Innovations: Giving the Young a Voice

Ed Williams, editorial page editor, Charlotte Observer

[EMAIL: ewilliams@charlotteobserver.com; WEB: http://www.charlotte.com]

1) As the father of a 20-year-old college student, I know there are plenty of thoughtful young people with interesting ideas who are rarely included in our newspaper. With the goal of changing that, Associate Editor Fannie Flono started a weekly feature we call Young Voices. We invited students who wanted to comment on public affairs to participate by sending us a mug shot and an e-mail address where we could reach them. Once a week we send them a question and invite responses not to exceed 100 words. Each Monday we publish a half-dozen of the responses with mugs of the writers on the editorial page and post all of them on The Observer's website. We didn't set any limits except that they be "student age."

More than a hundred signed up, from 13-year-old middle schoolers to college students. Weekly participation is strong. We understand that by doing it online we exclude young people who don't have access to computers, but if we had to do it by mail the job would be so labor intensive we wouldn't do it at all. Responses range in quality from OK to excellent. The keys, I think, are (1) requiring them to send a photo -- that makes them show at least a little commitment, and (2) keeping the responses short.

We also conduct, in association with the county bar association, an essay contest on some pertinent legal topic and award prizes for the three best essays at the annual Law Day luncheon May 1. This has been less successful than Young Voices, but we're still working at it. If you want to know more about either of these, message Fannie at fflono@charlotteobserver.com.

2) We decided The Observer would be the voice of the environment in the Carolinas, so we launched a couple of annual projects. The first is a survey of environmental achievements and atrocities, telling what happened and who should get the credit or blame. The second is a two-page photo spread of a dozen or so people we call Guardians of the Environment. We run big pictures of them with brief essays recognizing their contributions. Associate Editor Jack Betts is in charge. For more info, message him at jbetts@charlotteobserver.com.

3) Three times a year we do two-page photo and essay spreads recognizing people in our area. We started with one on the Fourth of July. We call the honorees Heroes of Democracy, and select them for their contributions to making our democracy work. The second is Guardians of the Environment, mentioned above. The third we simply identify as Thanks, and say it's for a few people who represent the many who, in ways large and small, have made our region a better place in the past year. It runs Dec. 31. Fannie Flono oversees the July 4 pages and Associate Editor Mary Newsom handles the year-end pages. Contact Mary at mnewsom@charlotteobserver.com.

4) We conduct the Observer Politics & Public Policy Limerick Contest from Groundhog Day to April Fools Day every year. It is truly a hoot. We get literally thousands of entries and pick weekly winners plus a grand prize winner. I run it, and I chose to have a limerick contest -- rather than, say, a sonnet contest -- for two reasons: (1) entries are either limericks or they're not; and (2) they are, by definition, brief.

It is so much fun that readers have pretty much stopped asking who in heaven's name thought limericks belonged on an editorial page. Sometimes, on special occasions, we invite limericks on a certain topic -- when the NBA Charlotte Hornets deserted us for New Orleans, for example. Both National Public Radio and Voice of America have done stories on our contest. For more information, contact Ed Williams at ewilliams@charlotteobserver.com.

5) We wanted good local columnists and we were tired of the usual faces, so Jane McAlister Pope, the deputy editorial page editor who oversees our op-ed page, hit upon this idea: Why not invite any of our writers who'd like to write a column a month for a year to complete for the privilege of doing so? We set a steep entry fee to discourage dilettantes: To enter, writers had to send us three 700-800 word columns of the sort they'd like to write for us.

We've been doing it for a few years now, and Jane usually gets 200-300 applicants. I attribute the success of this effort to these three factors: (1) it doesn't matter who you are, only that you have something to say and say it well; (2) we set a steep entry fee to weed out those who didn't really want it; and (3) Jane willingly took on the heavy job of evaluating all the entries. For more information, contact her at jpope@charlotteobserver.com

That's a bunch of stuff for people who also are writing editorials and columns and doing other things, but not so much that anybody feels overloaded. We understand that in order to do these things, folks have to not do some other things, and we're moderately good about pitching in to help each other.

If you want copies of any of the stuff I've mentioned, send me a note (Ed Williams, Editorial Page Editor, The Charlotte Observer, P.O. Box 30308, Charlotte, NC 28232-0308) and a stamped self-addressed envelope large enough to hold whatever you ask for. We could just mail it to you at our expense, but as you've seen above, we believe in requiring some investment from others.

9/22/03