{"id":215045,"date":"2020-11-25T11:28:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T15:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/?p=215045"},"modified":"2021-07-07T11:31:38","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T15:31:38","slug":"here-are-the-winners-and-losers-of-local-election-coverage-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/here-are-the-winners-and-losers-of-local-election-coverage-in-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Here are the Winners and Losers of Local Election Coverage in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The 2020 election isn\u2019t quite<\/em> behind us yet (and Iowa\u2019s 2nd Congressional District seems determined to keep it that way<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s not too soon to declare a few winners and losers when it comes to this year\u2019s local media coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: The \u201cwinners\u201d here are the innovative approaches to reporting, storytelling, and engagement that we saw LION members<\/a> and other local newsrooms use to better serve their communities this election season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the losers? They\u2019re the old habits and tired tropes that continued to plague local media coverage in 2020, hopefully for the last time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WINNER: The citizen\u2019s agenda<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president\u2019s Twitter feed might have dominated cable news coverage again, but many local news organizations chose a different assignment editor this year: their readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington City Paper began its 2020 election coverage<\/a> by asking readers what issues they wanted local politicians to focus on in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santa Cruz Local interviewed more than 200 local voters<\/a> for a podcast series about their priorities and questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Crosscut embedded a widget<\/a> at the bottom of stories to collect questions and coverage suggestions, which revealed that \u201cwhat seems like nuts and bolts\u201d to many journalists is actually what many voters say they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Crosscut used this embeddable Hearken widget to ask readers what they needed to know leading up to Election Day. (Image screenshot<\/a> via Crosscut)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In all, dozens of newsrooms partnered with Hearken and other collaborators<\/a> on \u201cCitizen\u2019s Agenda\u201d projects that centered the voices, questions, and perspectives of voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those newsrooms, WBEZ, used the Citizen\u2019s Agenda framework to better understand civic information needs for the Chicago residents who\u2019ve been hardest-hit by COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In partnership with local community organizations, WBEZ collected more than 2,100 survey responses leading up to the election, nearly half of which came from people living in ZIP codes with the highest COVID-19 case and death rates and the highest rates of first-time unemployment benefits claims since March 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These responses informed WBEZ\u2019s reporting on issues like health care access and police reform, and they demonstrated the need for stories like a Field Guide to Chicago Government & Politics<\/a>, which addressed confusion about the responsibilities of local government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The engagement also helped produce some of WBEZ\u2019s highest-performing election content \u2014 like this FAQs explainer<\/a> about ballot dropboxes \u2014 while reaching and reflecting communities that have often been underserved by local news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LOSER: Local news endorsements for president<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Denver Post, the Arizona Republic, and dozens of other local news organizations<\/a> decided not to make presidential endorsements this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next election cycle, everyone else should join them. (This is already a standard practice in much of local publishing, because nonprofit newsrooms are prohibited by law from endorsing political candidates<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just that endorsements in high-profile national elections rarely impact the outcome<\/a> (unlike in local or state races, where they still appear to matter<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bigger problem with presidential endorsements is that they feed into the perception that news organizations are partisan<\/em>, even if the \u201ceditorial boards\u201d making those endorsements are independent from the newsroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette learned the hard way<\/a>, many Americans don\u2019t know what an editorial board is or how it works, and they view endorsements that they disagree with as a stain on the entire brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why publications like the Spokesman-Review have already decided to ditch presidential endorsements<\/a> since Election Day, and why other local newsrooms are experimenting with alternatives to the traditional editorial board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the Long Beach Post created a community<\/em> editorial board<\/a> this year as a way to hear from people in \u201cdifferent parts of the city, with different life experiences, different reactions to the way the city\u2019s decisions are made, [and] different socioeconomic backgrounds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inaugural board includes seven community members (chosen from a pool of nearly 150 applicants), and it works independently of the newsroom to write joint editorials and individual op-eds on issues of public interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Long Beach Post announced its inaugural community editorial board in October. (Image screenshot<\/a> via the Long Beach Post)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

WINNER: Voter guides for downballot races<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out that covering obscure local elections isn\u2019t just a good public service. It\u2019s also an effective way to grow your audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I reported earlier this month<\/a>, the nonprofit news site City Limits learned that lesson from its New York City judicial ballot guide<\/a>, which received six times more traffic than its other top posts in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprising? Maybe it shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These unglamorous local races \u2014 from judicial seats to water district commissioners \u2014 appear on almost every ballot in the country, but many legacy news outlets tend to overlook them as they pile on higher-profile races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s creating an information gap<\/a> for voters who want to be informed before they complete their ballot, and small local news sites might be perfectly situated to meet it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LOSER: Horse-race election coverage<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all the attention they get on Twitter, public opinion polls don\u2019t tell your audience anything about the candidates, what they believe in, what they\u2019ll prioritize in office, or what those priorities would mean for their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And despite Nate Silver\u2019s best data science, the polls don\u2019t even do a good job predicting who\u2019s going to win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s one reason why many local newsrooms focused their attention elsewhere this year, from pushing back against misinformation to explaining the process<\/em> of voting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are just a few examples, courtesy of Mark Glaser and the Knight Foundation<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n