The event pairs with the paper's ongoing infant mortality reporting.
The Poynter Institute, a nonprofit school for journalism and global agenda-setter for the industry, explains how the newsroom landed on this event.
It starts with an engaged editorial staff, of course, and includes the Solution Journalism Network. Reporter Brittany Schock, who authored a series called "Healing Hope," got in touch with the SJN. The network awarded her work its top pick for the best solutions journalism from 2016, as Poynter points out. From there, the baby shower came into view.
"Why are so many babies dying in Richland County?" Schock asked at the outset of her reporting. (Richland County is about 80 miles southwest of Cleveland.)
It's one thing to lay the problem and its causes on the table; that's the heart of journalism.
From there, though, Schock and her team recognized a need beyond that, and with a $10,000 boost from the SJN, she and the Source began searching for ways to solve this problem.
Schock reported on the Baby Box Co. phenomenon, and the paper noted that, afterward, "People started talking. Baby boxes started trending nationally, furthering local conversation. Six months later, baby boxes are now available in Richland County."
Problem. Solution.
From Poynter:
"The list of weird stuff that my staff is willing to try is long," said Jay Allred, Richland Source's publisher. "This is a reach for us."
Neither he nor Schock could remember exactly where the idea came from, "but somebody said, what if we flipped it to healthy families and healthy babies? We flip that story to 'let's be healthy.'"
So the community engagement project is a traditional celebration of life – a baby shower.
