Election Coverage in Small Towns

Transcript

1. Election coverage in small towns shouldn’t be small Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media www.RuralJournalism.org, @ruralj Al Cross, Director and Associate Professor Election Coverage Workshop Texas Center for Community Journalism Texas Christian University March 4, 2016
2. This paper prefers magazine-style front pages, but inside there’s very comprehensive election coverage, before, during and after the voting, with deep, varied interviews of the candidates. This is longtime policy, and Editor Laurie Brown says it has raised the quality of candidates because voters know they will be expected to answer. She says only three have ever refused, and all three lost.
3. Politics in small towns • Attitude: fulfill your institutional role, keeping public service at top of mind • Don’t be timid, don’t be pugnacious • Try to be friends with all factions • Personality features can help • Look for chances to make connections and show understanding
4. This column I wrote shortly after joining the twice-weekly paper in Russellville, Ky., is an example of taking an opportunity to treat local officials as people, pull back the curtain on an election, and show some discretion that was appreciated.
5. Politics in small towns • Don’t treat it clinically, and don’t make meetings the focus of govt. coverage • Pull back the official curtain: ask WHY things are happening or not happening • Write about local factions and patronage contacts – often, much power rests with those not in elective office
6. Politics in small towns • Write about the personalities, their connections and what they mean; don’t assume everybody knows them
7. Also on this page were photos I took on election night, personalizing the event. People like to read about people, and politics is about people. Or it is supposed to be. Don’t ever forget that.
8. To endorse or not? • 90 percent of dailies do; most weeklies don’t • Generally, the smaller the paper, the less likely it is to endorse
9. To endorse or not? • 90 percent of dailies do; most weeklies don’t • Generally, the smaller the paper, the less likely it is to endorse • Reasons include risk, resources and relationships
10. To endorse or not? • 90 percent of dailies do; most weeklies don’t • Generally, the smaller the paper, the less likely it is to endorse • Reasons include risk, resources and relationships • Some races are too close for comfort • But that’s where you can have impact
11. To endorse or not? • Endorsements are most effective in local, nonpartisan elections when the candidates are unfamiliar, the ballot is long and complicated, or voters have received conflicting information or have conflicting loyalties. Other research suggests endorsements have more effect on referenda, and more in primary rather than general elections. (K.F. Rystrom, 1986, 1994)
12. To endorse or not? Arguments for: • The newspaper knows the people and the issues, or it should. • It is in a unique position to inform and advance debate. • Editorials can separate the wheat from the chaff in political rhetoric in a stronger way than news stories can.
13. To endorse or not? Arguments against: • May cast a shadow on news coverage • People already know the candidates • Folks at the newspaper sure do: “In a smaller town, you often run into all the players at least weekly at church, Rotary, or on the street.” • But what’s “a smaller town”? In a nearby county of the same size . . .
14. To endorse or not? • The News-Enterprise example When Warren Wheat came to Elizabethtown, Ky., to edit this 17,000-circulation daily, he concluded that it should start endorsing candidates because the county was no longer so small that it could be plausibly argued that endorsement were unnecessary because local voters knew enough about the candidates. This was a big change, so the page with the first endorsements was led with a column from Wheat explaining why the paper was endorsing and explaining the process that it followed.
16. The candidate the paper endorsed for county judge- executive, the county’s chief administrative officer, won the election. He was the first Republican ever elected to that office in the county.
17. To endorse or not? • Columns can provide an alternative, short of endorsement • Editorials can analyze and offer perspective short of endorsement • Play it straight, don’t get cute, and be self-aware • Whatever you do, make sure you have some sort of editorial voice
18. Bringing big elections home • Just using AP gives no local flavor • Making your news 100% local can ignore big topics of local discussion
20. Bringing big elections home • Just using AP gives no local flavor • Making your news 100% local can ignore big topics of local discussion • Looks at larger races can help you build, maintain and strengthen your newspaper’s brand and authority • Weeklies: most of your readers don’t read a newspaper daily, or a daily paper; you want them to rely on TV?
21. Lots of ads, little news What TV did with a Senate race in the only sizeable Kentucky-only TV market: COMMERCIALS: 115 hours NEWS: 3 hours, 50 minutes (and almost all of it was superficial) RATIO of commercials to news: 30-1
22. Checking the facts • We live in a world where the market for opinion is increasing and the market for facts is decreasing
23. Checking the facts • We live in a world where the market for opinion is increasing and the market for facts is decreasing • Community newspapers are still the most trusted media source
24. Checking the facts • We live in a world where the market for opinion is increasing and the market for facts is decreasing • Community newspapers are still the most trusted media source • Your readers are citizens not just of your county, but of bigger districts, Texas and the nation; they deserve the facts as much as any Americans
26. I prefer FactCheck because it doesn’t use labels and can be reprinted without charge, with credit to FactCheck.
27. This service of The Washington Post, overseen and mainly written by Glenn Kessler; it is helpful as a guide for how to write fact-checks for a newspaper audience.
28. http://www.politifact.com/texas/ Politifact and its state affiliates may be the most popular fact- checking sites but I think they rely too much on labels like “pants on fire,” which are entertaining. I think categorizing statements about complex subjects with one of five labels is too blunt an instrument.
29. Doing your own fact checking • Fact checking has increased greatly among newspapers in recent years, partly in reaction to partisan and social media, more expensive campaigns; 1/3 to 2/3 of Americans hold incorrect beliefs about major U.S. public-policy issues • Can be about any statement by a public official, candidate or person of authority in the private or non-profit sector
30. Doing your own fact checking • It isn’t everyday journalism; it requires investigation and verification • Look for facts, not opinions • Make sure your sources are free of partisanship and advocacy (some do alleged fact checks) • Make sources as specific and original as possible: data and documents are preferable to news reports
31. Doing your own fact checking If may need a fact check if it: • Sounds too good or too awful to be true • Is extremely precise or extremely broad • Seems designed to scare or anger • Uses unattributed research (just “studies”) • Absolutes (“a 20% cut for every student”) • Misspellings and bad grammar can be signs of misinformation
32. Doing your own fact checking Methods of deception include: • Deceptive dramatization (“Daisy,” 1964) • Out of context (Mitt R.: “I like firing people”) • Misuse of words and phrases from news articles (like movie ads quoting the one compliment in a review) • Omission (claiming state school spending went up when that was true only because of more state and/or local funds)
33. Doing your own fact checking Methods of deception include: • Cherry-picking numbers and ignoring more relevant ones • Guilt by association (being pictured with Obama and tied to his policies) • Other misleading visuals (pictures and video can be recalled more than words) • Conspiracy theories • Glittering generalities
34. Doing your own fact checking Deciding to do it: • It takes a certain attitude: Just how skeptical are you? • Research shows that newspaper readers do learn from fact checks • Watch TV, social media, direct mail • Record official and campaign appearances • Record all public meetings
35. Doing your own fact checking Top 10 resources used by national fact-checkers • Refdesk.com • National Climactic Data Center • American Presidency Project • Criminal Justice Data (Sunlight Foundation) • Federation of American Scientists • Lincoln Institute of Land Policy • FollowTheMoney.org • American Fact Finder (Census Bureau) • Internet Archive (more so than Wayback Machine) • U.S. Department of Transportation
36. Source credit This section was based on “A Crash Course to Fact- Checking Journalism,” a webinar presented by Jane Elizabeth of the American Press Institute and sponsored by API, the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association and Online Media Campus, at http://www.onlinemediacampus.com/2015/12/fact- checking-crash-course/ You may also benefit from a similar webinar: “How to Fact Check Politics and the Media,” News University webinar, http://www.newsu.org/courses/how-to-fact- check
37. www.RuralJournalism.org The Rural Blog: http://irjci.blogspot.com @ruralj 859-257-3744 cell 502-682-2848