We wanted to craft a space where a community was involved in our journalism from start to finish and center that effort around a listening project. The community we chose to focus on was the southern part of North Charleston, a demographically and socioeconomically diverse city in the Charleston area. We wanted to launch a survey to gather input on how residents receive information and news, and ask about what topics they want to see covered more in local journalism. From that input, we’d hold a handful of listening sessions focused on one of the issues identified in the survey. But first, we gathered input from community leaders on how to distribute the survey and get their feedback on the idea. In March, we officially launched our survey digitally and through hard copies, and found housing was by far the issue that residents wanted more information on. On May 20, we hosted our first listening session on housing in collaboration with a panel of four local housing experts, and plan to hold another on transportation later in the summer. We’ll start focusing our storytelling on the feedback from both the survey and the events, and find alternative ways to get information to North Charleston communities based on the platforms residents told us they most often get news from.

Most often our events are focused on promoting our newsroom’s work, so this is an intentional effort to be in community with residents our publication serves and hear directly from them. Our newsroom plans to duplicate this effort in other coverage areas to deepen our connection with communities in other parts of Charleston and across the state of South Carolina.

We wanted to make sure the entire project was community led, so we connected with a handful of neighborhood presidents and nonprofit leaders to help shape the survey and offer input into the listening session. We’ve received positive feedback about the initiative from the beginning. One neighborhood president thought the survey offered a good opportunity for residents to openly share their opinions on the issues they’re facing, and a nonprofit leader said the listening session idea is an innovative way to bring residents and experts together for an open conversation.

I learned that having prior relationships with community stakeholders is really beneficial when approaching the project. These connections offered practical advice for moving the project forward, and opened the door to broader, honest conversations about how our newsroom can better engage with the community in the future.

My advice would be to start small! It can be daunting to survey an entire city or large community. I would start by identifying a few underrepresented neighborhoods and connecting with local leaders there. I’m currently in the process of planning the first listening session, which is also a bit intimidating, but once again, leaning on community connections has shown me how smoothly things can come together.

Contributed by Kathryn Casteel and Kenna Coe

Cite this article

Duncan, Kathryn; and Coe, Kenna (2026, June 2). The Post and Courier. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/the-post-and-courier/