This piece was co-written by Fiona Morgan.
Atlantic City is a place of riches — not in terms of material wealth, but in terms of people, local history, neighborhoods and the overall sense of community.
That message came through loud and clear Tuesday evening during the News Voices: New Jersey event at the Noyes Arts Garage, where more than 80 people came together for a conversation about how residents and journalists can work together to tell Atlantic City’s story.
Out here in Atlantic City for @freepress‘ #NewsVoices. Great model for connecting media + community. pic.twitter.com/smcz9cpYfy
— Cole Goins (@colegoins) December 8, 2015
We heard from Robert Wyatt, who’s lived his entire life in Atlantic City and works at a local social service agency. “I hope you can write some positive things about Atlantic City,” Wyatt said to the dozen journalists present, “because life is hard out here.”
Alejandra Sulpizio, who works with many nonprofits in the area and has a special interest in youth empowerment, told a story about how a convening of local youths helped elevate the voices of Atlantic City teens who often feel ignored. Dawn Belamarich of the group This Is AC pointed to the need to build a grassroots movement to underscore positive happenings in the city and act as a connective tissue to the various initiatives going on.
Press of Atlantic City reporter Donna Weaver spoke about the need to highlight community voices. “There are so many stories, not just casinos,” she said. “I got into this business to tell stories about people and give voice to people who otherwise would not be heard.”
Image from NJ Free Press.
The refrain of these conversations was that despite hardships, the city and its people endure through their bonds with one another, their entrepreneurial spirit and their desire to make Atlantic City a fair place to live and work.
The real Atlantic City
We heard over and over that there is much about the city that few people know — about its history and the many projects that aim to empower those living there. “Atlantic City is a phoenix,” one person said, and many in the audience contemplated aloud what its next incarnation could be.
Economic issues were front and center in people’s minds. Attendees conveyed the pain of living in economically depressed neighborhoods even as the city’s casinos pull in revenue for the state. People noted how many local residents rent, and one young man said that his generation has had little opportunity to own their own homes.
Communities that consistently endure negative media coverage are hurting. They deserve more empathy, more humane coverage. #newsvoices — Molly de Aguiar (@MollydeAguiar) December 8, 2015
But rather than lament these problems, residents said they wanted the media to pay attention to possible solutions. Local civil rights activist Steven Young said that after all the bailouts of banks and corporations, it’s time for a bailout of people and neighborhoods in places like Atlantic City. Others proposed specific ideas concerning taxes and local economic development.
Coming Together
After nearly an hour of small-group conversations, attendees were invited to choose among three separate breakout sessions with area media organizations.
WNET reporters Nina Chaundry and Lauren Feeney used a story booth to interview residents for a documentary project on the ongoing impacts of casino closures on the city and its people. This will appear as part of the station’s Chasing the Dream series.
Cole Goins and Scott Gurian, who work on Dirty Little Secrets, a collaborative investigative reporting project, presented an interactive map of toxic sites in flood zones along the Jersey Shore and invited residents to help them gather more information about such spots in their own backyards.
Image from NJ Free Press.
Bryan Mercer and T.C. Owens of the Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) screened a 15-minute film, Building a Sandcastle, that documents local union members’ struggles against casino owners. They then discussed how MMP uses media to empower people to make social change. Atlantic City resident Belinda Manning said she was drawn to MMP’s work because it provides an opportunity to tell stories about the resilience and creativity she sees in her community.
Meanwhile, reporters and editors from the Press of Atlantic City hosted a listening session in which participants talked about the stories they want to see coverage of.
Thank you @freepress I am so motivated & excited to get back in the #acpress #newsroom tomorrow #newsvoices #DoAC #AtlanticCity
— Donna Weaver (@ACPressWeaver) December 9, 2015
Tuesday’s event was the second Free Press has hosted in New Jersey since the launch of the News Voices project back in May; the first was held last month in New Brunswick. News Voices will continue to engage community members and newsrooms in Atlantic City and other communities across the state through 2016.
Mike Rispoli (@rispolimike) is the Press Freedom Campaign Director at Free Press. Mike directs Free Press’ campaigns to protect press freedom and oversees the organization’s Building Community Around the News project in New Jersey. Before joining Free Press, Mike worked for the human rights organizations Privacy International and Access. In a past life, Mike was a journalist for the Newark Star-Ledger and Gannett Newspapers. Mike received his master’s degree in media studies and media management at the New School in New York City and his bachelor’s degree in journalism at Marist College.
Fiona Morgan (@fionamorgan) is the Journalism Program Director at Free Press. Fiona directs Free Press’ journalism programs. Before joining Free Press, she worked at the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, where she researched the information needs of low-income communities. She authored a report for the New America Foundation’s Media Policy Initiative on the media ecology of North Carolina’s Research Triangle region. She is also a former associate editor at Salon.com and was a reporter for Indy Week, the alternative newsweekly in Durham, N.C., where her interest in media policy developed through her local- and state-level coverage of media consolidation, newspaper layoffs, broadband access and cable-franchise law. She earned her master’s in public policy from Duke and an undergraduate degree in English from the University of Washington.
This post originally appeared on Free Press.
