Spring 1995
Wichita Reverses a Trend
By Sheri Dill
Associate Publisher
Wichita Eagle
Can the way a newspaper covers elections actually affect voter behavior? Can it be effective in getting citizens to vote?
Having completed the third biennial election where the Wichita Eagle tried to do exactly that, our experience seems to indicate that, over time, a newspaper can indeed influence voter behavior.
Kansas voter participation, following the national trend, has been in general decline since the late ’60s, and Wichita area turnout typically has lagged behind the state as a whole. Both of those trends have reversed since 1990, when the Eagle began its “Your Vote Counts” form of issue-oriented election coverage.
Consider some numbers:
- Kansas-wide, turnout in the November 1994 election declined to 44% of eligible voters from 46% in 1990, the first year of the “Your Vote Counts” project.
- But in Sedgwick County, where Wichita is located, voter turnout increased last November to 47% of eligible voters. That was up from 44% in 1990, a level two percentage points lower than the statewide average. In nearby Harvey and Butler counties, where the Eagle also has significant readership, turnout also increased over 1990 and exceeded statewide turnout.
Where the Wichita Eagle has heavy readership, voter turnout increased, even as it decreased across the state. We’ve tried to identify local issues, heated races, anything that could explain the change in trend — to no avail.
Furthermore, the Eagle’s reader research indicated something positive is happening in readers’ views of the newspaper’s coverage:
| Nov. 1990 | Nov. 1994 | | Percentage of Eagle readers who said the newspaper’s coverage was “very effective” or “extremely effective” in interesting them to vote. | 34.8% | 75.4% |
| Readers who were “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with the Eagle’s election coverage. | 79.3% | 88.3% |
| Readers who said the coverage was either “very fair” or “somewhat fair” | 72.5% | 86.4% |
So what kind of coverage generates these results? As simply as we can define it, it’s coverage that starts from the reader’s viewpoint.
It’s coverage that reports candidates’ ideas and positions on issues the citizens care about, not just coverage of the positions candidates stake out for their platforms. It’s coverage that puts information at readers’ fingertips in easy-to-read formats — issues boxes and Q-and-A’s, how-to-register and where-to-vote boxes and maps. It’s also coverage that acts as a truth squad on behalf of readers, telling what’s accurate and what’s not in campaign advertising and stump speeches.
First and foremost, it’s coverage that includes the electorate in the process. It gives them the opportunity to ask questions, shape issues that will be covered and it encourages participation. It also reports on how the campaign is playing in the public arena. Negative campaigning became a major issue in Kansas in 1994, along with whether the political process was producing quality candidates that offered a real choice. Those topics made good stories that allowed readers to see themselves as integral to the process.
And when it’s obvious in the news pages that the electorate is an important dynamic to the process, voter participation appears to follow.
