NPR Election Project 1994
Partners:
NPR Election Project
National Public Radio, known for the extraordinary depth and seriousness of its public issues coverage, made changes in its approach to political reporting to improve its coverage of the 1994 election campaign.
The Washington, DC-based network worked with member stations in five cities and two statewide networks to provide high quality, issue-directed reporting based on an agenda determined by citizens.
The network helped its member stations form partnerships with other local news organizations to poll citizens, hold issues forums and town meetings, create advisory panels and use call-in shows to generate citizen input and deliberation, which was used to enhance national and regional political reporting. Specific activities and results varied from area to area:
- The Front Porch Forum, Seattle, WA
Partners:
KUOW-FM, KPLU-FM (Tacoma), The Seattle Times
The partners considered the election project such a success, they launched a long-term civic journalism partnership, called “The Front Porch Forum,” after a focus group participant suggested people need to sit on their front porches and talk to each other more.
The partners held four focus groups for the project, in May, then followed up with a statewide poll of 500 citizens in June. They found crime, growth, schools, health care and the economy to be the biggest issues. Each partner explored these issues in stories leading up to the election. On Oct. 26, 1994, the partners invited five undecided voters to quiz the two U.S. Senate candidates during an hour-long radio show. The Times ran a transcript of the event. Reader and listener feedback were generally positive and the partners continued to work together on other issues such as growth and leadership, in addition to later elections.
- Voice of the Voter, San Francisco, CA
Partners:
KQED-FM, KRON-TV (NBC), San Francisco Chronicle
The partners commissioned a poll of 633 Bay Area residents in advance of the 1994 gubernatorial primary and found the economy, the environment and education were the issues of greatest concern to voters. Each partner produced stories on the issues and cross-promoted each other’s coverage. The partners also set up voice mail boxes where citizens could call in questions for candidates. Candidates answered the questions in weekly columns broadcast on KQED and KRON and printed in the Chronicle.
Just before the May primary, the partners sponsored a televised, statewide debate among the gubernatorial candidates-the only one held. As the general election approached, the Chronicle launched a voter registration project, followed by several other large Bay Area papers, that resulted in 40,000 new voters.
- The People’s Voice, Boston, MA
Partners:
WBUR-FM, WBZ-TV (CBS), The Boston Globe
The partners used a combination of forums, focus groups and a poll of 400 citizens to identify issues that voters wanted candidates to address for the project it dubbed, “The People’s Voice.” The Globe told readers the project was “the beginning of a pointed dialogue between candidates and voters.” Through the summer and fall of 1994, the paper ran extensive stories on the citizens’ issues and, in a regular feature, ran a citizen’s question, the candidates’ answer and the citizen’s analysis of whether the candidate had answered the question. It also ran citizen critiques of campaign ads.
WBUR regularly broadcast comments from the focus groups and candidate reaction, as well as talk shows with local experts and community leaders fielding calls. The partners hosted a live broadcast of five citizens questioning candidates for senator and governor, and the Globe helped sponsor a gubernatorial debate and two debates between the senate candidates, including one in which citizens were the questioners.
- Texans Talk: The People’s Agenda, Dallas, TX
Partners:
KERA-FM, The Dallas Morning News
The partners sponsored a series of monthly public forums, broadcast on KERA and covered by the Morning News, based on issues identified as voters’ chief concerns by a statewide poll. “”The Public Agenda” also featured a series of newspaper stories on each issue – some devoted to Texans affected by the issue and others devoted to the candidates’ position on the issues. Questions from citizens surveyed for the poll were passed along to candidates and their responses were run regularly.
The partners also worked together on a Senate and governor’s debate, the only one of the campaign. About two dozen people who took part in the issue forums made up a citizens panel that posed questions to the candidates, along with KERA and Morning News reporters.
- Your Vote Counts, Wichita, KS
Partners:
KMUW-FM, The Wichita Eagle
A poll of 600 Kansans at the beginning of the “Your Vote Counts” project not only identified key voter issues, but also provided a pool of people for public radio reporters to turn to for comment on those issues. Those reporters used voters interviewed for the survey to provide perspective on virtually every aspect of campaign coverage. Poll participants took part in regular discussion forums on subjects such as crime, jobs and the economy. Several of those polled were tapped to conduct their own broadcast interviews with gubernatorial candidates. Reporters followed up those interviews with summary pieces on how citizens believed the candidates responded to their questions.
The Eagle used the issues identified by the poll as the framework for its election coverage and added some new elements to its report. One new feature was a side-by-side chart summarizing and comparing opposing candidates’ stands on issues. Post election research indicated that these were the most-read aspect of the paper’s coverage and that most readers found them helpful.
- Voters’ Voice, New Hampshire
Partners:
New Hampshire Public Radio and TV, WGOT-TV, The (Nashua) Telegraph, the Concord Monitor, the Valley News, The Keene Sentinel, University of New Hampshire
The partners in the “Voters’ Voice” project conducted two extensive issues polls – interviewing 500 New Hampshire residents each time – and used the results in two ways. First, the results of each poll were reported in both short and feature length stories. Then, the second poll was used as the basis for areas to explore with candidates during three statewide, live debates. The citizen panels for each debate were selected from among poll respondents.
The partners also sponsored three citizen-driven town meetings with candidates for governor and the state’s two congressional seas. These were broadcast live statewide on public radio and TV and WGOT in Manchester and then rebroadcast at different times of day. NHPR saw no direct evidence that the project increased voter turn-out but thought it did make a difference in the quality of the public debate.
- Campaign ’94, Maine
Partner:
Maine Public Radio
Maine Public Radio began its “Campaign ’94” election project with a poll of likely voters. A public forum on jobs and the economy aired in October and special reports summarizing candidates’ remarks on the issues ran in local segments of NPR’s “Morning Edition.”