Making Sense of Different Areas

In Wichita, two different neighborhoods, Riverside and Northeast, were explored; there were also occasional discussions about two additional Wichita neighborhoods, College Hill and West Side. The more conversations were held among Eagle reporters and The Harwood Group, the clearer the differences became in what made the civic life of each of those areas tick.

Naming Areas

As the Wichita initiative ensued, a search began for a word or phrase to capture the essence of how each of the areas worked. This step was important because it helped everyone involved get a clearer sense of the four neighborhoods. Arriving at authentic names was not easy and took a number of tries.

The Harwood Groups experience suggests that naming a body of information is critical to understanding it. Usually it is in the naming process that peoples underlying sense of how they understand the information emerges. Naming also creates a useful tension between becoming emersed in the richness and complexity of insights and the need to produce a sharp, coherent sense of what has been learned.

For each neighborhood, there is a review of its name, how the area works, and challenges journalists will face in tapping into these kinds of areas. Next is a chart that contrasts the four neighborhoods.

Please keep in mind that these Wichita neighborhoods are provided for the purpose of example. Each newsroom will explore its own targeted areas in the community, and each will come up with its own names for those areas.

 Moving Ahead

DON’T FALL INTO THE TRAP

Journalists should be cautious in “naming” areas. It should not turn into a process of “stereotyping” an area, which certainly would be out of sync with this work.

Instead, tapping into civic life is about gaining a deeper understanding of the community to strengthen journalism.

Naming community areas should serve to pull insights together and provide greater clarity about what those insights mean.

One last note: The area names are not intended for publication. They are to help journalists in thinking about the community and their reporting.