Civic Nebraska

Shawn Kaskie Author

09/26/2024 Added

2 Plays

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Daniel Bennett discusses some of the new programs Civic Nebraska is offering to help communities with leadership, civil discourse, building relationships, and community engagement. Recorded 3/13/2024.

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[00:00:00.000]Thank you.
[00:00:29.980]Sean, is there any baby news yet?
[00:00:47.840]I checked on Facebook, and there was no post as of yesterday.
[00:00:59.520]I haven't checked.
[00:00:59.960]I haven't checked this morning yet, and I haven't gotten any emails either.
[00:01:05.820]I was wanting the same thing, Marla.
[00:01:07.300]Because I was thinking, is it today or tomorrow is the due date?
[00:01:18.280]Yep, I think so, too.
[00:01:20.600]I thought it was today.
[00:01:29.940]I thought it was today.
[00:01:59.920]I thought it was today.
[00:02:29.900]I thought it was today.
[00:02:59.880]I thought it was today.
[00:03:29.860]I thought it was today.
[00:03:59.840]I thought it was today.
[00:04:29.820]I thought it was today.
[00:04:31.820]I thought it was today.
[00:04:59.800]I thought it was today.
[00:05:29.780]I thought it was today.
[00:05:59.760]I thought it was today.
[00:06:29.740]I thought it was today.
[00:06:59.720]I thought it was today.
[00:07:29.700]I thought it was today.
[00:07:59.680]I thought it was today.
[00:08:29.660]I thought it was today.
[00:08:59.640]I thought it was today.
[00:09:29.620]I thought it was today.
[00:09:59.600]I thought it was today.
[00:10:29.580]I thought it was today.
[00:10:59.560]I thought it was today.
[00:11:29.540]I thought it was today.
[00:11:59.520]I thought it was today.
[00:12:29.500]I thought it was today.
[00:12:59.480]I thought it was today.
[00:13:29.460]I thought it was today.
[00:13:59.440]I thought it was today.
[00:14:29.420]I thought it was today.
[00:14:59.400]I thought it was today.
[00:15:29.380]I thought it was today.
[00:15:59.360]I thought it was today.
[00:16:29.340]I thought it was today.
[00:16:59.320]I thought it was today.
[00:17:29.300]I thought it was today.
[00:17:59.280]I thought it was today.
[00:18:29.260]I thought it was today.
[00:18:59.240]I thought it was today.
[00:19:29.220]I thought it was today.
[00:19:59.200]I thought it was today.
[00:20:29.180]I thought it was today.
[00:20:59.160]recommending it to somebody or so it'll be mostly a referral process, but we'll also have that
[00:21:07.970]intake application form, which is not really going to be focused on like your credentials,
[00:21:12.910]but more so what we're going to be looking for is, you know, why do you want to, why are you
[00:21:19.810]interested in elected office? What's your motivations for this? What's your
[00:21:27.270]willingness to learn? You know, if somebody's coming in and they're saying like, well,
[00:21:35.030]this is my opportunity to educate everybody else in this group why I'm right. Probably not
[00:21:41.710]going to prioritize that candidate if we have over 12 people. But we also know this is an
[00:21:48.750]opportunity to engage with people who are interested in elected office. So, you know,
[00:21:49.790]I'm interested in elected office. What's your motivations for this? What's your willingness
[00:21:49.790]to counter different viewpoints? And so, so we want to, we want a diverse group of people who
[00:21:56.270]are currently serving as elected officials who might be able to answer questions for newer people
[00:22:00.810]as far as like, you know, how did you, how did you get started with your campaign? Or
[00:22:06.650]I'm running into this issue. How did you deal with that? So we see a lot of value in that,
[00:22:11.770]in that diversity. Perfect. Thank you.
[00:22:14.970]Any other questions?
[00:22:19.770]So the other, one of the other issues that we are wanting to deal with is growing news deserts and
[00:22:33.370]with it also the kind of growing polarization of how people get information. We did a study
[00:22:40.930]a couple of years ago where we listened to people in Scottsbluff County and Lancaster County where
[00:22:49.750]they were talking about why they like the media that they like or why they go to the source of
[00:22:54.850]information that they go to. And it was really clear to us that through those interviews that
[00:23:03.070]people had a lot of concerns about their local news sources going away. They had really a lot
[00:23:11.510]of confidence in those local news sources, but were disappointed at the reduced capacity that
[00:23:19.730]had. We also learned that people have an emotional connection to the information sources
[00:23:25.930]that they get news from, not just a rational one. So there's a lot of other things that are
[00:23:32.070]impacting in their local community that impact why they trust the news that they do. But in
[00:23:37.690]Nebraska, we've seen 16 local papers that have closed or merged in the last 20 years. And across
[00:23:45.470]the country, more than half of all newspaper jobs have disappeared. In that sense, we're
[00:23:49.710]in the same time frame. I know in Scotts Bluff County specifically, and it's probably, I don't
[00:23:53.950]know what it's like in Holdridge, I'd be interesting to hear what you have going on there as well. But
[00:24:00.270]I think the Star-Herald has drastically reduced their local capacity. Our local TV station has
[00:24:11.070]just closed. And so there's really a limited capacity to cover all of the things that are going
[00:24:18.470]on. And so I think it's really important that we have that capacity to cover all of the things
[00:24:19.690]So from our perspective, as being interested in the civic side of things, we're interested in what
[00:24:26.770]does this decrease in capacity mean for the coverage of our local boards, councils, and
[00:24:33.570]commissions? And so this is sparking a partnership with the Nebraska Journalism Trust, which is
[00:24:42.410]they're the kind of the umbrella organization for the Flatwater Free Press, if you've heard about
[00:24:47.410]them. It's a nonprofit newsroom.
[00:24:49.670]They focus on long-form investigative reporting on stories across the state. Some of those
[00:24:55.490]stories that are, you know, our local daily and weekly papers just are really struggling to have
[00:25:02.150]the capacity to pursue some of those, that longer-term investigative journalism. But they
[00:25:10.890]also agreed with us that there's this problem in covering local boards and commissions. And, you
[00:25:19.650]know, who's reporting out to the community what's going on in those meetings? Where maybe, you know,
[00:25:29.750]why are we talking about this for the third meeting in a row when we haven't gotten anywhere?
[00:25:34.590]Or where did this come from? So just like besides the minutes, you know, how are we reporting what's
[00:25:40.050]going on? So this program, Documenters, it's a national program that one of the executive
[00:25:47.290]directors at the Flatwater Free Press, who's the executive director of the Flatwater Free Press,
[00:25:49.630]got in touch with somebody who helps run the Documenters program and thought it might be a
[00:25:58.050]model for here. And so what it is, is it trains and pays citizen journalists to attend public
[00:26:05.070]meetings and publish a write-up and share those stories online. So it's happening in several cities
[00:26:15.350]around the country. Omaha has a chapter.
[00:26:19.610]As well. And we just see a lot of value in trying to expand this across the state.
[00:26:24.670]There really aren't any rural chapters of this yet. So Nebraska would be sort of the first
[00:26:32.310]to try to expand this to rural areas. But as you saw with the map, that's where we have a lot of
[00:26:39.110]news deserts and where it's just really hard to provide the capacity to cover all those boards and
[00:26:49.590]commissions. So this would, citizen journalists could apply to one of these positions.
[00:26:58.870]They would be trained by the Flatwater Free Press staff in the journalistic side of things,
[00:27:06.170]you know, how to report, what's going on, how to make the write-ups.
[00:27:11.610]And then on our side of things, we would be helping with the onboarding as far as that
[00:27:19.570]community literacy.
[00:27:20.390]So like, what does the planning commission do?
[00:27:23.650]Or what are the procedures that a city council might follow if someone's unfamiliar with
[00:27:28.330]those?
[00:27:28.690]And also prompting some thinking about, you know, who else, based on these different issues
[00:27:35.470]and different topics, who might need to be involved in this?
[00:27:39.310]Or who else might you need to consider as far as notifying or wrapping into the story?
[00:27:49.550]And those stories, those write-ups would be shared online.
[00:27:53.030]They could also be shared with local media, like traditional media, like a newspaper,
[00:27:57.310]or if you have other media outlets in your community.
[00:28:01.410]And there would be that opportunity to follow up, either from the Flatwater Free Press standpoint,
[00:28:09.350]or from that local media standpoint.
[00:28:12.030]Maybe you're able to hear about something.
[00:28:13.970]One of our citizen journalists is able to hear about something in the meeting.
[00:28:19.530]Provide that right up to a traditional media outlet, and then somebody else is able to follow up on that.
[00:28:25.650]So the plan for this year, the Omaha chapter is going.
[00:28:30.370]They want to expand to Lincoln.
[00:28:32.190]And then we really, this year, we're focused on building those inroads and those connections,
[00:28:37.630]having those conversations to expand to other Nebraska towns next year.
[00:28:42.110]So this year, what that looks like is we're going to be having a lot of conversations
[00:28:49.510]with people in towns across the state, just saying, like, what's the need here?
[00:28:54.730]How might this work?
[00:28:56.090]What concerns might you have?
[00:28:58.030]How could we help come together as a community to support something like this?
[00:29:03.190]And then try to make a go of it in 2025 or, I mean, sooner, if we can pull the pieces
[00:29:12.370]together.
[00:29:12.750]But this is kind of the tentative plan so far.
[00:29:16.430]Any questions on the...
[00:29:19.490]On the documenters side of things?
[00:29:21.610]Are you...
[00:29:25.810]I'm curious, one of the folks in Holdridge, what's your...
[00:29:32.370]Is there a local paper that's still operating there?
[00:29:36.490]We have the Holdridge Daily Citizen.
[00:29:39.170]I think it's down to three times a week now.
[00:29:41.370]Okay.
[00:29:42.130]Yeah.
[00:29:44.110]Yeah.
[00:29:45.430]And I think Star Herald is still...
[00:29:49.470]It's still daily.
[00:29:50.710]Is that right?
[00:29:51.650]But we also know...
[00:29:54.010]I mean, probably for you all as well,
[00:29:55.850]we've got communities outside of Scotts Bluff Gearing.
[00:29:58.670]We've got communities outside of Ogallala, North Platte,
[00:30:03.470]that also have public meetings
[00:30:07.990]that are likely not getting covered also.
[00:30:12.650]So I think this is an opportunity
[00:30:14.990]for not just the hub communities,
[00:30:16.430]but also the smaller towns.
[00:30:19.450]Any questions about the documenters program?
[00:30:25.950]Okay.
[00:30:31.810]And then lastly, I don't know if some of you,
[00:30:36.830]I can't remember if I've shared about this before,
[00:30:38.730]but we got an election year this year.
[00:30:40.790]And so the other part that our team
[00:30:44.470]is going to be focusing on is voter turnout.
[00:30:46.770]So we have this tool, you can go online,
[00:30:49.430]type in Trove, Civic, Nebraska.
[00:30:50.890]We mapped voter turnout down to the zip code
[00:30:54.890]and census tract level.
[00:30:57.750]So within Scottsbluff County, for example,
[00:31:01.050]just because I'm familiar with it,
[00:31:02.450]you look at a turnout for a county
[00:31:06.230]and you might see like 44% or something like that
[00:31:12.430]for Scottsbluff County.
[00:31:14.350]What you don't really see
[00:31:16.150]until you dig down to the local level
[00:31:17.690]is that you have some areas,
[00:31:19.410]of the town or the county,
[00:31:20.990]that have maybe over 60% voter turnout.
[00:31:24.010]And in our case,
[00:31:25.390]you have others that have like 20% voter turnout.
[00:31:28.790]So this is something that we have resources
[00:31:34.270]and interest in working in these areas
[00:31:36.410]that have the lower voter turnout across the state.
[00:31:40.190]We've partnering with groups in Grand Island to do that.
[00:31:47.150]And in Scottsbluff County,
[00:31:49.390]are kind of the two focus areas right now,
[00:31:51.970]but we've got staff that works across the state.
[00:31:55.210]So we can help provide that information,
[00:31:58.250]which is all, you know,
[00:32:00.790]it doesn't back any candidates or positions
[00:32:03.570]or anything like that.
[00:32:04.570]It's just information about what turnout is like,
[00:32:08.590]where it could be stronger
[00:32:10.070]and information about elections.
[00:32:14.410]So people are informed before they get out and vote.
[00:32:16.690]And the other thing I'd say about this too is,
[00:32:19.370]the more we've looked into it,
[00:32:21.750]the more I'm kind of skeptical of just providing
[00:32:23.830]a blitz of information to improve voter turnout.
[00:32:26.830]But for those of you who are involved in local government,
[00:32:29.310]I think it's really about the daily touches
[00:32:33.090]and the daily opportunities for connection that we make,
[00:32:36.370]which really instill confidence in the people that we serve,
[00:32:39.810]that we're listening to them,
[00:32:42.270]that if they say something, it matters to us
[00:32:46.330]and that they have a personal connection
[00:32:49.350]with somebody in that institution.
[00:32:53.370]Across the state, we've seen declining confidence in institutions,
[00:32:58.670]people having less confidence that the state legislature
[00:33:04.750]or the local government is going to do the right thing
[00:33:09.530]or serve their best interests.
[00:33:10.950]And so it's really important now more than ever
[00:33:15.510]to focus on building those points of connection
[00:33:19.330]that build confidence,
[00:33:20.570]building that relational infrastructure
[00:33:22.910]between those institutions and the constituents
[00:33:27.310]so that people feel like,
[00:33:29.570]yeah, this is serving my best interests
[00:33:32.530]and I'm connected.
[00:33:34.310]And if I say something, they're going to listen.
[00:33:36.290]I can be heard.
[00:33:38.350]So this is something that you can look around on as well.
[00:33:44.070]We'll be preparing for a full update of this
[00:33:47.310]in December of this year,
[00:33:49.310]after the election.
[00:33:49.970]So we'll come out with some new, fresh data,
[00:33:53.950]and we'll be able to compare it to 2020,
[00:33:56.770]how things have changed.
[00:33:58.090]So if you're interested in that kind of thing,
[00:34:00.670]you can stay tuned for us and follow us.
[00:34:03.590]Or if you want help with improving voter outreach,
[00:34:06.690]or you want to know what the numbers look like in your town,
[00:34:08.550]feel free to reach out and we can help you with that.
[00:34:19.290]So that's what we have going on in 2024.
[00:34:22.650]I would just say, if you're,
[00:34:26.030]I'll put my information here in the chat,
[00:34:29.830]but if you're interested in hosting a cohort,
[00:34:36.490]like the elected leader cohort,
[00:34:39.010]or a chapter of the documenters program,
[00:34:42.110]get in touch with me.
[00:34:43.710]We can explore what that looks like.
[00:34:46.390]This year, we also have some resources,
[00:34:49.270]or we have a long runway that we can utilize
[00:34:54.630]to get to a point where we're launching these.
[00:34:57.730]It's not like we're going to pitch this
[00:34:59.750]and try to launch it in a month or something.
[00:35:02.510]We have the resources to be able to have those conversations,
[00:35:06.230]facilitate conversations among multiple stakeholders
[00:35:09.490]in your community,
[00:35:10.330]try to work through those sticking points,
[00:35:12.330]find what's most important,
[00:35:14.570]how one of these approaches might help.
[00:35:19.250]Any questions from anybody?
[00:35:27.750]That's great, Daniel.
[00:35:35.550]I guess I'm curious.
[00:35:36.510]I'll throw a first question out there.
[00:35:37.950]How is, you know,
[00:35:39.510]these things like your retreat that you're planning,
[00:35:42.810]that's a tough thing to do in this environment.
[00:35:45.490]How has that gone for you?
[00:35:47.530]Can you share any,
[00:35:48.470]have you been involved in any of that?
[00:35:49.230]Have you been involved with these things in Nebraska?
[00:35:50.810]How the experience has gone for you?
[00:35:53.010]Yeah, well, we haven't hosted like an elected officials retreat kind of thing yet.
[00:35:59.490]So this is, you know, our first steps in that.
[00:36:03.370]But we'll say we've also,
[00:36:05.330]we've done different civil discourse sessions.
[00:36:10.470]We had a focus group around like divergence in media a couple of years ago
[00:36:18.470]where there were some people who, you know,
[00:36:20.950]get their news primarily from like Fox and Newsmax.
[00:36:23.710]And some people who get their news primarily from like Mother Jones,
[00:36:26.630]MSNBC and have them together in a room to talk about the differences and what
[00:36:34.050]do they have in common. And, and those have,
[00:36:38.050]those have gone well.
[00:36:40.090]And I think there's people are, can always find common ground,
[00:36:45.850]but more importantly,
[00:36:47.790]we also just want to understand the differences too. You know,
[00:36:51.890]we don't want to always gloss over everything with common ground,
[00:36:55.130]but if we can help people in those conversations to have a moment where they
[00:37:01.710]step back and say like, okay,
[00:37:03.610]I'm just going to listen to this person to hear where they're coming from.
[00:37:07.630]Why do they trust this news source?
[00:37:10.190]Or why do they have that belief that they have? And then, you know,
[00:37:14.990]be able to have that reciprocated when they share,
[00:37:17.590]what it is that they believe or where they're coming from,
[00:37:22.030]how their experiences have shaped that belief.
[00:37:26.670]You know,
[00:37:28.450]you can still disagree with somebody and have respect for where they're
[00:37:34.590]coming from or understand that their perspective that you disagree with came
[00:37:40.510]from an experience that they had and, you know,
[00:37:46.230]have some understanding,
[00:37:47.550]which you can see that person as a human rather than just as somebody who's
[00:37:55.630]against you or who's problematic in some way,
[00:38:00.370]but someone who's a part of your community and who's worth respecting.
[00:38:03.550]So we've been building our own toolbox of how to facilitate those
[00:38:08.630]conversations and feel pretty good about having those,
[00:38:14.310]that it's important to do that and that we're, you know,
[00:38:17.510]equipped to help with that.
[00:38:18.690]Thank you. Other questions.
[00:38:25.230]Everybody's pretty quiet out there.
[00:38:33.290]Yeah, I would say, you know, maybe,
[00:38:40.430]maybe an area to explore that would be with,
[00:38:44.010]if you have like a County leadership program,
[00:38:47.470]I think there's,
[00:38:49.750]there's some opportunity for the elected leaders cohort democracy cohorts to
[00:38:55.790]be somewhat of a phase two kind of a thing,
[00:38:59.590]maybe engage some of those alumni and who have made those networking
[00:39:05.690]connections within the community who've have a little bit of,
[00:39:10.730]of understanding of who the players are, who the people are saying, okay,
[00:39:15.830]well now,
[00:39:17.430]you know, would you consider running for office if you've been,
[00:39:20.690]if you've thought about it? One of the,
[00:39:23.350]we kind of know that not everybody is going to be interested in the content
[00:39:30.110]that we have to present, but we're,
[00:39:33.090]we're hoping that it does attract the people who are thoughtful leaders who
[00:39:39.670]are interested in,
[00:39:40.830]in the principles behind the decisions that they make.
[00:39:44.430]And from our experience,
[00:39:47.390]and probably from a lot of yours,
[00:39:48.330]those are the people who more often these days are kind of sensing or
[00:39:54.690]feeling like, well, maybe politics isn't for me. You know, I'm not,
[00:39:59.330]I'm not super brash. I don't come in hot with a lot of rhetoric.
[00:40:04.210]And so, so we're wanting to encourage more of that, those,
[00:40:09.830]those thoughtful leaders who are interested in the principles behind things
[00:40:12.830]to, to run. And so we think those people exist in our communities and,
[00:40:17.350]and we're, we're trying to provide a space to encourage them.
[00:40:20.710]That's a good segue, Daniel. Next week or next month, April 10th,
[00:40:29.450]the topic will be on leadership Chautauqua,
[00:40:33.350]which the Chautauqua was an event where we brought together leaders from these
[00:40:38.070]local County-based or local leadership development programs.
[00:40:40.350]And so Lindsay Hastings, who is a leadership professor at UNL,
[00:40:47.310]was going to talk about that Chautauqua next steps for kind of doing some of
[00:40:53.010]the things you're talking about,
[00:40:54.030]which is informing these County or local leadership development programs about
[00:40:59.450]professional development topics like this one,
[00:41:01.310]civil discourse and how to integrate some of those things into their
[00:41:04.430]programming. So more to come on.
[00:41:06.550]You just gave us a nice teaser for next month, April 10th.
[00:41:09.510]And is there any other final last call for questions?
[00:41:14.730]Otherwise we are going to get to a little bit more,
[00:41:17.270]of what Daniel talked about next month on April 10th.
[00:41:20.270]With no other questions, I'm going to say, Daniel,
[00:41:27.590]thank you very much for attending today. And thank you everyone for,
[00:41:30.350]for coming on.
[00:41:31.250]We'll send an email reminder before a week or so before the next session
[00:41:36.810]with a link to Daniel's recording for today.
[00:41:39.490]If others want to know how to find him and it looks like he posted his
[00:41:43.950]contact information in the chat. Thank you, Daniel.
[00:41:47.230]Yep. Thanks everybody.
[00:41:48.310]Everyone have a good week and we hope to see you next month.
[00:41:52.570]Thank you.
[00:41:52.610]Thank you.

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