Chalkbeat
Formation | 2014 |
---|---|
Founder | Elizabeth Green |
Founded at | New York City and Colorado[1] |
Merger of | Gotham Schools, EdNews Colorado |
Type | Non-profit organization |
Region | Chicago, Colorado, Detroit, Indiana, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, and Tennessee[2] |
Official language | English |
Jill Barkin, Elizabeth Green, Shani Hilton, Kang-Xing (KX) Jin, Sue Lehmann, Gideon Stein, Karen Wishart, Roberto Yañez[2] | |
Website | chalkbeat |
Chalkbeat is a
Chalkbeat was founded as GothamSchools in 2008 by Elizabeth Green and Philissa Cramer. It merged with EdNews Colorado, founded by Alan Gottlieb, in 2013, and then redesigned and relaunched the website as Chalkbeat one year later.[5][7][8] Chalkbeat has eight bureaus where it reports news regularly: Chicago, Colorado, Detroit, Indiana, Newark, New York City, Philadelphia, and Tennessee.[2]
In New York City, Chalkbeat's competitors include three
In 2016, Chalkbeat clarified its expectations, standards and editorial practices by unveiling a formal "code of ethics" that covers all its bureaus.
History
Chalkbeat began as a merger of GothamNews/GothamSchools in New York City and EdNews Colorado in Denver.[5][9] GothamSchools was founded in 2008 by Elizabeth Green and Philissa Cramer, who started off with a local New York City education blog.[7] From the beginning, they received requests to expand their coverage to other parts of the country. The organization was initially funded by Open Plans, a technology non-profit founded by Mark Gorton.[7] EdNews Colorado started as a magazine and was developed by Alan Gottlieb.[12]
GothamNews and EdNews Colorado merged in January 2013 and were relaunched jointly as a national network, first known as Education News Network and then as Chalkbeat.[7][9][12] Green said the organizations "decided to merge because it's hard to build a sustainable business around journalism". Though the existing brands had loyal followings, "there is power in numbers. It made sense that we should all have one name."[12] The new organization started additional bureaus in Memphis and Indianapolis.[9] These new bureau locations were chosen for having a lot of changes or possibilities in their local education policy as well as local foundation support.[12]
Chalkbeat raised $2.2 million in revenue in 2013, most of which came from philanthropic funding and about one third from ads and job boards listings. As the organization has expanded, it has attracted more funding from foundational donors and individuals.
In the year 2016, Chalkbeat had approximately 250,000 visitors per month. About one quarter of readers work for education non-profits, another quarter are teachers, 11 percent are researchers or
Chalkbeat expanded to Detroit in early 2017,[13] and later that year it announced plans to expand to Chicago and Newark in 2018.[14]
In 2020, The Philadelphia Public School Notebook joined Chalkbeat to create Chalkbeat Philadelphia.[15][16]
In October 2020, Chalkbeat launched Votebeat, a project to report on local issues related to voting, starting with the
Elizabeth Green
Elizabeth Green is the
Code of ethics
Chalkbeat originally adopted a
Impact tracking (MORI)
MORI (Measures of Our Reporting's Influence) is an
MORI includes article-tagging, event-tracking and goal measurement. Journalists categorize the article by type and then identify the target audience before posting or publishing an article. They can also add a narrative description and an impact tag to the article page in the content management system (CMS) if there is a meaningful offline event related to the article. MORI requires editors to set goals before publishing, and metrics are provided in terms of progress to those goals. Goals can be set in categories such as Content Production, Content Consumption, and Engagement.[11][30]
At first, Chalkbeat was unsure whether its journalists would use MORI, but the reception was positive, with reporters and editors enthusiastic about making use of the data it produced.[30]
The MORI Cycle
The three-part "MORI Cycle" enables Chalkbeat to determine which types of stories led to the most impact, so that the team can plan to write more of them.[31]
Plan | Measure | Learn |
---|---|---|
What kind of impact do we aim to have? | What kind of stories have we written? | What worked well and what didn't? |
How can we achieve it? | What impact did they lead to? | How can we achieve more impact in future? |
Reception
Chalkbeat has been praised for offering balanced, nuanced reporting on local education issues; Cornelia Grumman wrote that the organization's reporting "humanizes schools" instead of buying into a simplistic negative narrative.[17][6]
The organization's funding model has led to criticism from those who see a conflict of interest and feel that Chalkbeat is too focused on "a reform-minded policy community". Chalkbeat says that it has editorial independence and that its coverage of reforms is not always positive.[6]
Awards
Awards listed below are referenced from the Chalkbeat official website.[32]
2018
- Green Eyeshade Awards (SPJ Southeasthern US)
2017
- AERA Awards for Excellence in Education Research
- Colorado Press Association
- Education Writers Association Awards
- Best in Indiana Journalism (SPJ Indiana)
- Excellence in Journalism (SPJ Detroit)
- Green Eyeshade Awards (SPJ Southeastern US)
- Top of the Rockies (SPJ Region 9)
2016
- Education Writers Association Awards
- Best in Indiana Journalism (SPJ Indiana)
- Top of the Rockies (SPJ Region 9)
2015
- Education Writers Association Awards
- Best in Indiana Journalism (SPJ Indiana)
2014
- Education Writers Association Awards
- Best in Indiana Journalism (SPJ Indiana)
2013
- Education Writers Association Awards
2011
- Education Writers Association Awards
2010
- Education Writers Association Awards
2009
- Education Writers Association Awards
References
- ^ "What We Talk About When We Talk About Impact" (PDF). Chalkbeat. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
- ^ a b c d "About Chalkbeat". Chalkbeat. April 6, 2020. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
- ^ a b Peck, Gretchen (December 6, 2018). "Using Venture Philanthropy, American Journalism Project Seeks to Sustain Vital News Coverage". Editor & Publisher. Archived from the original on November 14, 2019. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e Yang, Nu (March 10, 2014). "Lesson Plans". Editor & Publisher. Archived from the original on November 14, 2019. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f Steussy, Lauren (July 19, 2016). "How Chalkbeat is trying to build a bigger audience for education news". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e Bhuiyan, Johana (January 7, 2014). "GothamSchools grows, goes national". POLITICO Media. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ O'Donovan, Caroline (January 13, 2014). "Start small, plan big: How two nonprofit education sites came together to build a network". Nieman Lab. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e Walsh, Mark (August 4, 2015). "Chalkbeat Wields Web to Boost Local Ed.-News Coverage". Education Week. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ a b c Russo, Alexander (March 28, 2016). "Chalkbeat To Roll Out New Code Of Ethics". Phi Delta Kappan. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ a b c d "Chalkbeat / MORI". Chalkbeat. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Walsh, Mark (October 23, 2013). "Education News Network Is Now Chalkbeat". Education Week. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
- ^ Green, Elizabeth (January 23, 2017). "Hi, we're Chalkbeat. Here's our commitment to you as we tell the story of Detroit's schools". Chalkbeat Detroit. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
- ^ Walsh, Mark (October 31, 2017). "Education News Outlet Chalkbeat Is Expanding to Chicago, Newark in 2018". Education Week. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
- ^ "The Notebook is now Chalkbeat Philadelphia!". The notebook. July 30, 2020. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
- ^ "The Notebook is now Chalkbeat Philadelphia!". Chalkbeat Philadelphia. July 30, 2020. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
- ^ a b c "Elizabeth Green clones her Chalkbeat model with Votebeat, a three-month pop-up newsroom covering the 2020 elections". Poynter. December 17, 2020. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
- ^ Fischer, Sara. "Chalkbeat expands its coverage to include voting at the local level". Axios. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
- ^ "About". Votebeat. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
- ^ "Bridging gaps in year-round election coverage". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved June 28, 2021.
- ^ "From "pop-up" to "pilot," Votebeat hopes to stick around until 2022". Nieman Lab. Retrieved July 25, 2021.
- ^ Walsh, Mark (October 31, 2017). "Education News Outlet Chalkbeat Is Expanding to Chicago, Newark in 2018". Education Week. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ a b c d "'Building A Better Teacher': Dissecting America's Education Culture". NPR. August 9, 2014. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ Green, Elizabeth (March 2, 2010). "Building a Better Teacher (Published 2010)". The New York Times. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
- ^ "'Building a Better Teacher' author to speak Nov. 7". Indiana State University Newsroom. October 22, 2018. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ISBN 9780393351088.
- ^ a b "Code of Ethics". Chalkbeat. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ "MORI: Chalkbeat's Platform for Tracking Impact". Chalkbeat. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ a b "Announcing the open source release of MORI, from Chalkbeat". Chalkbeat. September 28, 2016. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ a b Keller, Michael; Abelson, Brian (June 4, 2015). "NewsLynx: A Tool for Newsroom Impact Measurement". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^ Green, Elizabeth; Cramer, Philissa; Anand, Anika (April 2016). "What We Talk About When We Talk About Impact: One News Organization's Approach to Practicing Journalism with a Purpose" (PDF). Chalkbeat. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
- ^ "Awards". Chalkbeat. Retrieved November 14, 2019.