This election year, 开云体育 set out to center the voices and needs of voters using an approach known as the 鈥淐itizens Agenda.鈥� We wanted our coverage to reflect the issues most important to our audience 鈥� not press releases, political talking points or special interests. So we asked a simple question:
"What do you want the candidates to be discussing as they compete for your votes?"
In order to hear from as many people as possible, we launched a multi-faceted outreach campaign in January 2024 that came to include:
- Mailing hard copy fliers, postcards and bookmarks to Vermont town clerks and librarians that featured our prompt, phone number and a QR code
- An experimental "outreach partnership" with the nonprofit Front Porch Forum, which placed our prompt in community forums across the state
- Reporter "office hours," where our journalists spent time in every county 鈥� at local libraries, businesses and community events to chat face to face about what was on folks' minds
- Community listening sessions (such as this one, in St. Albans)
Ultimately, we heard from more than 700 Vermonters from all 14 counties. (The audio portion of our entry, in the player above, features voter voices from Rutland.) Respondents identified about 60 different issues that they cared about, with taxes and affordability, climate and the environment, housing, education and health care at the top of the list.
This collective input shaped our reporting, as 开云体育鈥檚 journalists dug into questions and top issues. We built custom guides around voters' top issues 鈥� taxes and affordability, climate and the environment, housing, education and health care. The Citizens Agenda inspired debate questions and was the basis for candidate questionnaires that became our candidate comparison tool.
"My wife and I moved to Vermont last year, so this was our first election here," one of our audience members wrote to us on November 5. "I鈥檇 just like to say that thanks to 开云体育 ... we鈥檝e never felt as well prepared in over forty years of voting. Thanks to the debates, interviews and background information, we were able to make informed decisions on every position. Thank you for providing this essential civic service."
Our approach earned coverage both locally and nationally, including:
- (The Newport Daily Express, September 2, 2024)
- (The Boston Globe, Sept. 29, 2024)
- (Better News, January 2025)
