Spaceship sprockets for your toolbox

Looking to try Dialogue Journalism in your newsroom or community? Now you can! With the generous support of the James L. and John S. Knight Foundation, we have created an online toolkit that details of our methodology for convening respectful, fact-based conversations across difference. A downloadable PDF has even more to offer, with an in-depth look at FactStacks (our non-narrative reporting method) and moderation strategies (including specific strategies for tricky situations). The toolkit is here. Thank you James L. and John S. Knight Foundation for supporting this work!

Dialogue Journalism, locally

Spaceship Local is a new project to bridge divides, meet the information needs of local communities, and help restore trust in journalism. With Spaceship Local, we are modifying Spaceship’s Dialogue Journalism to serve cities and towns with a collaborative, community-responsive news, information and conversation platform. If you are interested in learning more or think your community might be a good place for Spaceship Local, please email us: spaceshipmedia@spaceshipmedia.org.

Speaking of local ...

As we pilot Spaceship Local, we are grateful for the continued help of the researchers and innovators at the Kettering Foundation, an early supporter of Spaceship’s work. Kettering's mission is to sponsor and carry out scientific research for the benefit of humanity; they explore what citizens need to be active participants in democracy. You can read more about Kettering here.

Cofounder Eve Pearlman talks local too!

Libraries and journalism

We are pleased to find ourselves in good company in Harvard's June issue of Neiman Reports. Eryn Carson, in her piece about library and journalism collaborations, describes some of our work with libraries. “The trust factor was a motivating force behind Spaceship Media’s decision to partner with librarians when working on The Many, a dialogue journalism project that connected hundreds of women, from different backgrounds and political leanings, to discuss political and social issues in closed Facebook groups." The story is here.

Reckoning in Alabama

We are excited to be working with AL.com again! This time as they expand their Reckon brand to create a community for women in the South. Reckon | Women launched in May and has already grown to nearly 2,000 members. The group, for which Spaceship is offering moderation and strategic support, features dialogue about current events and focused engagement with reporters and their audience. A story that has lead to lively discussion is this one about motherhood by reporter Anna Claire Vollers. While the group is closed, you can sign up for the Reckon | Women newsletter, here.

Going whole hog

Humans have a tendency to overthink...a lot. In her new podcast, Spaceship alum Kaylee Fagan helps listeners steers listeners toward embracing the beauty of overthinking by talking these issues out together. In the first episode of Overthinking It, Fagan interviews Spaceship Media Cofounder Eve Pearlman, exploring the catalyzing moment that lead her to go “whole hog” into the unknown and brand new world of dialogue journalism. Bonus: the show notes include the origins of the phrase whole hog!

Teaching our method

Students at Mercer University were fully immersed in Spaceship Media’s Dialogue Journalism method this spring. An engagement journalism class, taught by Adam Ragusea of the Center for Collaborative Journalism, developed On the Table, a dialogue between restaurant-goers and patrons in Middle Georgia. The students created exciting content out of the dialogue, including this wonderful info graphic designed by Laurel Huster. In addition to Adam, we’d like to thank Debbie Blankenship, and Sonya Green at Mercer for facilitating the project!