ORLANDO, Fla. – A new state law restricting individuals from sleeping on public property is shaking up communities across Florida but has also inspired an unprecedented journalism collaboration uniting 10 news outlets to tell the complex stories behind the issue.
Recounting how the idea got off the ground, Judith Smelser, president and general manager of Central Florida Public Media, asked a simple question: “Could we get local news leaders in a room together to talk about what are our common challenges?”
Smelser first called her friend Megan Stokes at the Oviedo Community News. The two then brought in Mark Brewer from the Central Florida Foundation. Within a few months, what began with a simple question and a couple of phone calls grew into a news collaborative – the first for the region, bringing together WKMG-TV, the Orlando Sentinel, Central Florida Public Media, WUCF, Lakeland’s LKLDNow, the Osceola News Gazette, the Oviedo Community News, Orlando’s The Community Paper, Winter Garden’s Vox Populi, and the Winter Park Voice…