Founded on a belief that Detroit’s 700,000 residents deserve a transparent, innovative and diversely staffed news organization, BridgeDetroit is a non-profit news and engagement organization that is laser focused on lifting up the issues that Detroiters themselves identify as important to their lives.
BridgeDetroit is developing a Community Priorities Model that will continually engage Detroiters to identify and prioritize the issues that challenge their understanding of and connection to vital civic information.
BridgeDetroit produces journalism and community information directly responsive to its Community Priorities Model, including:
- Engagement-Focused Journalism, produced in a way that connects Detroiters to each other, and to decision-makers and journalists, to deepen their understanding of the issues they identify.
- High-Impact, project-based journalism, produced along themes identified each year that have the highest community importance and the most opportunity for community change.
- Direct Response Journalism. This is service journalism at its most individual level, directed to Detroiters whose information gaps prevent them from fully participating in the city’s civic life. Often, this is as simple as providing a phone number for someone who needs information about a utility shutoff or an impending eviction, but it can also include information about meeting times and locations, the purpose and function of various parts of government, or the process by which governmental decisions get made.
BridgeDetroit is a project of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Michigan.