The Election SOS newsletter is a dedicated resource for journalists covering the 2020 election. Here, we update you on our upcoming programming, share our favorite election-related stories, and provide critical resources to help with your coverage as we move closer to November.
Election SOS Fellowship
Election SOS, in collaboration with the American Press Institute, Trusting News, and the Democracy Fund, rolled out a paidfellowship program to help support local newsrooms around the country in their coverage of the 2020 general election.
Our team will pair newsrooms withqualified and trained fellows, journalism students and recent graduates, who will:
Help support newsroom coverage of this historic election with research, community engagement, and tracking data.
Monitor social networks for breaking news, polling, militia activity, and voter suppression.
Assist newsrooms with data entry and creating voter guides.
Thanks to our generous funders, we will provide fellows with a stipend of$25/hour to work 8 to 30 hours per week. Fellowships can be virtual or, if feasible and safe per public health guidelines, in person.
The deadline to apply to be a fellow or host a fellow as a newsroom is tomorrow - Tuesday Sept. 29 at 11:59 pm EST.
Many newsrooms don't have protocols, equipment, or plans for if things get very bad before, during, or after the election. Election SOS has created this downloadable guide for newsrooms to fill out, customize, augment, and use as a strategic plan to prepare. It's broken down into three major sections:
Free and open to your colleagues, too. Spread the word!
Political Season and Journalism: Overview of Threats and Tactics
Have you signed up for this upcoming webinar with Dr. Michelle Ferrier? Hurry up and register now for this one-time only free webinar. The content will not be available publicly afterward.
Our pitch database is here to provide you with fresh story ideas every day! Spread the word and bookmark the page to always have a great idea at your editorial meetings.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi started mobilizing Democrats for the possibility that neither candidates will win an outright Electoral College victory. This hasn't happened since 1876, and it would mean that the fate of the presidency would fall onto the House of Representatives. Each state's delegation would get a single vote, and who receives that vote is determined by an internal tally of each lawmaker in the delegation. This means the presidency may not be decided by the party that controls the House itself but by the one that controls more state delegations in the chamber.
According to a new analysis of 2018 mail-in absentee ballot data from the State Board of Elections by ProPublica and WRAL News, ballots mailed by Black voters during the midterms were more than twice as likely as those sent in by white voters to be rejected. This disparity — similar to gaps in other states — raises concerns about the equity of ballot counting and whether systemic racism and voter disenfranchisement may be tainting elections.
Thus op-ed discusses the importance of vote by mail for voters with a disability as well as threats voters with disabilities face this election to their franchise. Some of the barriers disabled people currently face with the upcoming election are inaccessibility of voting by mail for people with print-related disabilities, inaccessible state websites for voting, physically inaccessible polling places, to name a few.
The run-up to Nov. 3 — and beyond — promises to be chaotic. This piece offers several story ideas you and your newsroom could report on both before and on Election Day. Based on a webinar with Democracy Fund‘s Tammy Patrick.
The build-up to Election Day brings about a host of processes — after the fact, too.This infographic offers four tips from a former election administrator, Democracy Fund’s Tammy Patrick, on what to look for.
An immersive, non-partisan, digital learning experience designed to promote more civic engagement, agency and action among all voters, and particularly next gen voters.
New offer on Election SOS Switchboard
Learn how to sell your editorial plans to the business side from our engagement manager Bridget Thoreson! Bridget, a reporter and an editor with a master’s degree in marketing from Medill, will be available this week to teach you all the marketing secrets! So, if you want to
Learn what that business jargon you've heard flying around the boardroom actually means
Understand how marketers structure their pitches to the c-suite - and how you can do the same for your journalism
Find out what you can borrow from the marketers' toolkit to reach new audiences and deepen your existing ones
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