So in that vein, this is definitely the beginning. I meant watching as more than just watching the pigeons eat the bread. I hope to encourage our writers to follow up on a lot of those concerns because students will likely have similar ones. The ideal I have in mind is that we opened the forum for the safety conversation already happening on campus and that people will respond - likely with your questions - and we will respond back to them with the answers (with good journalism of course). We’re acting as the string between the two tin cups being held by students and officials (god that was contrived but it works).

I suppose my response then is: stay tuned for an update.

I really like Michael’s definition of public journalism, in particular the part about focusing on solutions and avoiding placing blame. Of course, I would say that’s a characteristic of any responsible and smart journalism, be it “public” or “traditional”. However, after reading the main story, while I believe it does a pretty good job of investigating why call boxes haven’t been installed, I don’t know if it really fits the standards of not placing blame. In fact, the first two-thirds of the story seems to be mostly placing blame on the university and quoting the officials all saying basically “It’s not my fault; and this is expensive.” And if I were a student and read that the student association approved a bill for more call boxes, yet 9 months later they still haven’t done anything, that would make me cynical about the effectiveness of any student association action and question whether I should really bother to heed the paper’s call to express my opinions to the student association. After all, what irate reader calls up the newspaper to complain to the agate clerk? You want to talk to the editor 

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong in placing blame (or, if we want a better-sounding phrase, pinpointing where the problem lies) as long as you also offer solutions; and this overall package certainly does some of that. I think the reporting, the call to action, and the “information you can use”-type tips could go further and deeper though. Some thoughts:

 Everybody says these safety measures are expensive, and the president only approved enough money for little more than half the call box project. What pot does that money come out of? How big is the pot? Who fills the pot? Where is the rest of it going to? What about other sources of financing the project? That’s information people need to know. Telling the administration “I want more money for safety” is not as effective as telling them “I want more money for safety and here is where I think you should divert funds from.” It’s part of providing possible solutions.
 What has the student association done in the past nine months to push the university on the project? From the story, I gathered that they passed the bill, nothing has been done, and the approved budget is well under what is needed. Again, based on that information alone, it’s hard for a reader to think that complaining to the student association would do much good, especially since the association agreed with the stance that more safety measures were needed, yet haven’t gotten it done. So are they really the right/only avenue to effect action?
 Aside from contacting the student association, which campus officials can readers contact to voice their concerns and displeasure with campus safety?
 Context: How do the number of call boxes compare to the number on other similar-sized campuses? The graphic says there were 78 assaults in 2007 in parking garages (where the 77 call boxes are). Is that high or low? How many assaults were there in other areas of campus? How do the high-crime areas correspond to the planned locations for the call boxes? They replaced 19 burnt out lights. How many lights were there total? 20? 200? One of the stated concerns was that the media coverage has made people think campus isn’t safe. Simply providing these numbers without context doesn’t help to change or substantiate that perception.
 This one almost seems too obvious: What do these call boxes look like and where are they in the garages? The story quoted a student saying he doesn’t even know there were call boxes in the garages. If that’s representative of your readership, then it would serve them to know where these things are and whether that thing in the corner is a call box or a circuit breaker, especially when they are running away from an assaulter and looking to call for help.
 The police say cameras are expensive and raise the privacy issue. What kind of privacy issues are we talking about with cameras in parking garages (not dorms)? What lawful thing would you do in a garage that you would worry about cameras picking up? It’d be helpful to follow up on this statement to see if there’s any truth in it or if it’s just an excuse to justify not spending money for student safety. And what about the effectiveness of cameras? Any statistics from other colleges on this?
 I like the Weekly Update page of tips to improve safety. However, I think it’s a bit unrealistic to ask people to cut out 3/4th of a broadsheet and fold it five times to fit into a wallet. If you want people to cut something out and keep it on them, condense the info down to the size of two credit cards so that they can fold once and have it fit in their wallets. You can even try positioning a box at the same spot on both sides of that sheet and print info on the front and back.
 The front page design: I’m not sure I share Michael’s stance that any art would be sensationalizing the story. You can always approach art from the standpoint of “take action, improve safety” rather than “crime is rampant”. The right image would be no more sensational than, say, a student’s quote saying it’s unsafe to live by campus. I think the design works fine for the most part, though the top half feels a bit cluttered for my taste. I like the fact that the hed actively calls readers to action, but I’m not sure if the subhed accurately reflects the information conveyed in that main story. Isn’t the story saying that the university officials are lagging behind and NOT getting the job done? They haven’t put up call boxes; they don’t have the money to put up but about half of the number approved; and they are saying security cameras likely won’t happen.

I think this is a strong package overall and a great start to a good journalistic project. And I hope that that’s all it is — a start, and not the end, because there seems to be a lot more angles to this story to investigate rather than sit back and wait for reactions and new developments before digging deeper.