Lauterer, NECD Community VOICE recognized in Innovative Outreach to Scholastic Journalism competition

Carolina Community Media Project director Jock Lauterer and the Northeast Central Durham Community VOICE project won second place in the AEJMC Scholastic Journalism Division’s 2010 Innovative Outreach to Scholastic Journalism competition.

The competition recognizes innovative university programs that promote interest and training in scholastic journalism to high school, middle school or elementary school students or teachers. Winning programs may serve as models that other higher education media programs could replicate.

Lauterer also was recently honored with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Provost Award for Engaged Scholarship for his work on the VOICE.

The NECD Community VOICE is a community news project staffed in part by local youth mentored by the journalism programs at UNC and N.C. Central University. The effort that began more than a year ago as an idea from UNC Department of City and Regional Planning students looking for ways to revitalize the 300-block area of Northeast Central Durham known as “the bull’s eye” to Durham police and community development officials for its high incidence of crime.

Lauterer believes that strong community media helps strengthen communities by encouraging a vital civic life and developing a positive sense of place. The Daily Tar Heel, UNC’s student newspaper, is covering the cost of printing 2,000 copies monthly for the first year of publication. The VOICE is distributed at neighborhood offices, libraries, schools, churches and businesses.??The VOICE recruited its original youth staff primarily through a series of free, on-site photography lessons taught at NECD’s Salvation Army Boys’ and Girls’ Club, SeeSaw Studio and the Durham Inner-City Garden. ??The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation provided early support for the project with a $25,000 grant for computers, cameras and other equipment.