Beyond the Ballot in Maine

With those voices in mind, editors and reporters at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram set out in the fall of 1997 to cover the 1998 gubernatorial election in a different way: By letting the people of Maine identify the top issues, point us to their stories and let that insight help shape some of our coverage.

Media partners quickly signed on. WGME-TV/ Channel 13, the CBS affiliate in Portland, decided to make “Beyond the Ballot: Maine People on Maine’s Future” a cornerstone of its election coverage. The Kennnebec Journal in Augusta and the Morning Sentinel in Waterville joined, as did Maine Public Television.

Together, and thanks to hundreds of Maine citizens who provided the ideas and support for the project, a new kind of government coverage was presented to Maine readers and viewers.

With funding from the Pew Center, we conducted a statewide poll of 1,106 Mainers in the summer of 1998. The poll helped focus reporters on the top issues: jobs, taxes, development and education.

The poll, the deepest look at regional issues and concerns in a least a decade, found startling distinctions between southern Maine and the rest of the state. Put simply, people who live in prosperous southern Maine and in affluent towns that hug Maine’s coast were less worried about finding or keeping work. The rest of the state was very worried about jobs.

Sharp Contrasts

With that sharp contrast in mind, the journalists organized and covered a series of six regional forums that began in late September. At these day-long meetings, attended by more than 1,500 citizens, people were asked to elaborate on how their top concerns affect their lives.

Other news organizations took note. The Sun-Journal in Lewiston, the Bangor Daily News, WGAN-AM in Portland, Editor & Publisher magazine, Free Press at the University of Southern Maine and more than a dozen Maine weekly newspapers and smaller radio stations either covered a forum or wrote about the project.

What distinguished the journalism were the stories produced. Maine campaign coverage in 1998 offered compelling tales about people struggling to find work, to pay their rising taxes, to live with suburban sprawl and coastal change. People like Marie Pillsbury in Avon, Henry Erhard in Castine, Jim Tweedle in Mars Hill and Sue Hawes in Standish came forward with a common message for the next governor and Maine leaders as a whole: Your actions do affect people’s lives. Our lives.

Writing the Book

The partners have recently published a book entitled “Beyond the Ballot: Maine People on Maine’s Future,” outlining the issues of greatest concern to the state’s citizens. “Beyond the Ballot” has been sent to the governor and the state legislature, to local leaders and to public libraries.