I decided to repost this NCDD blog post from April 2008. I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can tell our stories about dialogue and deliberation in compelling ways, and the amazing coverage on the Oregonian website Judith Mowry got for her work came to mind.  This unique, engaging, inspiring media coverage featuring audio recordings of dialogue participants in a Portland dialogue program on gentrification is still online, and any of you who haven’t checked it out should do so. It’s just too cool!

You can also revisit the May 28, 2008 article about the Restorative Listening Project in the New York Times (yep – I said the New York Times!), also still online.

–

Original April 17, 2008 post in the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation blog…

NCDD member Judith Mowry runs a Restorative Listening Project in Portland, Oregon that uses dialogue, storytelling and restorative justice to engage the city in race dialogue. Some amazing press coverage went up today on the Oregonian website which highlights the project using articles, a multimedia website and beginning a year long community wide dialogue. Check it out at www.oregonlive.com/special/index.ssf/2008/04/speak_listen_heal_index_page.html.

Mowry, now with the city Office of Neighborhood Involvement, designed the project from her background in restorative justice, which aims to mend harm by inviting the sufferer to describe the harm, revealing, for both sides, their shared humanity. “The one who strikes the blow doesn’t know the force of the blow,” Mowry says. “Only the one who has received the blow knows its force.”

I love one page of this web coverage in particular, and the image on the right shows you what the page looks like. The page allows you to click on the faces of dialogue participants and then listen to audio of them talking about what race and gentrification means to them (I clicked on Judith’s name so her image and audio is the one highlighted). It’s an amazing example of how to cover dialogue in the local press using new media.

Be sure to also read the accompanying article by Erin Hoover Barnett, called “Speak. Listen. Heal.” and the column by S. Renee Mitchell titled “A successful crossing of the racial divide.”