 Hello my name is Karen Runlet and I'm a journalism director at the Knight Foundation thanks so much for spending the time with us. Election night, it is usually a very very late one in American newsrooms. Journalists double and triple check data and results. They craft headlines, they conduct interviews, they shoot video and photos, and they produce live reports from candidates campaign headquarters. The one thing they can usually count on is free pizza and lots of coffee but the pandemic of 2020 with remote work even that's changed. Everything has changed. The pandemic has changed how we vote and it's expected to change how long it takes to count those votes. So today we're asking the question could election night end up becoming election week or election month and really how do journalists prepare for that? Our guests today are Josh Yuri. Josh worked as a senior producer at both CBS News and ABC News serving hundreds of affiliate stations and now Josh is a news director at a Scripps-owned station in Waco, Texas KXXV TV. Hi Josh. Hello, glad to be here. Great to have you and also we have Frank Manjum. Frank is actually the newly named chief of the chief innovation officer at the local media association Congrats, Frank. Thank you, Karen. And he is still wrapping up things at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. He is the Knight Professor of Practice and TV Innovation. Welcome, Frank. Thank you. All right, let's get to it. Josh, I just want to start with you. Journalists watch this program but nonjournalists watch as well. So why don't you just level set? There are a lot of folks who just want to know what a newsroom's election night looks like generally. Yeah, you alluded to it. It starts off a lot of pizza and coffee but then we get down to business and that is covering the races from a local microchasm to make sure that the local community is informed on what's happening here locally. Okay, but that's changed but the thing about the pandemic, it's really shown us the power of local leadership. We have governors and mayors not agreeing in some instances, not agreeing with the federal laws. There is really a battle for control on how to really address the pandemic. So tell me a little bit about you're in Waco. That looks like Paris to me in the background though. Yes, it is Paris but here in Waco, let me just set the scene. So the governor, when it pertains to the pandemic, he may come out with an executive order but the governor here in Texas leaves it up to the judges. The judges actually set policy for mandating mask wearing and what have you. So while the governor may want to do one thing, it's really up to the local county judges to enforce rules. Okay, that's local nuance that's so important for us to know. So I'm going to ask Frank this question. Frank, what's really most different about covering this year's election locally and frankly, what might not need to be in the election plan and then Josh, I want to hear from you. So what's most different about covering this year's election locally, Frank? I've worked in local TV newsrooms for most of my career and frankly, the coverage plan usually is about logistics and races. Each of the headquarters and horse racing that night of who's ahead, who's behind and those are not the problems to be solved this year. Overwhelmingly, the question and the challenge this year is about the integrity of the vote itself and all of the things leading up to that meaning are all the eligible voters going to be able to vote and will all of the fairly cast votes be counted? Okay, I agree with Frank. You know there was an analysis not to go by NPR that says over half a million votes were rejected in the primary because the ballots were filled out incorrectly and so in the local newsroom what we want to do is educate voters on how to make sure your vote is counted and so we are actually taking the steps now in our coverage to tell voters how to properly fill out ballots to make sure the votes are counted. Okay, okay that's wonderful. So Frank, you also wrote an article and it was one of the most popular articles on the Night Cronkite Lab newsletter and website and it was you know it may not be election night it may not it may be election week or maybe even election month so how or what else do reporters, executive producers and editors really need to do to change their plans? Yeah the first thing is start now. I mean in my experience in local newsrooms often there are planning meetings now but the real coverage plan often doesn't kick in until October that's too late. So the way to have every vote counted and integrate in the elections is to begin coverage now. Josh's example is a great one. In your state how can you be reporting right now for your voters on what do they need to do to get a mail-in ballot? What should they do to be sure the mail-in ballot gets received? How can we be sure that both polling places and both counting locations are properly staffed? But then the second half is setting expectations up to and including what's your promotion department doing in terms of messaging your coverage? I mean forever I've been part of election night X thousand you know and the shiny promo that makes viewers and consumers think there'll be a satisfying ending tonight. So preparing audiences now by doing stories with state and local election officials on how long will it take to count the ballots? How many more votes are expected? What is a reasonable expectation for when results could be fully tabulated? So messaging internally in the newsroom that it's not like election night pizza and we're done but also to the audience now to set the expectation that to do this right it could take a while. Josh have you how have you already started to do some at work or what what are you sort of looking at in your plan? Yes so one of the things that we really want to do this year we want to make sure that we have experts on hand to talk about these issues whether it's COVID-19 or whether it's the election system itself as it pertains to the Electoral College and there are so many different issues that will that will impact decisions at the polls whether it's you know George Floyd or defunding police. So we want to get the experts now and have them available to have that conversation to provide context to our viewers. Karen can I add to that because Josh making a great point. So we've always had the pundit panels the question is is the pundit panel used used in the past going to work this time and my answer is absolutely not. So Josh has given an example of of actually what do we need to be doing now to find the right kinds of experts for the unique nature of this election and so some of the example Josh gave like if you're in Texas the judges versus the governor that's going to be a state by state issue with a different answer depending on the state you're in. So one of the things we actually need on our local pundit panels now is that constitutional law expert as opposed to the party political pundit who who tell you why people are feeling this way or that we actually need to understand the law and how state procedural regulations will be applied. Those are a different kind of expert and you can't wait till election night to go find them right. If you wait till election night you've missed the conversation. Okay absolutely um so I you know television newsrooms um an election night is a story that has brings like an exhilaration to it and a celebration there's going to be a winner at the end there you know there's a party with a crowd and cheering and champagne bottles and um and there's just some natural drama to that and that's not going to happen this time so how or tell me a little bit more Josh about how the newsroom culture is sort of prepared for you know uncertainty and delay frankly this is not going to be a certain a certain winner necessarily. Yeah yeah you know this you know as as as we talked about this could play out for days beyond election night and so it's really important to have your crews uh tap into your state election offices uh to have someone that you can call to follow whether it's on social media but to have these conversations now because we know and it will be what's going to happen we're not going to have carewinners possibly on election night and so what we have to do in newsrooms is be able to keep the conversation going as as as the votes come in the one thing I don't want to see happen this year is you know this notion we got to be first and then a newsroom makes a mistake and come out with results only to walk it back later uh because as we know there's already this notion that uh the fake media right and so we have to take uh extra precautions to ensure that we aren't um you know providing information to that narrative so you've actually had a conversation with reporters where you're talking about it's it's you you've really had a conversation about it's not as important to be first as it is correct and right absolutely and that's just not a with the election that's just the cost of board uh I'd rather be right than first excellent excellent um so you know we we started to talk about it um um and uh in July of this year Neiman lab reported on the growth of partisan media all these websites popping up and sort of masquerading as state and local news organizations and they're not um and some of them are actually spreading misinformation so um Frank I'd like to hear from you how are journalists how are they able to really fight the spread of misinformation especially in this election there's a lot at stake yeah I mean I do think this is the most challenging election I've been through in that regard uh and so fact checking false hoods that are being widely spread on social media becomes a mandatory part of an overall local coverage plan and I do think so first draft does training for journalists that is worth considering if the newsroom hasn't uh had that training but but really part of the nuance is you don't want to give oxygen to rumors and and help amplify false hoods so it really takes discipline to identify when a rumor has reached a level of exposure that it's important to knock it down otherwise actually we are using our pulpit to amplify and what people may hear is actually the false hood not the the the fact check and so it's it's not as easy as just fact check false things it's also a threshold for if you if you try to chase down every false hood you're in a constantly reactive mode and frankly then the misinformation strategy winds up working and so there's a discipline to really set the bar to misinformation that's reaching a level of distribution where it's important to knock it down while not handing over the editorial process to those who would try to undercut the election so there's an amount of proactivity where we want to be sure back to kind of josh's earlier point we're putting our limited local news resources also uh for and toward uh how can you be sure that you're uh have a valid registration how can you be sure your ballot gets received how can you be sure your ballot gets counted great um uh josh i'd love to hear a little bit more what is the concern um how are you tackling the concern in the newsroom that perhaps reporters could be could sort of all pray to misinformation what i'd like to hear a little bit more practically about that yes so you know there there are different layers in the newsroom of uh making sure that we have facts right we do a two-source system uh where it has to be vetted at least by two sources uh before that information is included in a script and typically it's it's the higher up managers in the newsroom that signs off whether it's an e p or you know the assistant news director of myself uh who will sign off on a script before it makes air just to make sure that we are vetting the content and and and e p of course is an executive producer producer yes yeah i just want to mention that for the non journalists the non reporters and non tv types um so um so um also um josh uh a little bit about wake away i i believe it has um 21 african-american population 32 hispanic latinx there's a smaller asian and native american community um how are you working to um how are you thinking about the coverage to serve those communities well i've been fortunate enough uh since i arrived here in wake oh uh nearly a year ago to really diversify my newsroom staff and i think that's really a critical component of being reflective of the community with you serve uh and so we've hired you know uh latinos and african-americans when we have openings to make sure they are in the community uh and and bringing forth the content that matters to those communities okay excellent um important if i can just add to that there's a you know one of i think the most important stories that that local newsrooms can be working on right now you know and i do recommend in the article i talk about a now next later approach you know what are the things that should be done right now in local newsrooms and you know josh touched on it right if i i'm very interested in local reporting on how representative are polling place is polling place distribution relative to population you know we've seen examples in georgia for example that are just outrageous where polling places have been closed down but not in a neutral kind of way and so that's the kind of uncover discover accountability reporting that local newsrooms can and should be the leader on to be to find out where the polling places are which ones have been closed and is there anything about that that is unequal in the distribution and then we've seen literally just in the last two weeks the whole usps mailbox removal uh news again i would be looking at where are those mailboxes being removed overlaid against my communities and again is there unequal access to exercising the right to vote excellent because what you want to do is you want to make sure in those communities where you know for example here in texas we had a district that uh the voting machines left to rot and they're not working anymore okay so what are those people going to do when it comes time to vote and so we went to that community and asked the the officials what are you doing to make sure these folks aren't disenfranchised right so we got put pressure when you find these situations local newsrooms you have to put pressure on these officials to make sure they're going to do the right thing for their voters i love that point by josh right karen so we've actually seen this at the national level on on some of the postal service issues which again i would point out were first identified in local newsrooms and that reporting became scaled so if we ever had a doubt about the importance of local journalism right so those things got found at the local level led to scaled pressure which led to rollbacks of some of those policies so the the importance right now of local accountability journalism is huge the other thing kind of long long as what josh is talking about is i'll i'll admit that i and i've worked in journalism for decades i had never heard of a provisional ballot until the last nine months so there's an i you know being in arizona i have seen how in what seems to be a very unequal way um certain voters have been challenged at the point of the polling place on whether they're eligible to vote and so educating right now we can be putting in little explainer videos on how how and why to ask for and request and require that you receive a provisional ballot if you have trouble casting your vote these are the kinds of things we can be working on our local newsrooms right now that educate our voters empower them and ensure that their voice will be heard great um thank you um we do um we welcome questions from the audience we have a couple of questions and comments coming in um elissa has um asked a little bit about the the idea joshie we're speaking about and and frank as well the constitutional law expert um what kinds of non-traditional what other kinds of non-traditional experts might we be thinking of she wants to know a little bit about finding these experts and what we might consider and and the right questions to ask in your community i think one of voting block that's going to be huge this year is the youth vote and really tapping into the different organizations that support that demographic uh to find out more about the issues that are near and dear to them uh those are the experts that i would be tapping into uh especially knowing that they will play a significant role in this election absolutely frank your thoughts there yeah i mean the professor at a university well i mean i i actually my thoughts were more on you know the different kinds of experts that we we need to be looking for um and you know i feel like we have all had the luxury of living in an america where we didn't actually as citizens need to know how the soup got stirred um and all of a sudden this year we need a granular understanding which is different state by state which again is where local journalists come in on well what is the procedure for counting mail-in ballots versus counting ballots collected at a polling place and then who in the state has the authority under state statute to declare the winner and how who has the power to assign delegates you know i mean yeah again i think in the last few years we've all gone to school um in terms of the electoral college versus the popular vote i mean that for many people four years ago was uh rather a shocking aha moment so i think there's there's a level of granularity that we all didn't think we needed to know in the past that this year we do need to know to ensure a an outcome we trust yeah i agree that constitutional law that frank mentioned earlier is going to be very important those experts are going to be able to answer a lot of questions election night and thereafter um thank you i have a question from peg and she is asking either one of you whoever wants to raise their hand on this um any special um guidance for student journalists um what to look for on their campuses um um how to inform their readers about fact checking with social media either of you want to take that anybody want to i do feel applied professor frank i was one last shot one last chance to answer as professor frank um you know and i'll broaden it right you know this is uh an opportunity to realize the potential of true community based reporting right and so if we all if the most fundamental aspect of democracy is is our participation through voting in our and who who leads us then not just involving student journalists but activating the community at large and one of the links that went through in the chat with election sos is really all about engaging with community so i think not just for student journalists i know at asu two years ago at the midterms the students of cronkite news did an amazing job fanning out because the student newsroom sometimes these days is bigger than another local newsroom has the resources to fan out and physically be present at polling places and so one of the ways that i think will be one of the things that will be a huge determinant of the ultimate question which is do we collectively trust the outcome of our election is genuinely neutral monitoring of the voting experience at voting uh at polling places and so student journalists are a fantastic team to activate and also that's a conversation again that josh talking about you know what could we in our local newsrooms be doing now we could be bringing our audience into that conversation and activating the community to help not just observe but i think we have a huge staffing problem i mean i know i'm going along here but experts have pointed out this is really the first time we've ever had in effect a double election we have a polling election and a mail-in ballot election right each of which those need to be counted right at the same time that we have a pandemic and so let's be honest the folks who have always blessed their heart volunteered at polling booths tend to be older americans who are rightly concerned about covid because they're at the highest risk so we've already seen in the primaries you have a drop in volunteers at polling places even as you have a demand that we expect to be huge to vote and so again so this is beyond student journalists but there is an opportunity right now for local newsrooms to help activate their communities to fill these needs that are part of ensuring uh trustworthy elections which is the volunteerism component of being at polling places helping count that i agree yeah i just want to mention to you just um i am in miami dade county and um you know um engagement with so much higher voter turnout for the primary was the highest it's been since 2004 so there is a more there was a more engaged miami dade county and we've had countless uh night studies that have shown that people who watch the news and consume journalism tend to vote more um so um you know josh if you would tell me a little bit about like where is the audience are they are they engaging with you on social media i mean television is do you have a larger audience now how has it changed in the pandemic yeah you know for us we've we've done it pretty well um you know there was this notion that viewers weren't watching as much in the mornings but for us we still see a lot of engagement in our morning show in the afternoons but we also see a huge uptick in online in our digital space so yeah very a lot of uh people are consuming our content uh digitally and so i think you know moving forward as people shift back we get a vaccine and people shift back to their um you know their normal routines the stations who've done it well in terms of their digital space mirroring what they see on broadcast i don't see uh folks losing their audience maybe possibly gaining more of an audience i mean that's so important to to note that television is um providing information on websites on social and streaming and um you know it it's not just like it's not your you know it's not your grandmother's five o'clock newscast in the living room so um okay a couple of other questions um from william william is um very direct and is talking about president trump already trying to um you know um raise some doubt about the results of the presidential election um that is a national story but we it it there's no doubt that we're increasingly a partisan nation uh how do you think um he asks um how can election night reporting um help reassure voters regardless of party that the election is in fact fair i'll take a stab at it and it's a great question and my first answer is by not waiting till election night to start at work and so what we've been saying about communicating you know uncover and discover what is the process in your state for counting votes and how will you exercise your duty as a local journalism organization to be a monitor and a watchdog of that how can we as a member of our communities preemptively problem solve around activating volunteerism so the issues aren't staffing related and then the last thing i would say is we actually have to build in an extra decision step before we just automatically report what people in power say and that step is we have to ask the question what interests are being served by this claim so the postal service to me is a perfect example of this and it yes it's hard it's complicated but as a local news org if you are doing your job you are probably right now reporting on veterans who are not getting their medicine in a timely fashion because of delays in the postal service you may have done the postal box removal story in your community those are important and real stories at the same time we have to recognize there is there is an agenda behind undercutting trust in institutions that we rely on to give us confidence in the vote and so that has to become a regular part of the editorial conversation and then it has to be transparently included in the report. Josh did you want to add anything? I was just going to say I think you just got to hold your local election official accountable you know typically in an election we get a lot of exit polling right and we traditionally use exit polling as a way to determine how voter sentiment but I think you know this year it's going to be different because of COVID and so I think the newsrooms who are smart about how they tackle that getting voters voters to give that information whether it be through creating polls on digital or some social mechanism I think those are the newsrooms that are going to see a get some traction. Okay great um so I just um I just want to spend a little time just making sure Frank um you had talked about first draft you and talked about election land if you could just um give us a one line on each of those organizations first draft um many of those are night grantees um but I just like to hear from you in a very practical way how they're serving newsrooms just so you bet first draft sure first draft I think does a great job of of guiding not just newsrooms but you know concerned citizens to really understanding the difference between misinformation and disinformation you know when when my aunt shares a post you know unaware like oh that turns out not to be grounded in truth that's that's misinformation she's amplifying and then there there are over efforts coordinated calculated disinformation efforts which we as journalists really have to be on guard so that we don't amplify those so uh I think first draft is a great resource in in developing an editorial strategy for what is the threshold for debunking so that you don't give oxygen to rumors and then how to fact check in a way that is responsible election land I think is a is a project whose time unfortunately has come which is really about monitoring what happens at polling places and and the very things we all want which is to have confidence that what takes place at the polling places is fair and equitable and the election sos is a is a new effort really to the folks at harken and democracy fund are also involved in that to really bring the audience into the conversation and not have our communities be passive but how can we collaborate with our communities as journalists to have them be more involved in having a trustworthy election process and then politifact would be a national example I would selfishly I used to work at tegna a call out verify as a local example of just how you know if you as a citizen want to know is this true I mean political politifact is a resource for anybody and is literally on demand and very topical meaning things from yesterday are there today thank you um of course again uh many of those have been supported by my foundation for years I just want to add I want to give a share one more question from the audience and then just get final words from you um um so um the last question that I have here is from collette collette is asking how do journalists balance the need to showcase voter suppression and risks without undermining confidence in our democracy because it is a fine line I'm going to give that one to you josh I know that's a little that's a heavy one yeah it is it is a heavy one um but we all know that we are facing these issues um and I think it's really important that journalists not be afraid to tackle them um in a meaningful way that has impact for their communities where they serve and I would just implore journalists to to to be as diligent as possible um when when you when you have an opportunity to talk about that issue which is voter suppression because we know it happens but how do we combat it make sure that you are educating your audience um in a meaningful way and I think that's that's how we tackle it here in Waco is to have authenticity and be transparent uh in the conversation excellent and if I can just add to Josh's point that's so important so I think it's two things first we should not shy away from this accountability reporting and the post office story is a good example of what the power of exposing to daylight uh the shenanigans if you will the power that that journalist coverage can have so we shouldn't shy away from those stories I think as collette you know tease out the problem there right is that it has the secondary effect of undermining trusting institutions which again there's that serves some people's interests so how do we as journalists uh strike that balance I think we want to pair our coverage of those issues with solutions and actions and so for example josh mentioned it earlier here's where you can drop off your mail in ballot so that there is no issue on the return side and so making it very transparent easily accessible educating people when they should expect to receive there about how you can actually use mail tracking uh to check the status of things that you should be receiving in your mail where you can hand drop off actually from an accountability standpoint making sure the mail drop off sites are diverse just like we talked about are the polling places unequally distributed making sure that drop off locations are properly distributed so pairing the problems with solutions wonderful um we are hashtag night live again we are with josh urie um at josh e u r e on twitter and um at frank words frank munjum um and I just want to I want to do final words really quick we'll wrap it up but I'm actually going to ask you what is the question that is keeping you up at night most about election coverage so I want to end with your best questions not with your answers because this is a work in progress so frank what's keeping you I mean that's a great question and uh you know what I what I worry most I mean I in my adult life as a journalist I've never worried more for democracy than right now um and so what I worry about is that not all people who are eligible to vote will get to and not all legitimately cast votes will be counted um and and I don't have a good answer for that um but all the things we've been talking about for the last half hour are you know best efforts first drafts and what can we do and what can we control so that we don't wind up in that situation um thank you josh yeah yeah for me I think uh when it comes to the election what keeps me up at night is making sure that I'm protecting the community to ensure they have a voice uh in the election uh but then also to frank's point is making sure that the future of our democracy is alive and well uh and then cutting through the noise of this notion of disinformation that's just bombarding uh our electorate on so many different levels um those are the things that I really honestly worry about every day as we head to and we're what 70 days out now um it's it's it's it's a daunting task and I hope journalists uh know they have such a pivotal role to play in this election so please don't take it lightly uh double down on what you've learned over the course of your career double down that information and and bring your best selves to work every day to make sure that this is going to be a fair election thank you josh thank you frank um you know I know that journalists have especially this year gone from covering the pandemic and um the economic fallout of that and then the protests around police brutality and racial injustice and I mean in Miami where journalists are covering hurricanes and storms and um they are in alabama new orleans and texas um so um you know the election is another enormous enormous thing I appreciate all your contributions and I hope everybody listening is really going to think about these big questions because there really is time to to change to change your plan for it to make better sense for what the pandemic will bring thank you um please follow these gentlemen on twitter um and thank you for joining us bye everyone