I feel the absence of my parents acutely this election season. We didn’t always agree, but I miss their counsel and their insights. I wonder now what they would think about the choices before us, how they, avid consumers of the news, would interpret newspaper headlines and the march of images across their television screen.
I think they would be frustrated by the pressures our democracy faces, the growth of rancor and vulgarity in our public discourse, and the anger that often spills into public view in the everyday. My father, who joined the Army during World War II to help repel the threat of Hitler, would be outraged by the modern adoption of language and imagery that glorifies the repellent policies of the Third Reich. Still, I think my parents would be heartened by our progress, by the idea that we face the possibility of firsts that would move the American experiment forward. They would face the future with hope. And they would depend on local and community media to help make sense of it all.
Descendants of slaves and immigrants, they grew up in the Jim Crow era, in the deepest of the Deep South, where people contended with literacy tests and poll taxes when trying to register to vote, where people were attacked with dogs and beaten and jailed for trying to cast ballots. They would not be surprised by attempts to limit voting; it is an old playbook they saw during their lifetimes. But having won the right, they could not imagine staying away from the polls when so many have shed so many tears and spilled so much blood to democratize the rights that for much of our country’s history were limited by wealth, skin color and gender.
We cannot forget this history. It is important in helping us to understand this moment and to understand who we are as a country and as a people, why inclusion is a democratic necessity. Yet, we live in the now, with all of its ever-present problems, and journalists throughout the country have been trying to rise to meet the challenge, to provide context and clarity across platforms and media, even as they face the maelstrom of industry change.
Yet, agents of chaos have unleashed a storm of disinformation to suppress truth and rationality. People are intentionally lying and casting doubt on the truth. Facts are being obscured by the fog of doubt. It is worsened by the noise everywhere, on television, online, around the dinner table; many people are talking and few are actually listening, including many in our profession.
What news organizations continue to do in the days and weeks ahead will matter more than ever. They will bring people into community conversations or exclude them. They will create understanding or sow confusion. A society moving forward cannot afford to have people on the outside. A society moving forward needs to agree on basic truths, and it needs dependable sources to help provide the needed guideposts, that have the courage to help lead and convene — and listen.
Here at the American Press Institute, we’ve partnered with dozens of news organizations, foundations and other journalism support organizations to help increase the flow of election information, to better engage communities, to increase civility and participation in our public discourse, and to help create better conditions at the local level for news and information to make their way through the disorder.
Those partnerships and experiments have been important because they are not about Nov. 5 or any single Election Day. Our country will have to move beyond this election. Our free press, one of the cornerstones of our democracy, must help navigate the way forward. As journalists, it is our opportunity and our obligation.
We have to remember that Americans did not invent democracy, a word that originated in the Greek language. Its ancient practice has ebbed and flowed for centuries: demos meaning people, and kratos meaning strength or power. There is strength in the people. The people have the power.
It is why as we, the people, move beyond Election Day, as votes are counted and the presidential transition season begins, journalists must continue to explain the processes that underpin how we transfer power, whether it be in city hall or the White House. We must provide support for our teams and we must provide support for each other. Most importantly, we must provide support for our communities.
While we need journalists to hold power to account, we also need journalists and news organizations to immerse themselves in the fabric of our communities — the places where we live, not just work. These are the places where we wake up, where we pay our bills, that we care about as people. The real work is in building and sustaining community. It is not separate from our journalism. It should be the foundation of our journalism.
It is there we build trust. It is there we build bridges to help neighbors — our neighbors — reach across divides, and thrive.
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The press will be much more effective in serving people and strengthening democracy if it learns from what researchers are learning. Among the examples and takeaways, you will find that news leaders and non-news experts alike value the opportunity to think differently about the challenges in front of them, about how local news can change and how research can ask different questions.
We'll share some of the resources, tools and lessons learned from our training sessions and research help desk. We hope you can use these as you plan your continuing accountability coverage and start thinking about the next election on the horizon.
When community members are no longer voters, their needs become diffuse once again and there is no clear, focusing mandate. So many newsrooms slip back into the usual: politics coverage driven by politicians and press releases. How do we avoid that backslide?
How can we avoid that backslide this time?
