It's been a year of better conversations. Let's continue to build on that.
A year ago, the Coloradoan brought life back to the opinion page by launching the Coloradoan Conversations platform with some assistance from collaborators with the Northern Colorado Deliberative Journalism Project.
Each week, one or two questions are asked about local issues, and responses are collected in the online comments, which requires only a free registration. Recaps are written about most of the questions, summarizing what was heard and providing some analysis to push the conversation forward.
Once a month, we also gather in person at the Old Town Library as part of The Scoop series (with our most recent session Wednesday, March 15 on misinformation).
Two key basic functions of the Coloradoan Conversations forum are to provide ongoing opportunities for a broad range of residents to express their opinions and for others to be exposed to those perspectives. But we also hope to go far beyond those initial goals. The platform is an ongoing experiment, with the much more ambitious goal of becoming a national example of a local online forum that truly contributes positively to our local information ecosystem and helps our community address its shared problems more productively.
More:Want to start a conversation? Submit your Coloradoan Conversation Starter here
The staff and students with the Colorado State University Center for Public Deliberation, along with CSU journalism and Honors program students in classes dedicated to support the DJP, have begun to develop ways to both analyze and contribute to the conversations by working to expand the voices represented, provide fact checks or research when needed, and help spark more useful interaction between posters. CPD students are trained as small group facilitators, and we are working to adapt those skills to the more asynchronous online environment of Coloradoan Conversations.
We want the experience to go beyond just an individual collection of disconnected opinions and much more of an ongoing conversation where people learn from each other. Participants don’t simply express their opinions but work to refine their opinions through authentic engagement. We will also experiment more with different types of questions and prompts, like the chance to respond to the range of viewpoints about information for last week’s question about misinformation and perhaps short videos designed to spark discussion.
Creating a positive and interactive environment is a tall task for an online forum, but one we are excited to take on and are working to build capacity to support. In April, we will attend a national gathering hosted by the American Press Institute on innovative practices for opinion pages to share our work and learn from others, and bring some new ideas back to Fort Collins.
If you haven’t participated in the Coloradoan Conversations yet, we encourage to join us. Post your thoughts, engage others, and help us build something special. You are also always welcome to email us at mcarcas@colostate.edu, ericlarsen@coloradoan.com and rebeccapowell@coloradoan.com to share any ideas or concerns you have about the platform as we continue to develop it.
More:Here's how to participate in Coloradoan Conversations, the Coloradoan's new opinion forum
Martin Carcasson is director of the Center for Public Deliberation at Colorado State University, which is a founding member of the Northern Colorado Deliberative Journalism Project. Eric Larsen is the executive editor of the Coloradoan, a founding member of the project. Rebecca Powell is content strategist at the Coloradoan. Together, they work each week to bring you Coloradoan Conversations, the Coloradoan's opinion forum.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: It's been a year of Coloradoan Conversations. Let's continue to build.
