Election Day is in 138 days. It will be yet another “most important election of our lifetimes.” But as elections grow in both consequence and complexity, the local newsrooms that do the critical work of informing and connecting local communities are more pressed for time and money than ever.
That’s why Knight Foundation and other organizations have created the Knight Election Hub, which is launching today.
In the Hub are almost 100 resources that a newsroom can use to do great election coverage starting today. Data, software, training, and other services that many newsrooms may not have known about, or assumed were out of their reach. And because cost is always a factor in overstretched newsroom budgets, Knight is picking up the tab on thousands of dollars of paid services, like Ballotpedia and DecisionDeskHQ’s election graphics.
With materials in the Election Hub, your newsroom can do deep backgrounding of candidates before the election, create rich voter guides that help readers know how to vote and who’ll be on their ballot, help shine a light on how voting works, and even run a poll to understand how your communities feel about the issues.
The Election Hub brings in advice and help from across the news industry. Knight worked with OpenNews, MuckRock, Newspack, Hearken, and many others, and it will continue to be a group effort.
The Hub is starting with a formidable list of resources and will be rolling out more up until Election Day and if necessary, beyond.
Did I mention it’s free? All you need is a MuckRock account, which thousands of newsrooms already have.
Here’s where to find out more and sign up: https://lnkd.in/eafUCX3b.
As an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Newspack I’ve been one of the people leading this project for the past few months. If you’re at IRE this week, come hear me talk about the Knight Election Hub today (Thursday) at 5 p.m. in Platinum Ballroom 2. And I’ll be doing office hours outside near the hotel pool Friday from 10-12 a.m.
Here’s my post on the Newspack site about this: https://lnkd.in/e54D3hyy
