How to build on election engagement following Nov. 5

Local news organizations work hard to document and uncover information that residents of their communities need to make decisions and thrive. This is especially true in a major election year like this one, when national and local media alike will rightly emphasize the ballot box — but democracy requires much more than voting.

Some newsrooms face the added pressure of having to think about ways to “capture the bump” — the rise in engagement that sometimes occurs in campaign season. If audiences are here for elections and campaign stories, the thinking goes, we must find new content engaging enough to keep them.

While news organizations focus on the Nov. 5 vote, how might this coverage prepare for the work to come after? How does that energy build to something more robust and sustained?

Use this post-election programming checklist

Here are some discussion points aimed at making post-election programming go a little more smoothly:

• Are we interpreting our election bump (if there was one) with precision?
• How can we help people be civically engaged beyond casting their ballot?
• What content should we offer to people who are exhausted by politics?
• Are we gathering lessons for next time?

4 ways election engagement can lead to longer-term relationships

At our 2024 API Local News Summit on Elections, Trust and Democracy, we imagined how local media’s work this year might lead to greater relationships after the results are final. We asked four summit participants to expand on the work they’re doing in this space:

• Design voting guides for social media to build a civically-engaged audience. The Austin Common, a news site and civic education organization, created Instagram-ready voter guides and explainers for down-ballot races. Editor-in-chief Amy Stansbury writes about the success they’ve found with that format and how it helps them reach new audiences year-round.
• How a voter guide highlighted Baltimore youth voices. Editor-in-chief Lisa Snowden shares how listening sessions and partnerships inspired the Baltimore Beat to create a youth voter guide — which she hopes is only the start of a relationship with the city’s next generation of leaders.
• How to use voting districts to kickstart community listening. Move beyond your go-to election sources by asset mapping and conducting precinct analyses to connect with people who can give depth to your reporting and the neighborhoods you cover. AmyJo Brown of The Public Ledger and War Streets Media offers a step-by-step guide to identifying these people and organizations.
• Foster community belonging with your local election coverage. The feeling of “belonging” is a combination of role and fit. The Common Agency’s Deborah Tien details how news outlets can use this approach to engage people through reporting and events year-round.

What others are doing

• LAist’s limited-run, post-election email newsletter, called “Make It Make Sense,” complements its voter guide and accompanying election initiatives
• The Tennessean and USA Today Network Florida cover the First Amendment as its own beat, highlighting how the rights it protects are practiced or threatened in local communities.
• PublicSource maps a community’s assets, highlighting and giving new entry points to how residents interact and join forces for good.
• Cicero Independiente convenes and unpacks how running for office works, or CivicLex helps residents understand how their particular government works, providing a type of civic education alongside relevant reporting.
• Local newsrooms and community organizations support Documenters, getting more public meetings on the record while also equipping community members with civic skills they may practice the rest of their life.