YOUR ELi: We Need Educational Reporting

YOUR ELi: We Need Educational Reporting

Eli is in fundraising mode once more. This time, we’re looking specifically at two goals that are based on reader response and input about what you value, and what you want to know about.

Our goal this month is to raise $8,000 to keep publishing through the end of September while responding to your desires for more content and coverage. Here are our two goals:

Fuller coverage of East Lansing Public Schools

ELi is looking to raise $4,000 to hire reporters dedicated to ELPS coverage and to cover the overhead associated with that reporting.

The biggest gap in our reporting has been ELPS coverage. There has been no lack of important stories to cover, including teacher contract negotiations, the disposition of the Red Cedar Elementary building, and issues surrounding sex ed curriculum. Just in the past few weeks, the Middle School principal retired, and a member of the Board of Education resigned.

We want to report on all of these things, and more. We want you to know what happens at every Board meeting (to bring you something akin to our Council Capsule for School Board meetings), what’s going on at the building level, and what decisions are being made by ELPS administration. We also want to bring you stories of student clubs and athletics. We just don’t have the manpower right now.

To attract and retain someone with the skills and commitment to provide coverage of school issues, we have to be able to offer adequate compensation. We’ve tried for months to find a volunteer, but the truth is that no volunteer who is willing has been able to attend long meetings, no less to research and write articles fast enough to get you the news while it’s still news.

If you value in-depth coverage of ELPS, please donate as generously as you can, and earmark your donation as “ELPS coverage” so we can guarantee you regular, high-quality district schools reporting.

MSU Student Reporters

ELi is also this month looking to raise $4,000 to pay MSU student reporters and to cover the overhead associated with that reporting.

What ELi is doing with MSU students is among the best town-gown connectors I have ever seen. And I say that as someone who has personally worked on town-gown relations for years, including with the Community Relations Coalition.

Right now, we have five student reporters at ELi, and another coming on board as I write. Our newest reporter graduated from ELHS last Sunday and asked to write for ELi starting this summer before beginning her freshman year at MSU.

By having MSU students as reporters on the ELi team, asking them to report on local issues, we are giving (really) young people who are also MSU students a sense that they can be heard, make a difference, and be trusted to do good work in our city.

Our student writers bring you stories about things happening on campus, where they are “embedded reporters” in ways no outsider could hope to become. Other times, students report on EL community events and get to know more about life on “our” side of Grand River Avenue.

We provide them with a byline, some training in writing, and a small amount of money. They provide us with access to student and young adult life and a unique perspective on variety of issues. When they research and write a story about a person, event or business in East Lansing, they take their expanded understanding of “permanent residents” into their dorms, houses, dining halls, and classrooms. It’s a win-win for them, for ELi, and for East Lansing as a whole.

To keep building these relationships, we need to be able to pay our student reporters, and pay ELi staff to work with them as they build stories and submit drafts.

If you value their reporting and what it means in the community as a whole, please donate and earmark your donation as “Student Reporters.”

Oh, And by the way

If you are finding that ELi is becoming an important news source, a place to find information that isn’t available anywhere else, you can just send us a regular old “help us out” donation.

Our readership is growing, our reach is broadening, we have great things planned, and your donations tell us that we are serving our readers and this community. Please help us keep doing great work for and with you!

Donate Here

Image: Tulane Public Relations on Flickr