This project is the third of a multiyear joint effort between the Reed College of Media at West Virginia University and the School of Media & Public Affairs at The George Washington University, to collaborate using journalistic principles and practices to investigate important issues affecting the people of West Virginia and Washington, D.C. 

This year’s project saw eight students at WVU and GWU, along with two faculty members, investigate four communities in West Virginia and the District of Columbia to learn where the members of each community look to find information and truth. These journalists sought to identify who the community looks to for the most credible information, i.e. gatekeepers, trusted sources for community information, as well as what key events and issues are the most critical for information dissemination in those communities.

In West Virginia we explored the Black community on the West Side of Charleston, and the community around western Monongalia County.  In D.C., we explored the LGBTQ community in Dupont Circle and the Anacostia community, a largely Black community in the 7^th and 8^th Wards. Our journalists spent time in these communities and talked with the people who lived there about the information they received from the outside world, the information they want the outside world to know about them, and the news they want to read, watch and listen about their own communities.

In the end, we learned as much about ourselves as we learned about the people in these communities. We also were able to bridge many gaps between what journalists think about people in these outlying communities and what people in these outlying communities think about journalists who want to tell their stories. Hopefully, we are all the better for these conversations. 

The project kicked off in November with a joint panel between the Reed School of Media and the School of Media & Public Affairs called “Who Informs the Citizenry: Finding Trust and Truth in a Fractured Age,” where journalists and media experts from around the nation discussed with each other and students from the universities about where people get their news and who do they trust.