Beyond the Ballot: Maine’s Issues in the New Millennium, Portland, ME
Beyond the Ballot: Maine’s Issues in the New Millennium, Portland, ME 1998
Partners:
Portland Newspapers
Central Maine Newspapers
WGME-TV (CBS)
Maine Public Television
“Beyond the Ballot” not only dramatically changed the way major media in coastal Maine covered the statewide 1998 elections, it set the course for their coverage of politics and government for the four years that followed.
Beginning with a poll of 1,106 Maine residents in the summer of 1998, the partners let voters decide which issues determine which issues candidates should address and the partners should cover. The poll uncovered a divide between prosperous southern Maine, where taxes and sprawl were most troubling, and the rest of Maine where jobs were the major concern. The partners then organized and covered a series of six day-long meetings in different areas of the state to probe deeper into the findings. Some 1,500 citizens contributed their input to the partners’ understanding of the issues. Other media also took an interest in the citizens’ views. Daily papers in Lewiston and Bangor, along with more than a dozen weeklies and local radio stations, covered the forums or wrote about the project.