Total Community Coverage

People Count: Diversity Trumps Demographics in Election Coverage

2008-10-27T20:49:00+00:00

Ultimately, elections are about numbers: Whoever gets the most votes (popular or Electoral College) wins. Therefore, it’s tempting for news organizations to view communities primarily as demographic blocks—essentially, as numbers.

The classic form for this type of election story is: “Here’s how Latinos are polling on issue X or candidate Y,” plus perhaps a few example anecdotes to make the story superficially appear to be more about people than numbers. This approach fits well with the too-easy horserace style of election coverage.

For instance, check out these recent stories…

Roaring Fork Valley Latinos backing Obama (Vail Daily, CO, Oct. 27)
Utah Blacks Energized by Obama (Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 27)
Will Obama Finish Strong on Election Day? “When it comes to the black vote, Obama now leads McCain 87-7 in the FOX poll although I’m sure he’ll go well over 90 percent.” (Fox News, Oct. 25)
Economy, Values Split Coveted Latino Vote (ABC News 10, Sacramento, CA)

It’s true that there is analytic value to quantifying politics through demographics. But when demographic polling becomes a news organization’s primary lens on a community’s politics, there’s also a danger. Demographics-focused stories may unintentionally promote stereotyping or even divisiveness because they prioritize characteristics over individuals in what is fundamentally a matter of personal choice.

When covering what local communities of difference think about political issues and the upcoming election, remember that these communities are comprised of people. Ultimately, democracy is about individuals. Therefore, individual community members can (and probably should) be routine sources of opinion, insight, and commentary throughout all of your election coverage.

Make sure that your stories about rallies, polling places, ballot counting, issues, commercials, campaign volunteers, and more includes a diverse base of sources.

For instance, when writing about candidates’ differences on energy policy, don’t just interview politicos and experts. The head of a Guatemalan-American family living in a rural trailer park would probably have a lot of interesting things to say about energy costs. So might an Asian-American college student living in a urban shared apartment. So might the managers of the local Jewish community center.

This approach offers the advantage of presenting communities of difference in a broader democratic context, rather than pigeonholing them. It also can make your election coverage more nuanced, lively, and less predictable. So go ahead and run the occasional demographics-based story—as long as it’s balanced by diverse sources throughout your coverage. Also, be sure to learn more about political diversity within communities of difference. (Here’s an example.)

Radio and Your Community Outreach Strategy

2008-10-20T22:06:00+00:00

If your news organization wants to better engage particular communities, it helps to go where they are—rather than expect them to flock to you. If your news organization is trying especially to connect better with Hispanic and African-American communities, it might be a good idea to hit the radio waves…

Recently, MarketingCharts.com reported that, according to research by Arbitron, “African Americans and Spanish-dominant Hispanics have the highest radio listening levels of all demographic groups, and continue to propel urban and Spanish-language stations to the top in major U.S. markets.”

When you’re trying to engage any community, it’s always easier to join a conversation than start one. In the case of reaching African Americans and Spanish-dominant Hispanics, consider how your news organization might build bridges or partner with local radio stations reaching these communities. This can demonstrate not just that you’re aware of them, but that you respect their media preferences and are relevant to them.

KDMC’s Total Community Coverage learning module discussed the ample possibilities for news organizations to reach out via local talk radio. But the possibilities extend beyond talk programming. If the leading radio stations reaching your local communities of difference offer mainly music or entertainment programming, talk to them to see how you might collaborate. This could include:

Contributing to or assisting with their programming (call-in shows, reviews, relevant headlines, etc.)
Featuring content or commentary from their staff or community in your venue (print, online, etc.)
Joint event sponsorships, or advertising on their station.

It’s possible you and your local radio stations share several goals for reaching and serving these communities.

(Thanks to Juan Tornoe’s Hispanic Trending blog for the tip.)

Knight News Challenge: Creativity Goldmine for Reaching Communities of Difference

2008-10-13T22:27:00+00:00

The Nov. 1 application deadline for the Knight News Challenge is fast approaching. As a former News Challenge grantee, I’ve been mentoring several current applicants, helping them hone their proposals. Through this, I’ve discovered that the News Challenge Garage and the list of already-submitted public entries are a potential gold mine of talent and ideas for innovative projects that could serve all kinds of communities of difference…

The Knight News Challenge provides grants for experimental digital media projects that build or bind a sense of geographic community. Anyone, anywhere can apply. You don’t have to be “in the media business,” or part of a nonprofit or educational institution, or in the US to apply. This opens the doors for a level of creative thinking about media that goes beyond what I’ve seen elsewhere.

The Garage is an online community where News Challenge applicants can engage in public discussion about their proposals. This helps them sharpen their ideas, question their assumptions, and figure out the resources they’ll need before they finalize and submit their entires.

If you’re trying to figure out creative ways to use online or mobile media to connect with underserved communities in your coverage area, you really should take the time to peruse the Garage and the list of submitted entries. Even though only a few of these projects will receive News Challenge grants, many of them are very good ideas that could benefit your community and your news org. Also, many of the people behind these ideas might make good additions to your team as staff, freelancers, or consultants.

From a Total Community Coverage standpoint, here are a few News Challenge ideas that caught my eye:

Rural Information, Practices, & Peer Learning Exchange (RIPPLE). This existing online network seeks funding to expand. They currently offers rural communities “virtual tools to share ideas, find answers, and connect with experts on hosted discussion forums.” They wants to expand their services to rural Hispanic and tribal communities. Whether or not RIPPLE gets a News Challenge grant, if you want to reach rural communities of difference, you might want to explore working with or learning from Ripple.
Success Through Storytelling (STS). This project would establish “a central online hub for education news with five satellite sites operated by students attending four targeted under-served high schools and one school for adults in Stockton, CA. ...[We will] establish operating newsrooms in each school ...to cover the surrounding community, telling stories that are over-looked by traditional news organizations. Stockton is a widely diverse community with four main high schools with majority populations of Hispanic, Black and Filipino students.”
CultureSurfer.com. Another existing site seeking to expand, CultureSurfer.com explores St. Louis arts and culture with the goal of enhancing cross-cultural appreciation and understanding. This includes highlighting “the talent within St. Louis’s untapped Asian, African, Bosnian, and Latin communities.”
Mobile Crimesourcing in Mexico City. Sounds like something that might also apply to many urban inner cities in the US and elsewhere…

These are just a few intriguing projects that could serve communities of difference that I found in a quick search. Who might be hatching News Challenge ideas in your backyard—or that could benefit communities in your backyard? Might it make sense for your news org to get involved?

You can apply, too! Journalists and news organizations also can apply for News Challenge grants. If you have an idea that might meet their criteria, this could be an option to get the seed money needed to make it happen—no small matter in these tight economic times. I strongly recommend that you post your idea in the Garage today so you can benefit from the expertise of this community before finalizing your entry.

MySpace and Facebook: Gateway to Youth, Latinos

2008-10-06T22:32:01+00:00

If you have (or know) teenagers or college students, you may have noticed that they’re MySpace and/or Facebook junkies. These social media service are powerhouses of online visibility. According to Alexa, right now MySpace is the Web’s third most popular site, after search giants Google and Yahoo. (YouTube currently ranks fourth, but then Facebook is fifth.) These services are not just for kids, struggling musicians, and attention-seekers. They’re actually direct conduits to the next generation of many important groups and communities that are often underserved by mainstream news…

If you’re not familiar with MySpace and Facebook, they both work in similar ways: You create a free account, and then collect “friends” (other users whom you know, want to know, or find interesting for some reason). By collecting friends, MySpace and Facebook users create their own unique virtual communities. They can communicate with their “friends” individually or en masse, and via groups that self-organize on either site.

Social media is geared toward individuals, but organizations and groups can have a presence there too. And many do, from companies and nonprofits to informal communities and clubs. This allows them to reach as many people at once as they care to have friends.

For example, many political campaigns (including Barack Obama and John McCain) have MySpace accounts—ostensibly to reach the younger voter base. Interest groups such as the Save Darfur Coalition are there, too. Even The Onion is on MySpace, which expands its readership and fan base considerably. The Orlando Sentinel is on MySpace, too. You’ll find a similar array of organizations and groups represented on Facebook, too.

Does your news org have a MySpace or Facebook presence yet? If not, you can sign up for free. It’s probably best to be on both services—but if you don’t have time for both, ask young people in your community (and especially youth from communities of difference) which service they prefer, and go with that first.

Once there, who might you “friend?” (Yes, on social media sites, “friend” is a verb.) You can friend whoever you wish. On MySpace, use the “find people” function to search for potential friends according to interests and more. Check for a city or neighborhood group near you. In Facebook it’s harder to search for friends or group by geography—but if you find a few local users or groups, check who they’ve friended for more leads.

Keep in mind that you’ll need to spend some time reaching out to people and groups on these sites in order to entice people to friend you. In social media, “If you build it, they will come,” almost never works. You’ll need to start engaging these users where they already are—by leaving comments on their pages, participating in forum discussions, etc.

If there’s a Hispanic presence in your region, consider also creating a presence for your news org on MySpace Latino. This Spanish-language site offers the same deep, rich, personal experience of MySpace, plus some extra interests highlighted (such as Latin music). If you want to reach millions of Spanish-speaking MySpace users all at once, consider advertising on MySpace Latino. You could have thousands of fresh eyes on your organization by this time next week.

How Diverse Is Your County? Census Maps Tell Stories

2008-09-29T16:11:00+00:00

Who’s in your coverage area, and how is local diversity changing? Some useful maps from the US Census can help you bring your local demographic picture into focus, and spot current and emerging trends that could help you hone your community coverage and outreach strategies…

First, in 2001 the US Census published Mapping Census 2000: The Geography of US Diversity. This 114-page pdf file puts county-level US Census data on diversity into sharp focus and context. Here are some good places to start your local explorations. (All page numbers refer to the numbering in the pdf file; page numbers shown on the printed version of this document are different.)

Overall diversity. Page 29, “Diversity 2000,” shows which counties were more or less diverse according to the US Census diversity index (the probability that two randomly selected people in that county would be of different races). Page 30 shows how much diversity changed at the county level since the 1990 Census.
Which counties are more/less white? People who identify as non-Hispanic white comprise the majority of the US population. Page 33 shows which counties reported an increasing or decreasing percentage of white people from 1990 to 2000. The most notable drop runs in rural counties in a straight line from Montana and North Dakota down to west Texas. Page 34 shows the white population percentage by county. (This Census publication offers similar analysis according to several other racial identities—but knowing trends with the local majority sets the context for understanding emerging minority demographic trends.)
Interracial families. This is one of the potentially most intriguing angles for your coverage and outreach. Page 94 indicates that in 2000, only a small percentage of people in most counties reported being of more than one race. But that percentage skyrockets for most counties in page 95, which shows how many people 18 and under (in 2000) were of more than one race. A basic fact of demographics is that the younger the generation, the bigger the population—so the 2010 Census will probably reveal an even bigger shift to bi- or multi-racial identification. Might this be a kind of community in its own right worthy of closer attention from your news organization?

Also, earlier this year the US Census released the Census Atlas of the US, which (with a little tweaking) can help news organizations see opportunities for demographic outreach and engagement:

The Atlas was packaged as a 300-page large-format print book containing over 800 maps that illustrate the data from the latest US Census (2000). The complete contents of the book are available as free pdf downloads from the Census site. The downside is that, for some reason, this valuable document was electronically encoded in a way that is not searchable—that is, each page (including all the text) has been captured as an image. So you can’t search the raw pdf files for keywords, etc. However, you can download the book chapter-by-chapter and process the pdf files using optical character recognition (OCR) software to create a reasonably searchable version.

Today I was browsing chapter 3 of the Atlas, on Race and Hispanic Origin. Page 9 of this pdf file offers the story of bi- and multiracial American couples in greater detail: Who’s marrying (or living with) whom, racially speaking, in particular counties? Meanwhile, pages 10 and 11 look at the demographic distribution of bi- and multiracial children as of 2000. (Note that since the 1990 Census did not gather data on mixed-race families or individuals, it’s harder to look at local changes on this front. But the 2010 Census will offer change data.)

What do the maps in these documents say about race demographic trends in your county or region? How might this context relate to your stories, marketing, or strategies? Please comment below.

Go Mobile: Serving Youth as a Long-Term Strategy

2008-09-24T00:43:00+00:00

Where will your news audience come from in five, ten, or twenty years? If your future news audience clearly prefers mobile media (and they probably do), then go mobile, you must!...

Young people are perhaps the largest demographic that’s currently under-served by news organizations. But they are perhaps the most important community to engage. For any news organization considering its long-term prospects, shifting media preferences are a crucial concern. People generally develop news and information preferences early. And in any business, it’s much easier to adapt your offerings to work with people’s evolving preferences—rather than to try to convince them that they should keep wanting whatever you’re accustomed to offering.

In our Total Community Coverage series earlier this year, we mentioned recent research from the Pew Internet and American Life project about US demographics on mobile media use. According to Pew, 75% of Americans currently own cell phones—and 31% of all US cell phone owners are aged 18-29. On a typical day, 73% of cell phone owners aged 18-29 use their phones for something other than voice calls (sending or receiving text messages, taking pictures or video, instant messaging, accessing news or information, etc.)

That Pew study only polled adults, so their data do not take teens, “tweens,” or younger children into account. However, Frank W. Baker has created an excellent roundup of current research into the media habits of children. There I found:

Deloitte & Touche 2007 study: 84% of US “Millennials” (people aged 13-24) send and receive text messages on their cell phones, and 46% of Millennials use their cell phones as an entertainment device.
J-Ideas 2007 study: A total of 53% of US teens currently get news online at least weekly. Furthermore, 15% of teens use mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs to get news several times weekly.

Plus, CBS News reported in 2007 that by 2009, “over 10 million US kids will get cell phones.” Like I said: Media preferences start young!

For a potentially humbling but valuable experience, try accessing your favorite news sites (including your own) via your cell phone. If you don’t have a “smart phone” that can browse the internet, then sign up for whatever text messaging services those sites offer. Keep an eye out for these issues:

Auto-detection of mobile device? When you accessed the site’s main URL, did it automatically serve up a mobile version of the site? This is an important part of mobile usability, since pages typically take longer to download, and since mobile users might not have time or patience to try again. For a good example of mobile auto-detection that works for almost every smart phone, check out the Houston Chronicle’s site. Just go to their regular URL, Chron.com, on your smart phone. The Fox News site also auto-detects mobile devices. The mobile version of the Drudge Report offers this list of mobile-friendly news sites.
Special URL needed for mobile devices? Some news sites require mobile users to visit a special URL to access their mobile-friendly version. For instance, if you want to see the mobile-friendly version of ABC News, you must visit m.abcnews.com. (Except on an iPhone, which currently cannot download that site.) This is a reasonable halfway step for your mobile news audience—but it’s still a significant potential barrier. Mobile visitors who don’t already know your mobile URL will have to search for it via search engines or on your site. If your mobile site currently has a separate URL, make sure a link to your mobile site appears near the top-left corner of your regular site, for easy mobile access.
Text messaging services. Most cell phone users don’t own smart phones—which cost much more to buy, and for the carrier contract. However, virtually every cell phone in use today can send and receive text messages. So in addition to offering a mobile-friendly version of your site, it’s a good idea to also offers free text-message alert services that mention top headlines and breaking news in a variety of categories. Well, at least “free” to subscribe—cell owners do pay for text messages they receive. That’s why it’s important to allow mobile users to customize their text alert preferences, and to never send them more than a few messages daily at most. Check out the offerings from Bakersfield.com and Reuters.

What mobile options are your favorite news sites offering—or missing? Please comment below. Need some guidance on making your site mobile-friendly? Check out the Newspaper Association of America’s new development guide for mobile sites (reviewed here by the Houston Chronicle’s online operations manager David Herrold).

White and Male Privilege Meets the 2008 Election

2008-09-15T20:28:00+00:00

Yesterday on BlogHer, Maria Niles posted a must-read primer on the privileged status our society tends to accord whites and males, and how this might affect the current presidential race and beyond. Squirming yet? Don’t worry, you’re not alone…

In Racism and the race: What’s white privilege got to do with it?, Niles notes that race and gender privilege is a thorny, taboo topic in our society—not generally deemed fit for polite conversation. Even in many newsrooms, where the white male-concocted culture of traditional journalism often persists despite increasing diversity, raising the issue of privilege is an easy way to start a heated, emotional argument.

No one likes to admit that they may have benefitted from social privilege. This acknowledgement stirs strong emotional reactions, from guilt to defensiveness to denial to penitence, and more. That makes talking about privilege—and learning to recognize and address it—much harder.

Niles’ essay includes links to many seminal resources, including Tim Wise’s Sept. 13 essay, White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election; and Peggy McInTosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.

Here’s a quote from McIntosh that nails the essence of what it means to have privilege:

“I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.”

Meanwhile, Wise offers a litany of sharply-worded examples of how white and male privilege is manifesting in current campaign coverage and discourse. Although he’s obviously denigrating the Republican candidates, he does make some good point regarding the effects of privilege on the questions that people (including journalists) choose to raise and the assumptions they make. Here are just a couple:

“White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because ‘every family has challenges,’ even as black and Latino families with similar ‘challenges’ are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay. “...White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t [roll about] with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re ‘untested.’”

Niles notes about the resources mentioned in her essay: “Privilege is not just afforded to whites, however. It is something that in this country benefits men, Christians, heterosexuals, able-bodied people, ... I am including a reading list on privilege for those who are open to learning more about the concept and not just interested in staking out a defensive, so-called color blind position. The more that we open up and engage in these discussions, the closer we inch towards eliminating racism (and sexism and every other ism out there).”

Seems like a good place to start.

Have you noticed white or male privilege in action in your newsroom or community? Does it get acknowledged or addressed? What role can or should news organizations play in clarifying this issue? Please comment below.

Do “Hispanic-Fluentials” Like Your News?

2008-09-08T21:58:00+00:00

What are Hispanic bloggers saying about your news and info?...

An Aug. 28 article by Jose Villa in MediaPost’s newly launched Engage:Hispanics blog begs this question. And the answer might effect your news brand more than you’d think.

Villa gives an overview of research concerning the recent rise and influence of Hispanic bloggers, as well as growing Hispanic interest in reading blogs. Some highlights:

According to ComScore Media Metrix, “WordPress and TypePad (two popular blogging platforms and networks) generated 2.9 million monthly unique Hispanic visitors in July, surpassing the traffic of popular Hispanic destinations such as Univision.com, Terra.com, and Batanga.com.”
“The latest AdAge Hispanic Fact Pack says that 5.35 percent of online Hispanics visited a blog and 2.3 percent wrote a blog in the last 30 days.”
“A March 2008 Burson-Marsteller study revealed that the most influential Hispanic consumers, dubbed ‘Hispanic-fluentials,’ use the Internet to share their views about products and brands as well as to connect with friends and family. Specifically, 49 percent of Hispanic-fluentials used blogs to tell others about product experiences.”

Villa’s article is written for marketers and advertisers of consumer products and services. But news brands need good marketing, too. As bloggers of all kinds become increasingly findable and influential, it’s important to pay attention to what they’re saying—and to be responsive to the points that they and their communities raise.

This means that as you keep any eye on inbound links to or mentions of your news and other offerings, be sure to flag especially influential bloggers. Make sure that at least some people in charge of analyzing this information are fluent in Spanish—you don’t want to miss any nuances with this community. Are there any especially influential Hispanic bloggers (covering any topic, newsy or not) in your community, or who are popular with local Hispanics? Be sure to read them, and engage in conversation there.

If connecting with your local Hispanic community is a priority for your news org, you might want to subscribe to the Engage:Hispanics blog. (Even though MediaPost requires you to provide a surprising amount of personal information in exchange for a free membership.)

Connecting with Jewish Communities (Gefilte Fish not Required)

2008-09-01T22:44:00+00:00

Learn how to engage community from the masters of this art.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Jews—whose religion and culture are as shaped by diaspora as they are rooted in traditions from the Holy Land—are particularly adept at building and maintaining community through media, both globally and locally.

For a global view, check out the media links at the Jewish Daily Forward, and the long list of links to Jewish newspapers and magazines at JewishLink. And from Jerusalem, Chareidio offers a daily audio podcast of Jewish news that can even be delivered to mobile phones worldwide.

Locally, much Jewish media centers around Jewish community centers, like the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan—which offers local community news, programs registration, and more kinds of in-person and virtual connection.

If you’re building bridges with local Jewish communities, it helps to understand a bit about the various types of Judaism. Judaism101 and About.com: Judaism are good places to start. Amidst Judaism’s diversity, learning and communication are universally prized—which is why even the most conservative, private Jewish communities can be quite sophisticated in their use of online and mobile media.

For instance, many of the Chasidim (an insular branch of Orthodox Judaism which maintains a separate and highly traditional lifestyle) are very active online—especially through the organization Chabad, which hosts the lively ChabadTalk forum.

Houses of worship are the heart and soul of many Jewish communities. You can find local Orthodox synagogues or minyans (prayer groups) through Go Daven. Here’s a searchable database of Conservative synagogues (Note: “Conservative” and “Orthodox” Judaism are not the same: Both believe Jewish law is binding, but only Conservative Jews believe that law can change.)

NOTE: This post is part of a special series on how news orgs can connect with communities of difference through communities of faith.

See the series intro for links to the rest of this series.

Most US Jews adhere to the Reform movement—which, while rooted in Jewish tradition, tends to have the most tolerance on social issues such as homosexuality and grants individuals the greatest autonomy to choose which Jewish laws and practices to follow. The Union for Reform Judaism has a directory of Reform congregations. Reconstructionist Jews take the view that the Jewish people (not God’s command) are what make Jewish laws and rituals sacred and meaningful. The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation offers a directory of congregations. Also, the progressive and increasingly popular Jewish Renewal movement holds many events nationwide.

But if you really want to connect with the Jewish community, dive into Jewish culture—especially the music (from traditional Klezmer to Orthodox rapper Matisyahu), food, slang and humor, holidays, and special ceremonies marking major life events. (Here’s a fascinating new trend in faith and digital media: Jewish funeral and bereavement services by phone—and now even by webcast, both live and archived.)

Perhaps the most compelling reason for news organizations to get more connected with the Jewish community is that these people really know how to “do” community—so they can offer many valuable lessons and examples on that front. Furthermore, Jewish communities tend to be very news conscious and media savvy, they have diverse and interesting perspectives, the conversation’s always good, and of course, that’s were the latkes are.

The Buddha and Your News

2008-08-27T15:38:01+00:00

There’s a misconception about Buddhists that they just hang out meditating and ignore current events or popular culture. In fact, Buddhism is about balance and focus rather than 24/7 navel-gazing. It’s also about social and political action—which, in a time of war and multiple social and economic crises, may make Buddhists an especially interesting and important community to connect with.

For instance, right now in South Korea and Thailand, Buddhist monks are playing leading roles in large-scale demonstrations concerning their respective governments. Also, Buddhist economics is a key influence behind the increasingly popular cultural trend called Voluntary Simplicity.

Many Buddhists do watch the news closely, and there’s a global market for news from a Buddhist perspective—especially (but not exclusively) among immigrant communities from major Buddhist regions such as southeast Asia, Tibet, and Korea. Check out the Buddhist Channel for current headlines.

On the lighter side, there’s also the Buddhist Forum on Non-Buddhist Media. This mainly focuses on popular culture. Want to know what Buddhists think about Battlestar Galactica? Whether some Buddhists think “the Force” is like “the Way?” What kinds of music Buddhists think is cool? Here you go.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, most Buddhists in America live in western (45%) and southern (23%) states. Most are white (53%) or Asian (32%). Rough estimates of Buddhists in America range around five to six million—about three-quarters of whom are “ethnic Buddhists” (who consider Buddhism an inherited family tradition, whether recent or not). The remainder are converts of various backgrounds. Here’s a good Christian Science Monitor backgrounder on Buddhism in the US.

NOTE: This post is part of a special series on how news orgs can connect with communities of difference through communities of faith.

See the series intro for links to the rest of this series.

Where are your local Buddhists? Because Buddhists are busy living an examined life (or perhaps examined in living a non-busy life), there are scores of available resources for finding Buddhist communities in the real world and online. A good place to start is this Buddhist media clearinghouse, which lists everything from bilingual Chinese-English resources, to mixed teachings in Polish, to resources for Buddhists in Alaska.

It’s remarkably easy to meet and talk to Buddhists. There are many organized sanghas (communities led by nuns and monks in residence), centers, and temples around the US. (Here’s a list.) Also, Buddhist meditation classes are available just about everywhere—even in the fundamentalist Christian bastion of Colorado Springs. Anyone who would like to learn to focus and relax a little bit, or is just curious, tends to be welcomed openly.