The Center for Community-Engaged Media (CCEM), housed within Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication, hopes its ongoing work in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, will help build a more connected and collaborative news ecosystem for local residents.

Staff members discussed this work, which began in the Fall of 2025, at two separate conferences in April: The Keystone News Summit and the Local News Researchers Workshop. The CCEM hopes this work, which centers community voices to map the Delaware County news ecosystem, will have a significant impact on how ecosystem assessments are conducted in both the state and nationally.

“We believe that you cannot help cover your communities without learning about your community. That is why we have made certain to center community voices in this project,” said Letrell Crittenden, director of the CCEM. “It is our hope that our effort will not only help newsrooms cover Delaware County. We hope it helps connect local residents together and provides information on how and where they can gather news and information. There is no news without the community.”

In this effort, a team of researchers led by Andrea Wenzel has collected numerous datasets about Delaware County, a unique area that encompasses urban, suburban and rural communities and has great diversity both racially and politically. The effort began with a survey of local residents that focused on understanding how they get information and what information they desire.

Additionally, with the assistance of Influencer Journalism, CCEM noted key community members and organizations that are heavily engaged in connecting with local communities, particularly online. The effort also led to the creation of a community asset map that tracks key places that are essential to information in the county, including places of worship, community centers and more.

“Having been on the other side, having worked for government, I can say that I definitely changed direction on projects based on public input,” said Nina Kelly, postdoctoral research fellow. “And I want people to know that.”

After graduating from Wayne State University with her doctorate, Kelly joined the CCEM. With a focus on the center’s Delaware County project, Kelly lends her experience in urban planning and community engagement research to the program.

Kelly learned about community-centered journalism throughout her doctoral research. After encountering the work of Crittenden and Andrea Wenzel, associate professor, she saw how urban planning and journalism go hand in hand.

“When I learned that there were people in media and community journalism who were engaging residents in what they were doing, I was like, ‘Well, that’s amazing,’” Kelly said.

One item informed by urban planning has been the CCEM’s community asset map of Delaware County. With the assistance of Temple University students, the CCEM tracked more than 100 institutions that help provide or facilitate communication within the county. These include newsrooms, community organizations, places of worship, schools and various gathering spaces. Developed on MyGoogle Maps, the map can be updated to add additional assets.

This model follows similar work Crittenden has done in the past, notably within Pittsburgh as director of inclusion and audience growth at the American Press Institute.

“These maps cannot only be used by newsrooms,” he said. “They can also serve as resources for communities. Once complete, we hope this map can be utilized by both newsrooms and local residents.”

Kelly’s initial work involved attending Delco community meetings. Most recently, she attended a Chester listening session hosted by WHYY.

“Just listening to all of the folks [in Chester], the thing that kept coming up was that they felt like they weren’t getting the right information,” said Kelly. “They weren’t getting information they could actually respond to and act upon. They felt people in power were not being transparent."

Through her experience with Detroit Documenters and other civic engagement organizations,  Kelly recognized that Delco residents could benefit from sharing their stories and highlighting their concerns, especially in communities where local journalism has been depleted.

“People have roots in these kinds of inner-ring suburban communities, and they have experienced a loss in local journalism just like bigger cities have,” she said. “Whether it’s outlets going away entirely or ownership shifting to where it’s not wholly owned and operated by people who live in the community.”

While community-centered journalism is growing in importance in dense cities, it is just as valuable in suburban communities, especially those becoming increasingly diverse.

“The county is growing in population, especially in certain areas. So, with more people, it’s diversifying over time,” said Kelly. “It’s important to do a check-in, ‘Are we reaching everybody we need to reach?’”

Enter the CCEM’s Delaware County project. The multiphase plan aims to bridge these information gaps and connect communities through on-the-ground, engaged journalism.

“There are several phases of this project,” said Kelly. “There are a few phases of data collection happening before doing one or more community meetings or workshops. Collecting the data through interviewing and visiting communities, and even analyzing survey data, is very interesting from an academic standpoint. But it’s also human.”

Kelly feels that the humanity of the work is key to the project’s success. She calls the interviewing and relationship-building aspects her favorite part of the job.

“It comes from the participants. It has nothing to do with the other researchers or me, frankly. It’s totally them,” said Kelly. “Once you let them tell their stories, you start to see some throughlines between people. That’s where the magic could possibly happen. That’s what I’m excited about.”

The rollout of the CCEM’s Delaware County project will continue over the coming months, with community listening sessions and workshops slated as the next step.

“It’ll be really interesting to see what happens over the next few months,” said Kelly. “Hopefully, we can move something forward that helps residents connect with each other and feel more empowered by the information that they have.”