Democracy is a new beat for some national-level reporters, but it needs to be a state and local beat, too

By Al Cross

Director and professor, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

There's a new beat in American journalism: democracy. The most specific topic on the beat is election administration. So far, the beat is only national, but it also needs to be one at the state and local level, because that's where elections are governed and run.

Last week, The Rural Blog noted that The Associated Press recently expanded its politics team to include democracy. Today, Editor & Publisher Contributing Editor Gretchen Peck notes several similar shifts, and reports on interviews with journalists, including Tom Verdin, editor of AP's team.

Tom Verdin, AP elections editor

“There’s been a change in the country that has compelled us to focus intently on the attack on American democracy,” Verdin said. “This is the first time in the nation’s history that we had a president who was actively trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power. . . . Before and after Jan. 6, you have a former president who is continuing to peddle this false narrative, this lie … that has had profound effects on millions, if not tens of millions of Americans who believe that. And it’s not just rank-and-file Republican voters. As we’ve seen through the primary season this year, we have Republican candidates for office, for Congress, governor and on down the ballot, who continue to promote this lie that the 2020 election was stolen.”

Peck also reports on interviews with Sam Levine of The Guardian; Yvonne Wingett-Sanchez, who recently joined The Washington Post’s democracy team after almost 20 years with The Arizona Republic; and Tamar Hallerman, a senior reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which uncovered the recording of then-President Trump asking the Georgia secretary of state to find him just enough votes to win the state's electoral votes. She's covering the state investigation of Trump and others.

Levine told Peck, “This belief that the election was stolen is getting at something that people feel, and it might not be something that a set of facts is ever going to dissuade them, but we have to report on where those emotions are coming from, where the belief is coming from, the rhetoric that people are using to encourage that belief. But it might not be something that a fact check is ever going to dissuade them from. This is much more complicated than people having simply looked at the wrong set of facts.”

Levine said the best way to fight misinformation is to "stick to the facts" and report "how ballots are counted, what processes elections offices use to make sure your ballot is counted, and all the steps along the way to make sure that I am who I say I am when I show up to vote. Figuring out ways to explain those processes and make them more accessible to people — to help people understand how these systems work — is becoming more important than ever."

And it's important at the local level, too, particularly in rural counties, which Trump carried by a record margins in 2016 and 2020. Election controversies have arisen even in relatively small counties where the elected and appointed officials are well known and widely trusted, so we can no longer take for granted that the public will have confidence in elections. That's a cornerstone of democracy, as is journalism, but there is still a shortage of coverage of state and county election-board meetings, where the workings of elections are discussed and reporters can learn a lot. And they should read up on the issues.

Peck notes, "Protect Democracy — a non-partisan, nonprofit group — published The Authoritarian Playbook in June 2022, designed to inform journalists about how authoritarianism takes hold, to recognize the symptoms and report on the threat in a measured, thoughtful and effective way. Its authors describe how cult-of-personality politicians and enablers corrupt elections, stoke violence, target vulnerable communities, politicize independent institutions, spread disinformation, aggrandize executive power and quash dissent — all now eerily familiar to the American people."

The book says the news media have “an essential role to play that is unbiased, but not neutral in applying a consistent standard about the threats to democracy. In light of the authoritarian threat, the ongoing process of media evolution and adaptation necessitates that the media may draw on a different toolkit today than it did in the eras of Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion, the Pentagon Papers or Watergate.”

Lippmann's book is 100 years old this year. Even in the age of social media, it still has much to say about the imperfections of democracy and the essential role of journalism in finding the facts to help created the "consent of the governed" called for in the Declaration of Independence. Misinformation, even disinformation, about elections is probably circulating in your community. Local journalists should find the facts and report them, and consider an analysis, column or editorial on the topic. You may have no other more important responsibility. Our form of government may be at stake.

One last thing: Last December, AP published several stories on its investigation of vote-fraud claims in the six states that decided the presidential election, and found that there was far, far too little fraud to make a difference in any of the elections. I asked AP to allow non-subscribing weekly newspapers to reprint those stories, and the wire service agreed. Those stories are, perhaps unfortunately, still news. I encourage weeklies to take advantage of AP's generosity and report the facts.

UPDATE: If you're reading this on Tuesday, be aware that "Frontline" begins its season on PBS tonight with "Lies, Politics and Democracy," a two-hour documentary on how we got into this pickle.