News outlets in Southwest Ohio met Wednesday to discuss the logistics of a solutions-oriented opioid project that brings regular folks into the discussions, listens to their concerns, attempts to answer their questions and delivers solutions for their consideration.
The Southwest Ohio effort follows an experiment in the Mahoning Valley, where the Warren Tribute Chronicle, WFMJ-TV, Youngstown Vindicator and NPR affiliate WKSU shared resources beginning in October to be the Ohio experiment.
Public meetings in Warren, Youngstown and Struthers offered new perspectives for journalists covering the crisis and began to show some shared concerns and needs.
In the Miami Valley, we’re likely to hold community meetings in central Dayton, Middletown, somewhere in metro Cincinnati and a smaller, hard-hit community, possibly Wilmington in Clinton County. Public radio, the Cox/Ohio media properties, AIMMEDIA, Miami University and University of Cincinnati journalism students and WKRC-TV are among the participants.
We’re interested in hearing what people in the area think the story is, what questions they have and what we need to do so that everyone feels informed. We’re asking these questions even before we write the first stories.
Stay tuned. We’re asking for questions now and will begin to roll out more information in early January.
