In Search of the Elusive "Citizen-Subject"
Top Ten List of Lessons Learned from Real People

contributed by Bill Hanley
Executive Vice President of Content, Twin Cities Public Television, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota

In maintaining a citizen-driven journalistic effort, one of the biggest challenges is frequently&well&the citizens. They are, frankly, not like us. They live real lives, have other interests (aside from issues and politics) and dont much care about newspaper and TV deadlines.

In the course of our five years of running the Minnesota Citizens Forum, Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) and the Star Tribune newspaper have run into just about every imaginable issue related to the care and feeding of citizens&and here is our (oh, so imaginative)&

Just folks are busy too
While many, many people jump at the chance to participate in our events, we have sometimes been guilty of underestimating the amount of time and effort that these civic journalism events require from the citizens.
        They lead busy lives and are sometimes really stressed by the demands we place on them. One accommodation we try to provide is good food. This provides both a timesavings in their busy day&and a decent excuse for staying til the end. In some circumstances, you might have to consider providing some basic daycare services during the event, as well.
        Finally, for the folks who are required to travel great distances, we have paid modest travel expenses as another way of reducing the disincentives to participate. For those of us trained in traditional journalism, all of this seems odd and maybe even questionable. But after all, we make practical accommodations every day for the busy lives led by governors and business leaders (meeting them in odd places, shifting field crews, providing satellite time for their convenience). Why not make reasonable accommodations for real people?

The danger of the open call
One easy route to recruiting citizens is to just invite people to call in for tickets. This is easy for you as the organizer&but a big mistake for your event. In our experience this frequently results in the arrival of a wide variety of professional citizens (lobbyists, activists, and protesters of all types). While these are all lovely human beings, they are not the average citizen that you are probably seeking&and they will certainly bend the nature of your event.

Try a blind solicitation
We have had some luck using our air and news pages to solicit participants to discuss an unspecified topic on a certain date. We would then follow-up with phone interviews (to make sure we have a reasonably representative group). Its amazing how the mystery of this sort of invitation from the media will spark interest.

Try a formal poll
The Minnesota Citizens Forum has most frequently turned to the professional pollsters at the Star Tribunes Minnesota Poll for help in citizen selection. This way, you can get something close to a true representative sample. The downside is that it is expensive.

That special effort
Even when you have assured yourselves that the citizens youve asked to participate are reasonable representatives of your community, there is still the issue of fall-off. Busy people (see lesson #1) and people who may be intimidated by this scary process may just not choose to show up. In the end we have often ended up with groups that are more middle-aged, more middle/upper class, and more ethnically homogeneous than we would like. The only answer seems to be to use the phone to make a special effort to make everyone feel comfortable and welcomed. Remember: to a lot of folks, the world of media (thats us) is frightening and distant.

Ad hoc versus standing groups
Again, either approach can work just fine depending on your plans. An ad hoc group, assembled for a single event, has the advantage of being fresh to the process and uncorrupted by previous contacts with the organizers or the group. On the other hand, a standing group (in our case The Minnesota 100) has the advantage of being observable over time. Both the organizers and the audience get the chance to see how their opinions change as the campaigns and issues (or other circumstances) change.

When left without direction, many people will try to behave like experts
Weve all seen it during these events. The shipping clerk from Fairmont who stands up and quotes de Tocqueville. The homemaker who has obviously spent too much time with talk-radio. This is not a good thing since it will only alienate your audience. We have had to work hard to get the folks to feel comfortable actually being regular folks. No suits and dresses. No five-syllable words. And try to avoid the deep analysis of underlying motives which is best left to the professional pundits.

Please dont disturb the citizens
This is a corollary of the previous lesson. In order to preserve that sense of just folks, we have taken to wiring up a couple of electronic living rooms which we now use along with the much-discussed Lucilles Kitchen site. Our two electronic living rooms (one in Duluth and one in Mankato) are wired with our video-conferencing camera and transmission gear via ISDN phone lines. Our citizens are then directed to one of these sites. The difference is amazing when these folks are allowed to remain in their natural settings (surrounded by fireplaces and real lamps and rugs). They act more relaxed and natural&and I am convinced that the audience at home also believes they are more like them.

Challenge them to think more deeply
At the same time that we want the citizens to feel relaxed and at home with our process and setting, we want them to be focused and up-to-speed on the issue they are asked to discuss. Toward that end, in the two hours prior to each live broadcast we engage the citizens in an active briefing and discussion of various aspects of the topic (which we stream and archive on the web). Outside experts from a variety of perspectives both lecture and take (sometimes heated) questions from the folks. We can be almost certain that if these pre-game shows are active and engaging, it will inform and sharpen the final event.

And now, take a bow
In recent months we have been hearing from a number of folks that a printed or broadcast acknowledgement of the citizen-participant names and hometowns might be a nice way to cap the process. We have not done this yet partially out of privacy concerns but may consider doing it (allowing, of course, participants to opt out) since it would acknowledge the central and vital role played by real citizens in the conduct of civic journalism.

Well, thats it. All our wisdom from up here in the Frozen North&