How newsrooms can build trust with their audiences and learn what they want to hear about local elections

By the American Press Institute

All your thoughtful election planning and coverage is wasted if no one’s buying what you’re selling (literally or figuratively). What does your community actually want and need to know about the election process, candidates and issues? Below are some ways to build trust with your readers and effectively learn what they want to hear from you.

✅ Let the public tell you what information they’re looking for but can’t find. The Citizens Agenda model centers voters and invites them to tell newsrooms what they want politicians to be talking about as they compete for votes.

✅ Collaborate with local community groups or agencies for a sense of what people are lacking — and consider offering voting guides, surveys or toolkits they can hand out to constituents. Here’s a great example of a partnership between a civic engagement hub and news outlet aiming to help constituents be well informed and prepared to vote in November.

✅ Avoid using “us vs. them” or two-sided framing when asking questions. Instead, use mindful language to complicate the narrative, and reveal more viewpoints by interviewing people who are not dead set on one approach. Learn more about complicating the narrative from Amanda Ripley and Solutions Journalism Network.

✅ Don’t be afraid to go off-platform to reach communities with low voter turnout. Consider printing off election guides that can be passed around, or starting a text message campaign that allows your audience to ask questions about the election. Here are some tips on answering live questions about voting.

✅ Follow up, and act on what you’ve learned. If possible, send community members a note thanking them for their time along with an observation about what you learned. And be sure to have a standardized way to track community responses across the newsroom, so insights and trends are readily accessible.