Covering Politics Civic Journalism Style

Listen. Voters are saying stop wasting my time. Tell me what I need to know to make an informed decision on Election Day.

Here are six things you can do this time around to make your political coverage more relevant to your audience:

1. DISCOVER WHAT MATTERS TO VOTERS IF YOU WANT TO LEARN WHAT THIS ELECTION IS REALLY ABOUT.

You won’t come upon this by interviewing candidates and their staffs. And, contrary to popular belief in most newsrooms, you are unlikely to “sense it” simply by trusting your journalistic gut. To learn what this election is really about, you will have to talk to voters. Lots of voters. Then you will need to stay in touch with voters to keep up with shiftingand newly emerging issues.

How to do that? At The Charlotte Observer in 1992, we conducted a series of issues polls, followed by individual interviews and focus groups with poll respondents who agreed to keep advising us throughout the campaign. Other media organizations conduct in-depth interviews with a cross-section of the community. They organize panels of citizens willing to offer wisdom throughout the campaign. And they invite the public to agree or disagree with their conclusions about election priorities.

The important thing is that you listen closely. And keep listening.

In early 1992, for instance, we didn’t expect Carolinians to be as anxious as they were about the economy. We also kept picking up references to values – a sense of a nation adrift ethically, morally. No amount of newsroom brainstorming would have pinpointed this as a campaign issue. In fact, we doubted its significance even when voters kept bringing it up.

Apparently, Republicans also picked it up in their polling and attempted to connect with that concern through their “family values” campaign theme.

Most journalists dismissed the issue as a red herring. What can the president do to restore so-called “family values,” whatever they are? It’s irrelevant. Now, where’s that Gennifer Flowers file?

In 1995, the values theme is stronger than ever. Many candidates are targeting Hollywood. And there’s a rush on both sides to own the issue of school prayer. Values were – and are – an issue, all right, because the public said so.

2. AS THE CAMPAIGN UNFOLDS, RESIST TEMPTATIONS TO LET THE LATEST POLITICAL DOGFIGHT OVERSHADOW THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES.

Candidates will make up issues and shuffle their priorities, often at a dizzying pace, to try to gain an edge. But the public is nowhere near as fickle. The economy was the single biggest issue as the 1992 campaign began, followed closely by health care, crime, the deficit and education. And that was still the case on Election Day.

3. DESIGNATE A PLACE ON YOUR DAILY REPORT TO CHRONICLE BRIEFLY THE TWISTS AND TURNS OF THE CAMPAIGN.

At The Observer, we designated page 2-A for this purpose. Here, horse-race polls become news briefs. A candidate’s insult of another might merit a mention. A photo opportunity won a hole if there was space. Readers who turned to this page knew what they were getting. And they came to expect the big headlines on the front page to be the things that mattered most – in-depth issues, stories that picked apart candidates’ positions to sort truth from fiction.

Some producers and editors may object: “It’s all well and good to say let’s send the campaign drivel to the back of the news budget, but I’ve got pages and air time to fill. Are there really that many voter-driven stories I can do?”

The answer is yes. It won’t be as simple as it was when you just chronicled the campaign trail. But it will be a lot more helpful to voters.

4. DEVOTE THE MAJORITY OF YOUR RESOURCES TO ENTERPRISE STORIES THAT EXPLORE THE ISSUES, EXPLAIN HOW THEY AFFECT VOTERS’ LIVES AND REVEAL WHAT THE CANDIDATES PROPOSE TO DO.

This means you’ll be asking candidates some very different questions. And you will be talking to sources you never imagined using for political coverage.

For instance, political scientists won’t be much help as you try to understand the complex issues underlying health care. You need medical experts, consumer advocates, hospital patients.

Your health reporter, for example, could write about Medicare options. A business reporter could tackle the deficit, a features reporter who has done good pieces on kids and family issues might explore questions of family values. Your police and courts reporters might take a break from the daily din of gunfire to look at the reasons for crime and to truth squad the candidates’ proposals.

A caution here. As you explore these issues, it is vital that you link them squarely with the candidates’ proposals. Remember, readers are looking to hire or fire somebody. They crave straightforward explanations about the issues. But they can’t decide anything unless they also know what the candidate is offering.

Here are some examples of enterprise reporting we did:

• Explanatory articles on the deficit, health care, crime, drugs, education, values, environment, political ethics and welfare. In each case, we tried to show how these issues affected voters’ daily lives and we detailed candidates’ positions on the issue.
• Stories that explored the worth and consequences of a candidate’s specific proposal. (For example, so-and-so advocates a flat tax. How would that affect you?)
• Stories that probed links between candidates’ plans and their campaign contributors. Voters want to know who is behind candidacies – and why.
• Profiles that explored a candidate’s leadership potential, based on previous job performance, life experiences, character traits and philosophical outlook.
• Stories that illuminated differences between candidates on an issue important to voters. This became a regular feature that we called “Choices.” Each began with a short summary of a voter’s circumstances (needs a college loan, favors existing health care, wants more police officers) that concluded with this question: “Does it matter whom she votes for on Nov. 3?” A text block outlined each candidate’s position.
• Q&As with the candidates, if possible, with questions asked by voters themselves. (You’ll find that voters’ questions are very different from ours.)

5.REVAMP YOUR COVERAGE OF THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL SO IT’S CENTERED ON VOTER CONCERNS.

Here are some ways to do that.

• Spend time talking to voters who have just heard the candidate’s pitch. Does it have anything to do with their own concerns this election? What more would they like to know?
• Quiz the candidate to clear up discrepancies, vagaries or inconsistencies important to voters. Make those answers, rather than the clichÚ-filled stump speech, the top of your story.
• Take the opportunity to explore in-depth one of the proposals a candidate alludes to in a speech or informal remarks. If it’s a previously announced proposal, you can be prepared with some advance homework. If it’s new, you’ll have to shift into overdrive to get it to voters promptly. Still, it’s worth it.
• Truth-squad the candidate on his or her assertions, be they accusations aimed at opponents or Social Security statistics that don’t add up. Campaign remarks often are laced with half-truths and go reported without vital context.

A favorite moment of the 1992 campaign trail came when George Bush visited Faith, N.C., on July 4 for a barbecue. It quickly became apparent the visit was intended to be only a photo op.

Bush’s campaign turned down our request for an interview and rejected our invitation to meet with voters to answer questions. No time, they said. We replied that we’d publish voter questions anyway.

Bush’s people were stunned. “You can’t just publish unanswered questions like that,” said the third or fourth person who got on the phone. Yes we can, I said. (It was, in fact, exactly how we had handled every other presidential candidate who’d campaigned in the Carolinas. And virtually every one had taken the time to answer voters’ questions.)

In the end, Bush’s folks faxed answers to three questions “cleared by the White House.” Our coverage included those answers, along with 20 or so unanswered questions.

6.REMEMBER, IT’S NEWS WHEN CANDIDATES AREN’T FORTHCOMING WITH VOTERS.

What do you do when the candidate won’t answer questions or perhaps is so vague as to leave the voter unsure of where he or she stands? What if the candidate hammers only at manufactured issues?

You report that as the important news that it is.

There’s no need to be squeamish. After all, this is not your agenda. These are matters that voters say they need cleared up if they are to make a good decision. Candidates who refuse to do so are, in effect, trying to deceive their way into office.

Warn the public, same as you would if you discovered elected officials violating open meetings laws or otherwise defrauding the public. Weave into your stories quotes of voters genuinely offended at the candidate’s vagueness, reminding your reader that these are the people’s concerns, not the media’s.

This is a watchdog function the public will applaud. Some candidates will curse you, but few will dare to thumb their noses at the needs of the electorate for very long.

Some of this may leave you feeling uneasy because it requires good journalists to change long-held practices. It helps to make peace with that fact going in. It’s a good idea to remind yourself from time to time why you’re swimming against the tide. Why this is so important.

This approach to political reporting is what civic journalism is all about. Civic journalism recognizes that the real strength of this country rests with its citizens, and that it is the responsibility of those of us in the media, and in other positions of power and influence, to do all we can to equip citizens with what they need to solve the challenges we face.

Somehow, the news business has drifted from the important role we journalists play as public servants. We’ve tended to align ourselves with power brokers, government insiders and political analysts instead of with citizens. Some go so far as to dismiss average people as a naive bunch who need to be saved from themselves. That view is very wrong. The collective wisdom of citizens built this nation – and has kept it on course for more than 200 years.

Those of us who advocate civic journalism place a high value on understanding the concerns of citizens and then providing them what they need to deal with those concerns. That’s not pandering. That’s public service – journalism’s highest calling.