Partnering with America Amplified

Paola Rodriguez led Arizona Public Media’s partnership with America Amplified. Tasked with attempting to grow AZPM’s Spanish-language election content, Rodriguez took the opportunity to also build the framework needed to establish community engagement in the newsroom. Before, reporters would create content that often only sought the perspective of lawmakers and decision-makers. Rodriguez taught reporters how to conduct listening sessions, build information resource guides as well as reshape reporting to lead with community perspectives first rather than have it be the last step. Rodriguez also created virtual and in-person events, like Democracy 101, meant to share election information.

Rodriguez also led AZPM’s partnership with the University of Arizona’s Spanish and Portuguese Department. While there were three full-time bilingual journalists on staff in the radio department, that did not always mean that they had the capacity to also conduct story translations. Through reporting she had done about the UA department, Rodriguez discovered that a partnership would be possible. With the permission of her news director, Rodriguez worked with UA’s faculty to establish an internship for a senior undergraduate student majoring in Spanish Translation. Under Rodriguez’s supervision, the student would translate an average of six stories a week for AZPM while earning course credit. Eventually, through this program, Rodriguez was able to establish “AZPM En Español.” At the time, no other NPR affiliate station in Arizona was providing consistent bilingual news to a predominantly Latino community. AZPM was the first.

Democracy 101

AZPM worked with gallery owners Mel Domiguez and Melissa Brown-Dominguez to contract local Pascua Yaqui artist Yisela Molina to create artwork unique for Democracy 101. Molina took what encompassed Tucson and made it into a print that could be shared on the back of a poster that shared election resource information. The hope was that attendees would take home the artwork, while also learning about how to vote.

AZPM News Reporter Paola Rodriguez led engaging panel discussions with community experts for YOUR VOTE MATTERS 2024: A Democracy 101 Town Hall, on Tuesday, October 29, at Pueblo High School.

Featured guests who spoke on the topics of Understanding Elections and How Votes are Counted and Why Your Vote Matters included:

  • Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, Pima County Recorder

  • Constance Hargrove, Pima County Elections Director

  • Lisa Sanchez, Professor, University of Arizona School of Government & Public Policy

  • Oscar Flores, Deputy Attorney General, Pascua Yaqui Tribe Office of the Attorney General

In addition to the discussions, attendees were treated to performances/showcases by local artists, including:

  • Cash Lansky, Hip Hop Artist and Performer

  • Katharine Len Yee Mitchell, Production Manager, Borderlands Theater

  • Mel Dominguez & Melissa Brown-Dominguez, Owners, Gallery Mitotera

  • Laura Lopez, Thrive Project Supervisor, City of Tucson

Election Guides

Virtual Town halls

Audience Engagement Consultation Work.

  • Warren County Record

    As an ambassador through the Potter Digital Ambassador program at the world’s first journalism school, Paola Rodriguez was paired with the Warren County Record to help amplify their audience engagement and multimedia work. During the week that she spent with the newsroom staff of three, she was able to help move their publication to a digital-first platform and utilize their dormant Twitter page and Facebook to push content. Rodriguez personally worked with their publisher, Tim Schmidt, to see which model worked best for them. By the time Rodriguez left, their Twitter analytics increased by over 150% and Facebook posts were more timely and relevant leading to an increase in page views. She also left behind guides on how to properly analyze their metrics on Facebook and Google, a guide for how to utilize Hootsuite for social scheduling and numerous templates for how to move forward digitally first.

    Below you will find the package materials that were provided to WCR.

    Materials

  • Prison Journalism Project

    As a part of Paola Rodriguez’s capstone, she was paired with four other journalists, where they each worked with Prison Journalism Project’s Yukari Kane. The team was tasked with spending a semester researching, analyzing and proposing a plan for PJP on how to increase page analytics and hit their target audience. With permission from group organizers, the team utilized Facebook support groups to reach families who were affected by incarceration to see what sort of coverage they would like to see on this issue. They utilized Qualtrics to survey them and following the survey, consenting participants were then placed in focus groups to better understand the sort of content they would prefer to see. The largest issue found was that primarily no one knew of PJP or that they trained those who are and have been incarcerated to be citizen journalists. The team also utilized analytics to further show PJP that they aren’t receiving page views.

    However, one of the primary issues that PJP faces is that they do not have the funds to push their content or pay their writers. In the proposal to Kane, the team recommended human-first stories and visual illustrations as there is a disconnect between the reader and writer. They also recommended collaborating with other established projects and nonprofits like the Marshall Project to bring readers to their website.

    Below you will find the end-of-semester package that was shared with PJP.

    PJP Package