Grantee Information
Location: Summit
Website: https://www.civicstory.org/
Award Information
Award: Incubation / $12,210
Purpose: To support the addition of a humanities journalist to the newsroom staff for a four-month evaluation period.
How can we create a way to connect humanities and news?
That was the question behind CivicStory’s idea to hire a humanities journalist, a new initiative awarded an NJCH incubation grant. As a nonprofit news site that advances solutions-based news about civics and sustainability, the connection between humanities and news is a natural fit for CivicStory but under-explored in the broader news landscape.
“It’s interesting to consider how journalism and journalists are categorized around sports, business, politics, arts, and science, for example. A speciality in ‘humanities’ has been lacking, even though most journalistic endeavors are centered on human concerns,” said Susan Haig, CivicStory trustee and founder. “This project addresses that gap directly, and will help to construct a collective vision of what humanities reporting looks like.”
Haig said the site aims to hire a journalist who is skilled in investigative reporting and can research stories that encompass history, literature, language, law, and even a key humanities question: “what does it mean to be human?”
In this 2-minute compilation from CivicStory, NJ academic leaders speak about the role of the humanities on college campuses and in daily civic life.
“We see civics as part of humanities, a place to ask philosophical and ethical questions, such as ‘what are civic best practices’ and ‘how do we foster the greater good?’”
“Rather than magazine-style features, these stories will have both depth and a timely edge that make them ‘news,’” she said.
The experiment comes at a crucial time for civics and humanities education. New Jersey’s legislature recently took an important step by unanimously passing “Laura Wooten’s Law” in 2020, requiring civics instruction in every NJ middle school, while the utility of humanities education has increasingly been questioned by detractors. For CivicStory, ensuring that people have access to humanities through news is of crucial importance.
“Figuring out what ‘civics’ is — in the 21st century — merits broad discussion,” Haig said. “We see civics as part of humanities, a place to ask philosophical and ethical questions, such as ‘what are civic best practices’ and ‘how do we foster the greater good?’”
CivicStory hopes to demonstrate that humanities-oriented news stories are indeed “news,” expressing a desire to co-publish humanities stories in mainstream media sources.
“Our hope for ultimate impact is that a ‘humanities space’ grows in daily news, and news editors and producers gain confidence that people care about the well-being of society as a whole” Haig said. “Humanities-based news will tend to affirm people in their vital roles as community builders, change agents, and full participants in our democracy.”
