ne day before he lost the New Hampshire primary, Sen. Robert Dole acknowledged not knowing about what was going on in that state: “I didn’t realize that jobs and trade and what makes America work would become a big issue in the last few days of this campaign.” If Dole had been following “The People’s Voice” reports of the Boston Globe, WBUR-FM and WABU-TV, he would have known in the fall of 1995 that economic insecurity was a major concern for New Hampshire residents.
“It’s still the economy,” was the lead of Michael Rezendes’ article in the Globe on Nov. 12. Rezendes reported on a poll of New Hampshire attitudes and on the first of a series of discussion groups that the partnership conducted with citizens in Derry, N.H., a community selected by the partnership because it was seen as representative of the state.
The view from Washington last fall was that the campaign would revolve around which GOP candidate was best qualified to help House Speaker Newt Gingrich carry through on the promises in the “Contract with America,” including a balanced budget and a tax cut. But it quickly became clear in “The People’s Voice” project that, despite New Hampshire’s apparent recovery from the recession of six years ago (its unemployment rate at this writing is only 3.2 percent), residents of Derry were worried about losing jobs, losing wage levels they had worked hard to attain, losing health insurance, and losing the hope that their children would find good jobs. All these concerns, it was evident, were interwoven with worries about the negative effects of long work hours on family life.
The twofold goal of the project was to find and report on citizen views and then challenge candidates to address them. After using in-depth interviews, polling and issues discussion groups to get a fix on what citizens were thinking, we, the media partners, brought GOP candidates together with Derry citizens in single-candidate forums and a final “town meeting” event in the week before the primary. Five of the candidates – Lamar Alexander, Phil Gramm, Richard Lugar, Alan Keyes and Bob Dornan – met with Derry citizens. Dole, who did not, had to learn from Pat Buchanan what the primary was about, a lesson confirmed in exit polls on primary day showing that the economy and jobs were the issues that most determined how people voted.
TAPPING CITIZEN CONCERNS
The process of discovering and reporting on the views of citizens about the 1996 election actually began in the summer of 1995. “The People’s Voice” partners decided to concentrate on one community, figuring that it would be easier to tap into local concerns by becoming familiar with the problems and pressures of citizens who lived in one town.
“People’s Voice” panelists
complained that the candidates’
negative advertising didn’t
give voters specifics on how
they would accomplish
what they promised.
After developing a network of contacts in Derry’s churches, schools, town offices, other workplaces and social-service agencies, we conducted a series of in-depth interviews with citizens to find out what was on their minds and what they thought the 1996 election should be about. The interviews – conducted in homes, shops and offices – amounted to nothing more, or less, than traditional shoe-leather journalism. They were extremely useful in giving texture and context to residents’ views.
The interviews also guided us in the design of an attitude poll, subsequently conducted in Derry by Princeton Survey Research Associates. In addition, the interviewing helped identify residents willing to take part in issues discussion groups and candidate forums. Participants for such events were recruited from poll respondents: The poll’s last question was intended to reveal whether or not respondents were willing to take part.
Sen. Richard Lugar heard some citizen concerns when he met with a panel of voters at Pinkerton Academy in Derry
The discussion groups on various topics – the status of the American dream, family values, the economy, the qualities voters seek in a candidate, campaign advertising – were the subjects of articles in the Globe and of broadcast segments on WBUR and WABU-TV. In addition, print and broadcast reporters used material from the discussions as starting points for special, related features, including a Globe report that examined whether trade restrictions would help the New Hampshire economy and a WBUR story that described how downsizing and falling wages fuel a sense of economic insecurity among New Hampshire workers.
Once the interviews, poll and discussion groups had clarified what Derry thought the 1996 election should be about, candidates were invited to sit down with town residents and answer their questions. Gramm, Alexander and Lugar met individually on separate occasions with a group of about five Derryites at the Pinkerton Academy high school.
The partnership learned a great deal from the events. Some tips for others:
When it comes to recruiting citizen participants, cast a wide net.
By using existing community networks and relying on in-person interviews, we were able to involve participants who represented a broad range of experience and perspectives, rather than relying on a few “citizen celebrities.” Constantly recruiting new people for the project took time and some effort, but this made for better discussions, more balanced participation and, ultimately, better reporting for print and broadcast.
We also found that people who were interviewed beforehand were much more likely to show up for events and were more active participants than people we contacted from our poll list. We carried this lesson over to our individual candidate forums, to which we invited people who had participated in one of the discussion groups or who had been interviewed previously, rather than recruiting people who had had no previous involvement with the project. For these forums, participants were encouraged to bring up points that had been raised in their discussion groups, and many seemed to feel emboldened because they knew they were speaking for others as well as for themselves.
Structure candidate forums to allow for a wide-ranging discussion.
In preparing for our candidate forums, we made it a practice to screen our participants’ questions and ask them to prepare follow-ups. We would request panelists to give us their questions a few days before the event and would then organize the questions by subject area. This screening process allowed us to eliminate duplications and ensure that the panel covered a wide range of topics, rather than getting bogged down on one or two. If two panelists had the same question, one would ask it and the other would have the opportunity to follow up. This procedure satisfied panelists and allowed for more detailed responses from candidates. Screening questions also allowed us to remove comments that were explicitly partisan or inflammatory.
Leave time for citizen assessments.
We structured each forum so that panelists would have five minutes at the end to summarize their thoughts on the discussion and grade the candidate after he had left the room. Comments made during this portion of the program were very revealing, and in some cases laid the groundwork for future stories. For example, one participant’s rebuttal to Alexander’s frequent references to the need for greater personal responsibility in various areas of social welfare was later repeated in an Ellen Goodman column that asked the candidates for more specifics on their proposals on how to care for the sick and elderly. Panelists’ feedback about the candidates was included in Globe articles on the forums, was broadcast as part of WBUR’s coverage, and was often included in WABU-TV reports as well.
After a forum with Lugar, several panelists reported that they were so impressed with the candidate they were going to vote for him. One even tried to change her registration from Democratic to Republican so she could do so. Another said she was going to volunteer to work on his campaign.
Leave time for the citizens; don’t count on the candidates
The project’s final event, on the Wednesday before the primary, was a forum in a school auditorium in Derry. On a snowy night, more than 100 residents showed up to watch five of their fellow citizens quiz Lugar, Dornan and Keyes in a live, telecast “town meeting” event. Members of the audience also questioned the candidates. The event lasted one hour, which was clearly not nearly long enough for the panelists, many members of the audience and candidate Lugar, all of whom stayed around later to keep the discussion going. This was typical of “People’s Voice” events: Even when candidates had to take off to meet scheduling deadlines, the citizens would remain to talk among themselves and with journalists while technicians dismantled the cameras, lighting and audio equipment.
The absence of several major candidates from the final event pointed up a difficulty we had not anticipated, although it became a pattern during the winter as candidates turned down invitations to many similar events in other states. At the start of our project, we assumed candidates would be eager to participate in events that would offer the triple whammy of newspaper, radio and TV coverage. However, our offer of extensive and free media coverage appealed primarily to long-shot candidates like Alexander, Lugar, Gramm, Dornan and Keyes. Front-runners were reluctant to commit to events that would involve direct questioning from citizens. They preferred instead to rely on TV advertising and carefully scripted campaign appearances and rallies.
This year the New Hampshire primary witnessed a greater reliance on television advertising than ever before. As TV became the battleground, candidates seemed less willing to engage in the kind of retail politics that has distinguished the state’s primary in the past. In particular, front-runners like Dole and Steve Forbes chose not to campaign in New Hampshire until late, and when they did it was through tightly scripted events and rallies offering little opportunity for direct engagement with voters. Finally, the new, compressed primary schedule meant that candidates spent less time in New Hampshire and made it even more difficult to secure commitments from them. Buchanan, for example, was virtually impossible to pin down, because he spent so much time in Alaska, Louisiana and Iowa prior to New Hampshire’s primary.
In light of these trends and the general reluctance of front-runners to engage voters directly, organizers of civic journalism projects should be prepared to go the extra mile to secure commitments from candidates. We suggest meeting with campaign managers early to explain the goals of the project and the format for events. Also, we suggest scheduling events such as town meetings well before the week leading up to the primary, so as not to compete with candidates’ last-minute campaign events. In addition, media partners may wish to issue public invitations to all candidates. Such efforts may elevate the profile of the project and help create public pressure for candidate participation.
LOOKING BACK AT DERRY
Measured by the enthusiasm that Derry residents brought to this project and by the extra dimension it gave to coverage of the primary by the media partners, “The People’s Voice” was a success. In addition, material generated by the project served as a basis for newspaper columns, editorials and broadcast features beyond those done by the journalists directly involved. Taken as a whole, this journalism gave readers and radio and TV audiences a more accurate view of what was motivating New Hampshire voters than most conventional journalism provided. But Dole’s remark the day before the voting made clear that “People’s Voice” efforts were less successful in getting the candidates to pay attention.
On Nov. 10, in the Globe’s very first “People’s Voice” article, Earl Rinker, the Derry town administrator and a Republican member of the state’s elected Governor’s Council, said: “I want to hear some positive things about how we can create more jobs, improve the economy and deal with the country’s drug problem. I’m all for balancing the budget and cutting government. But that’s old news.”
For some reason, Buchanan and New England followers of “People’s Voice” got that news. But the other candidates didn’t – and lost the primary. 
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