Designed for newsrooms, editors and producers, Hearken provides modules to engage the public in pitching story ideas, determining assignments, reporting and finally publishing stories online.

The tool grew out of Chicago public radio WBEZ’s popular Curious Cities series founded by Jennifer Brandel, who co-created Hearken to share lessons learned there with other media organizations.  Hearken's goal is to take news sites beyond reactive and press-initiated stories to embrace “Public-powered stories that individual members from the public put forward.”  

This, Hearken says on its website, will assist newsrooms in presenting a wider variety of stories and perspectives, creating deeper relationships with communities and having high performing stories. Hearken has two main tools to achieve this:

• A curiosity module designed to help cultivate a steady, fresh stream of story ideas from outside a newsroom's walls.
• An embeddable voting module, allows audience to vote on their favorite story ideas, “giving your newsroom and reporters valuable insights into validated audience desires and the chance to challenge assumptions about what's a worthwhile story,” according to the Hearken website.

• WBEZ, Chicago (Curious City)
• Michigan Radio, Ann Arbor, MI  (M.I. Curious as well as other initiatives)
• WYSO, Yellow Springs, Ohio (WYSO Curious)
• KUOW, Seattle, Washington (Local Wonder)
• KQED, San Francisco, California (Bay Curious)
• Inside Energy, Colorado, Wyoming and the Dakotas (IE Questions)
• Chalkbeat New York for (Raise Your Hand)

There is a two-month free trial period then an annual payment is due. The fee depends on the size and status of newsrooms (non-profit and for profit.) "We have a sliding scale from around $5,000 and up. Folks can contact us for details," she wrote in her email. Catch an interview with Brandel with RJI Futures Labs update #118.