Informed NJ

NJCH believes that an informed New Jersey equals a stronger New Jersey! Understanding how and why people learn about the issues that matter most to them—from school board elections and town voting sites to environmental regulations and racial and economic justice—is vital to promoting civic engagement.

That’s why we are committed to funding, creating, and amplifying humanities-grounded programming that raises media literacy and expands support for local journalism—particularly in communities and places that are seldom covered by traditional media outlets. Helping New Jerseyans create and consume local news in new and groundbreaking ways helps to ensure the future health of our state and its democracy.

Learn more about our current Informed New Jersey initiatives below.

Featured Program
Podcaster at Microphone

Fueling Grassroots Journalism in NJ Community Colleges

NJCH and Journalism + Design at the New School are partnering with a set of community colleges around the state in 2023-24 to create and deliver tuition-free noncredit certificate programs, to offer journalism, storytelling, and media literacy trainings to new populations around the Garden State. Learn More »

South Jersey Community Community reporters, (left-to-right) Carma Yé, Mariah Washington, Tracey L. Wells-Huggins, Roy Jones, Dr. Angeline Dean, and Camerun Hannah

A look back at the inaugural South Jersey Community Reporters initiative

In January 2024, the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and the Center for Cooperative Media (CCM) at Montclair State University embarked on a collaborative project known as the “South Jersey Community Reporters” initiative.

The South Jersey Community Reporters program aimed to develop a cadre of skilled community reporters across South Jersey, enhancing local news coverage and fostering cross-cultural understanding and resilience against hate.

Take a look back at the past year of remarkable work, in this post from the CCM »

Informed NJ Programs

Democracy and the Informed Citizen graphic

Democracy and the Informed Citizen

We’re training and supporting "Community Scribes" from six South Jersey towns in partnership with community-engaged reporting experts.

Learn more »

Stories Invincible

Stories Invincible

NJCH is a proud sponsor of Stories Invincible, a Camden-based restorative narrative initiative supporting reporting by and for communities of color in South Jersey.

Learn more »

Fueling Grassroots Journalism in NJ Community Colleges

NJCH and The New School will deliver tuition-free certificate programs and journalism, storytelling, and media literacy trainings to new populations.

Learn more »

Democracy & the Informed Citizen Graphic

Democracy and the Informed Citizen

This grassroots initiative explores the essential role that the humanities and journalism play in creating an informed citizenry—and in turn, a healthy democracy. The initiative is funded by the Mellon Foundation with support from the State Federation of Humanities Councils.

NJCH is partnering with the Community Foundation of South Jersey and Journalism + Design at The New School to give more New Jerseyans the tools to effectively tell and share stories from and with their communities. Our 2022-23 work is focused upon South Jersey, a region that is all-too-often underrepresented in media coverage about the Garden State. The program includes training, hands-on project support, and network-building for community participants and members of the media.

Journalism + Design at the New School

Trainings

Throughout spring 2022, NJCH organized a free “community scribe” training series in six South Jersey communities from CFSJ’s Transform South Jersey initiative: Downe, Hammonton, Salem, Willingboro, Winslow, and Woodbury.

More than 15 residents from these towns participated in sessions led and designed by community-engaged reporting experts from Journalism + Design at the New School. Participants learned how to:

  • Identify and share important stories in their communities
  • Use design thinking, a process for creative problem solving, to develop a community-centered storytelling project
  • Conduct empathetic interviews and find credible information
  • Produce stories from their communities in a variety of formats
Journalism + Design at the New School
Participants at networking mixer

Network-building

Our South Jersey community scribe cohort is tight-knit—and we want to keep it that way! NJCH continues to support our scribes by regularly sharing opportunities and news from the local media landscape in New Jersey, and by hosting virtual and in-person events to connect them with the journalists and mediamakers who cover their communities.

Our networking events have featured professional and citizen journalists from outlets and projects including Bloomfield Info Project, The Courier Post, Free Press, Front Runner NJ, Newark News & Story Collaborative, The Philadelphia Inquirer, South Jersey Information Equity Project, Stories of Atlantic City, and WHYY, among others.

Participants at networking mixer

2022 Community Scribes

Not pictured: Meghan Wren (Downe Township), Shoanne Seijas (Downe Township), Denise Mazzio (Hammonton), Barry Stevenson (Salem), Joe Thomas (Winslow Township), Lisaraye Horne (Winslow Township), Christy Phillips Renzulli (Winslow Township), Renee Giustino (Woodbury)

The New Jersey Council for the Humanities wishes to thank the Mellon Foundation for their generous support of this initiative and the Community Foundation of South Jersey and Journalism + Design at The New School for their partnership.

Stories Invincible

Stories Invincible

NJCH is proud to be a sponsor of Stories Invincible, a Camden-based restorative narrative initiative that aims to support reporting by and for communities of color in South Jersey. A cohort of 10 remarkable reporting fellows from the area—including students, curators, organizers, public historians, instructors, and artists—will be producing restorative narrative- and solutions journalism-based storytelling projects through the end of 2022.

NJCH’s sponsorship supports the work of two fellowship project aides, Camden-area multimedia creator Myles Cream and WHYY reporter/Black In Jersey creator Tennyson Donyéa, as well as an in-person community convening in Camden at the conclusion of the fellowships. To learn more about Stories Invincible and to meet the fellows, visit: https://storiesinvincible.org/.

Meet Stories Invincible

Stories Invincible Launch Event

Center for Cooperative Media

Stories Invincible is a program of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. The Center was founded in 2012 in response to the downsizing of New Jersey news organizations and the changes in the ownership of regional public media.

The Center coordinates statewide and regional reporting, connecting more than 280 local news and information providers through its flagship project, the NJ News Commons.

Learn more at https://centerforcooperativemedia.org/.

Center for Cooperative Media
Stack of Newspapers

NJCH and Journalism + Design at the New School are partnering with a set of community colleges around the state to create and deliver tuition-free noncredit certificate programs, to offer journalism, storytelling, and media literacy trainings to new populations around the Garden State.

These programs, unique to each school and created with input from local community partners and media organizations, will power a more engaged and informed New Jersey.

The Fueling Community Journalism initiative is currently supporting free, non-credit certificate programs at four NJ community colleges. Click here to learn more about them and the program, or reach out to Project Director Cole Goins, cole.goins@gmail.com, for more information.

Fueling Grassroots Journalism is made possible by a generous grant from the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium. The Consortium, created by the state of NJ in 2018, is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that funds initiatives to benefit the State’s civic life and meet the evolving information needs of New Jersey’s communities. Learn more about their work and other grantees at: https://njcivicinfo.org.

People

Photos by Adeolu Eletu and ConvertKit on Unsplash