Soapbox Cincinnati and NKY thrives reported on five city neighborhoods including Walnut Hills, Covington, West End, Camp Washington, and Westwood continuously in the “On The Ground” series.
For each series, Soapbox gathered community residents, stakeholders, community councils and development organization partners to determine what stories the neighborhoods would like to tell. The community-shaped editorial calendar resulted in many of our favorite feature stories reported on between 2016 and 2020. There is genuine interest in urban communities that are often underreported and underrepresented in local media, especially during 2020, which was a year dominated by the national election, a pandemic and misinformation.
Soapbox hosted a weekly Community Open Newsroom in conjunction with the Walnut Hills series in the winter of 2020 headquartered at Caffè Vivace. Twenty-two neighborhood champions joined our live broadcasts hosted by Kathryne Gardette. Our Community Open Newsroom closed at the start of the nationwide COVID shutdown.
Since its early days as a safe haven for black students, Frederick Douglass School has experienced significant decline, but a handful of passionate administrators, parents and community members are hoping to change that refrain by introducing new community-oriented goals and programs.
With an array of private, parochial options and one beleaguered neighborhood school, many in Walnut Hills are fighting to change the perception that good education is only for the privileged.
In its heyday, Walnut Hills was thriving as a diverse, mixed-income community. After decades of dwindling investment, the community has created a united front to bring the neighborhood back to viability while honoring the diverse heritage of its people and economy.
Multimedia documentarians Chris Ashwell and Shawn Braley from Cincy Stories will help reveal the people, places and projects driving progress in Walnut Hills, pilot neighborhood for Soapbox's new On The Ground series.
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