In recent years, engaged journalism — including and asking audiences and communities to be involved in a news organization’s reporting process — has become a bit of a sub-culture of the industry. One hallmark of the journey is the People-Powered Publishing Conference hosted by Illinois Humanities each fall for the past few years, aiming to shift more engagement practices into mainstream journalism practices. It looks a little like this:

Engagement as a …

PROJECT

⬇️

PRACTICE

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PROFIT CENTER

As an industry, @JenniferBrandel says, we're between project and practice right now. #PPPC18

— Lauren Katz (@Laur_Katz) November 16, 2018

Stakeholder “chaos” mapping with @colegoins and @KaylaChristoph #clinictrack #PPPC18 pic.twitter.com/rQX4tazqdU

— Rachel Hamada (@rachelhamada) November 15, 2018

Questions still remain about the metrics judging the effectiveness of engagement work, but the resources and projects highlighted in this year’s conference show that each year, engagement work gets closer to sussing that out: Philadelphia media’s Broke in Philly collaboration focused on economic mobility, Free Press’s organizer guide for journalists, Dr. Michelle Ferrier and Fiona Morgan’s work on media deserts and asset-based community development, the Engaged Journalism Accelerator’s database of 70-plus European engagement projects, and this presentation by Hearken/Groundsource and other engagement enablers (see the “ROIsetta Stone” slide for ways to bring the conversation about engagement into common terms for the public, editorial, and business sides — also read the meaty footnotes through the slides).

Here are other top thoughts shared during the conference:

Takeaway: People want the same characteristics in their news org as they want from the people in their lives. They listen, they're consistent, they show they care, they're authentic, they have my best interests in mind. Trust is trust. #PPPC18

— Lilah Raptopoulos (@lilahrap) November 15, 2018

And another great point from @jeannyfr: journalists are taught to build relationships in a transactional way but need to learn how to build long-term relationships. #PPPC18 https://t.co/uvgp8ZhSgz

— Sonya Green (@aboutsonya) November 15, 2018

Sometimes people don’t need a 5,000-word story, they just need a resource list #PPPC18

— Megan Stringer (@megstringers) November 15, 2018

One way to evaluate a project at the end, @livmqhenry says, is to ask: Can reporters point to how using the community changed their reporting?

And flip the question, too: Did that reporting make a difference for that community?#PPPC18

— Lauren Katz (@Laur_Katz) November 15, 2018

Who are we as journalists accountable to?

What would it look to write your values statement and not your bio?

Should we use the word “serve” with all its paternalistic implications to talk about what we do with/for our audiences?

— Wendi C. Thomas (@wendi_c_thomas) November 16, 2018

When I asked people at the @chicagotribune who was their audience, they didn't picture anyone in particular, just a mass of subscribers because of their scale. @city_bureau however knows exactly who their community and their audience is

– @jnelz #PPPC18

— The Coral Project (@coralproject) November 16, 2018

Interesting to hear @jnelz's takeaways from researching @WUWMradio's engagement work, and how the reporters distinguished between audience and community.

Many of the reporters didn't just want to quote people, he says, they wanted to get to know those people.#PPPC18

— Lauren Katz (@Laur_Katz) November 16, 2018

At a panel at #PPPC18 about putting the community’s skills at the center of reporting.

Ideas shared by @madalinacrc: pic.twitter.com/3oRJptaxSZ

— Kelly Moffitt (@kmariemoffitt) November 16, 2018

Research conducted by @jnelz says smaller, local newsrooms don’t have the same worries about their audience trusting the media that national publications have. I can confirm that is the case for @RichlandSource (in my opinion). Any thoughts from other local news orgs? #PPPC18

— Brittany Schock (@BrittanySchock) November 16, 2018

.@membershippzzle takeaways from researching what it means to belong and how to foster membership that works. #PPPC18 pic.twitter.com/j5EK3cYOB7

— Lauren Katz (@Laur_Katz) November 16, 2018

My top #PPPC18 takeaways & impulses that set me thinking:
-Community-centered journalism is often still confined to local newsrooms. We need to talk more about how it can be applied to national and global media orgs. And more generally, how to make it more scalable. 1/3

— Kim Bode (@kim_bode) November 17, 2018