Decibel Hosts Third Rundberg Sounding Board Meeting

On Saturday July 25, the Decibel team hosted a meeting with the Rundberg Sounding Board to discuss recent videos, upcoming projects, and wrapping up the reporting project in Rundberg. This was the third meeting this group has had this year, and the seventh meeting for the entire reporting project.

First, the Decibel team shared some reporting updates: in the last three months we’ve created 23 reports on the Rundberg area. Five of those were longform videos, and 17 were social-first vertical videos. One was a digital article. Since our team started the Rundberg reporting project, we’ve created 126 social videos and 34 longform videos, averaging 1.6 social videos per week and 1.8 longer videos per month.

But it’s not about numbers, it’s about how we did depicting the community. One of the main roles of our Sounding Board is to watch through our longform videos and provide feedback. We ask three questions: ‘did this story discuss topics useful to the Rundberg community?’, ‘does this story accurately represent the community?’ and ‘how would you rate the storytelling of this project.’

92% of respondents said topics were useful to Rundberg, and just over 5% said they might be. No one has said the topics were not useful. 95% said Rundberg was accurately represented, and 4% said maybe. No one said the depictions were inaccurate. 65% rated the reporting as ‘excellent,’ and 34% rated it as ‘pretty good.’ No one had rated a story as ‘neither good nor bad,’ ‘poor,’ or ‘very poor.’

Our team also discussed future projects, including following developments at Dobie Middle School as they wait for accountability ratings to be released, a profile of the Tropicana Cuban Restaurant, and exploring what’s happening with AISD’s International High School. Attendees suggested stories on the Little Walnut Creek Library, Foundation Communities, and a social video asking neighbors ‘what does community mean to you?’

Finally we discussed how to best wrap up our reporting project. In December we will say goodbye for now to Rundberg, and take our reporting project to a new community. But before we go, we want to make sure we’re leaving the neighborhood with useful resources. Attendees discussed a block party that could connect residents with health and wellness resources like flu shots or dental care. We discussed hosting loteria, and having a toy drive. We’re still going over ideas, but we’d love to hear your thoughts! You can add any suggestions on how we should wrap up our reporting project here.