
We think it’s a worthy project and so does API.
We’re one of 17 news organizations that are receiving grants for public engagement projects. Others include The Arizona Republic, The Salt Lake Tribune, The Atlanta Voice, The Haitian Times and Minnesota Public Radio.
It’s a good group and we’re proud to be in it. We’re also proud to be partnering in this effort with API, one of the premier organizations for journalism research, programs and products that help build healthy, successful news businesses.
The thought behind API’s Civic Discourse and Community Voices fund is this:
“Local news organizations and journalists succeed best when they understand the people in their communities and build civic, cultural and social connections that deepen their coverage and develop trusted relationships with residents,” said Michael D. Bolden, CEO and executive director of API. “These news organizations will connect people with each other and with ideas that make their communities – and our democracy – better.”
We think most Wichitans would agree that our community and our democracy can use a bit of a tune-up in these troubled times.
And while you will see the Unheard Voices columns in The Wichita Eagle and on Kansas.com, you may also see them somewhere else.
A part of this process is that we’ll be sharing them with our partners in the Wichita Journalism Collaborative, a group of 11 media organizations in the Wichita area that share resources and stories in service of a more informed public.
Often, we’re competitors, but we can work together when the story is big and important enough.
So we’re looking forward to meeting some new people and letting them share their stories with you.
Maybe together, we can make a difference and build a more understanding and more accepting Wichita.
It’s worth a try.
