“I would like [candidates] to talk about how high and unreasonable the cost of living has become. Do we pay rent and insurance but go hungry?”
“Need to address returning Roe vs Wade. Such a big deal that made our country turn back time. No one should govern another person’s body. Period.”
“I’d love to hear [candidates] talk more about what’s really really at stake, which is personal liberty and freedom. Everybody really wants that, but people disagree on how that looks.”
These are comments from three Coloradans who took the Voter Voices survey, the centerpiece of our ambitious new experiment in collaborative election-year news coverage.
I’ve got 5,250 more where that came from.
More than 60 newsrooms around the state are asking voters what they want candidates talking about as they compete for their votes, what issues matter most to them and how much faith they have in the fairness of local and national elections.
And voters are answering. They’re singling out democracy and good government, the economy and cost of living, immigration, and the environment and climate change as their top concerns.
They’re telling their local newsrooms that they want candidates to quit with the backbiting and fingerpointing. No more winner-take-all, compromise-is-a-dirty-word politics, respondents said; democracy is at risk, the planet is in peril and we don’t have time for this nonsense.
Last week, news outlets around the state started publishing the first stories based on the statewide responses. If you missed them, you can find them on COLab’s website.
These stories are just a start. I said this in my last note to you and I’ll say it again: The survey is a tool. Voter Voices represents a pledge by local newsrooms to listen and act. And so, you’re going to see newsrooms such as the Ark Valley Voice commit on their websites to reporting on what their communities say matters to them. You’re going to see newsrooms like the San Miguel Basin Forum asking audiences what might be missing in the responses received so far. You’re going to see reporters and editors at places like The Colorado Sun and Colorado Newsline ask candidates to respond directly to Voter Voices survey concerns and comments.
If you haven’t taken the survey, please do. If you’ve already taken it, you can share it with your friends, family and social networks. It will remain open into October. We especially need more responses from young people, people of color and conservatives.
I called Voter Voices an experiment. It is actually many. It is a test of how newsrooms, some of them once rivals, can work together and learn from one another. It is a test of both the potential and limits of collaboration and coordination to improve local news. And it is also a test of the power of Coloradans to inform their local news coverage and of that coverage to get from candidates the straight answers voters need.
Democracy demands fair, accurate, responsive, independent local news. And local news needs you. Not everything we do is going to work. But damned if it’s not worth trying.
This post was sent as a letter to our email subscribers on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. Join our email list to learn more about COLab and the work we are doing.
