UGA's Grady College Launches Poverty Web Site for Journalists

A Web site for journalists who want to improve coverage of poverty on any beat is now live. Developed by a team at the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, the site, “Covering Poverty: A Tool Kit for Journalists,” is at www.grady.uga.edu/poverty.

The site was developed by a four-person team of Grady College faculty and students. Advice was drawn from journalists and journalism educators across the United States, according to John Greenman, Carter Professor of Journalism at Grady and the driving force behind the new resource.

Content on the site includes eight tutorials on covering poverty, 15 “tip sheets,” an annotated bibliography and links to the best poverty-related Web sites. The tutorials were written by UGA faculty whose research focuses on such poverty-related subjects as health, education, financial services, families, housing, politics and race. In addition, journalism faculty from 11 universities offered advice about coverage tips, published sources and Web sites, based on courses they teach about covering poverty.

The Grady team included Greenman; Diane Murray, director of public service and outreach; Grey Pentacost, a graduate student in journalism; and Carolyn Crist, an undergraduate student in journalism. The research was underwritten by a grant from the University of Georgia Research Foundation, administered by the Office of the Vice President of Public Service and Outreach Grant.

Greenman and Murray invite journalists to use the site and provide feedback to them at jgreenma@uga.edu or murrayd@uga.edu.