How well did the local news media report on the highly organized campaign to improve education at the Grand Rapids Public Schools Board meeting?

As we reported in our post from this morning, the Community Report Card Campaign had a massive turnout last night for the Grand Rapids Public Schools Board Meeting.

In fact, according to one of the GRPS Board members, the meeting didn’t end until 11:30pm. That would have made it a 5 and a half hour School Board meeting. In addition, according to someone posting on the Grand Rapids Education Association social media page, the school board – without prior notification – had reduced public comment time from 3 minutes to 2 minutes. 

Nevertheless, the turnout and the collective response from the community was powerful, so much so that the Grand Rapids School Board and the Grand Rapids Public School administration was put on notice.

Considering how long last nights School Board meeting was, how many people attended and spoke, and the sharing of the Community Report Card Campaign information, one would have thought that every possible news agency in Grand Rapids would have reported on last nights meeting. 

Unfortunately, as of early Tuesday afternoon, I could find no stories about the massive public engagement of the GRPS on both MLive and WXMI Fox 17. To be fair, there were stories on WXMI and MLive regarding Gov. Whitmer’s visit yesterday to a GRPS school to make an announcement about expanding pre-K education to four year olds. However, Whitmer’s presence yesterday may have undermined the incredible effort by the Urban Core Collective’s Education Justice campaign. In addition, Whitmer was accompanied by several area Democratic Party politicians, who should have known about the Community Report Card Campaign and the potential conflict in news coverage. Politicians should always know about local organizing efforts, then get behind them in whatever way they can.

Two stories about last night

There were two daily news agencies that reported on the massive community engagement effort with the GRPS, with both WOODTV8 and WZZM 13 providing coverage. I want to take a look at this coverage, look at framing, sources used, etc.

The WOODTV8 story did a pretty good job of framing the issue by talking about the Urban Core Collective’s Community Report Card Campaign. Framing the story that way makes it clear that this was a community-based effort. In addition, the channel 8 reporter did acknowledge how many people responded to the questions provided to the community, teachers, students and parents, which also centered the input from the public. 

The channel 8 story even walked through the Community Report Card, with video of students asking questions and community members in attendance holding up grades for each category and question. Unfortunately, just before viewers would see the interactive and participatory way that students presented their findings, WOODTV8 included comments from the GRPS media spokesperson. The response from the GRPS spokesperson should have come later, so that viewers could see the entirely of the Community Report Card presentation before allowing any sort of response.

There were four different people who viewers heard from in the channel 8 story, with a parent talking about how they value teachers, and a teacher talking about how the GRPS took too long to respond to their demands for an increase in salary, only to be insulted by a $375 salary increase.

Also problematic was the fact that channel 8 gave the GRPS spokesperson 32 seconds of uninterrupted commentary, which is rather long in the world of local TV news. The GRPS spokesperson also did not respond directly to the presentation about the Community Report, choosing to instead talk about the size of the district, the complexities of the problems they face, the millage, and the need for lawmakers to become more involved. The GRPS spokesperson did nothing more than deflect and avoid addressing the critical issued raised by the community at last nights board meeting. 

WOODTV8 did mention at the end that people could access the Community Report Card information on their website. Their story on last nights GRPS Board meeting last 3 minutes and 24 seconds. 

The WZZM 13 story was significantly shorter, coming in at 2 minutes and 8 seconds. The channel 13 story also framed their coverage around the Community Report Card campaign, and the first person that viewers heard was a GRPS student. The channel 13 story also providing ample time to show how the information was presented, with questions being asked, followed by participants holding up grades.

In addition to two students voices being heard in the WZZM 13 coverage, there was one parent who was given a few seconds within the channel 13 story. However, like the channel 8 coverage, the GRPS spokesperson was afforded the most airtime, with a full 26 seconds on the channel 13 story. The comments from the GRPS spokesperson in WZZM 13’s coverage didn’t deflect as much as they did in the channel 8 coverage, but they were given the last word, since the story ended with the GRPS spokesperson comments.

In both the channel 8 and channel 13 stories, the coverage could have been improved if the stories ended with someone involved in the Community Report Card Campaign having an opportunity to speak to what outcomes or demands they were wanting to see from the GRPS Administration and the School Board. Failing to provide that opportunity simply left viewers feeling like there was no resolution and no timeline for the changes that so many in the community are hoping to see. 

If you have not read the Community Report Card document, please do so now and share it with people who are concerned about public education in Grand Rapids.