Increasing civic engagement, particularly in local elections, and producing socially relevant media are interconnected and mutually reinforcing.
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I knew there was something I liked about Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator, Mr. Bernie Sanders. He, like I, believes that Election Day should feel like an event; an experience; a holiday that lifts our spirits and ignites a celebration of democracy.
Sen. Sanders, according to HuffingtonPost.com, made this statement when he was announcing his intention to introduce legislation to make Election Day a national holiday:
“In America, we should be celebrating our democracy and doing everything possible to make it easier for people to participate in the political process. Election Day should be a national holiday so that everyone has the time and opportunity to vote. While this would not be a cure-all, it would indicate a national commitment to create a more vibrant democracy.”
I agree, and I’ve consistently argued in print and in person for a more engaging and fun approach to engaging citizens in the political process. My focus on exciting the electorate was what drove me in 2014 to co-organize Minding Climate Change: A Call to Action™, one of hundreds of events around the world associated with Global Youth Service Day, and Drum Duel®, a drum competition where the winner was decided by ballot. Both events were held in the courtyard of City Hall and featured not only live entertainment, but an opportunity for Philadelphians to register to vote.
Traditionally, some have said, it’s not common for journalists like me to morph into the role of political activist and attempt to organize communities and voting blocs. And that maybe true, but I’m anything but traditional.
In addition to serving as the CEO of Techbook Online, a news and event company that reaches millions of people a month across channels and platforms, I’m the Pennsylvania State Coordinator for Black Youth Vote, a program of the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation.
I’ve invested a significant amount of time at City Hall learning about both the role of Philadelphia City Commissioners and the opportunities and challenges that exist when executing ‘Get Out the Vote’ work.
Now here’s the trillion dollar question: Why would a journalist like me care about voter registration and participation?
The answer is two-fold: I’m a citizen before I’m anything else, and I want communities to be as strong as possible, which requires consistent participation in the political process, among many other things. Secondly, a journalist and owner of a news organization, my audience is only as large as the people who care about the issues of the day.
It’s smart business on my behalf to ensure that my audience is growing both organically, those Techbook Online attracts from its content, and intentionally, by getting more people to understand and internalize the issues so that they’ll in turn care and share the original stories of impact, issue, inspiration and innovation that Techbook Online produces.
Increasing civic engagement, particularly in local elections, and producing socially relevant media are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, though they’re usually thought of, and discussed as, separate and unique societal operations.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the nation’s largest funder of journalism, released a report this quarter called “Why Millennials Don’t Vote: Barriers and Motivators for Local Voting,” and found that the biggest barrier to the polls for millennials is a lack of trustworthy information. Knight Foundation noted that other studies suggest cutbacks to local media may lead to less civic engagement: voters have less information in local elections than in national ones, so they’re less likely to vote.
According to the Washington Post, General election voter turnout for the 2014 midterms was the lowest it’s been in any election cycle since World War II. And according to a 2013 State of the New Media Report:
“The percentage of adults who report they read a newspaper “yesterday” declined again in 2012 for all age groups except 18-to-24-year-olds. The biggest decline was for 35-to-44-year-olds, down three percentage points. Those 65 and older again were most likely to be newspaper readers.”
Furthermore, Slate notes:
“Print ad revenues are now the lowest they’ve been since 1950.”
Based on these numbers and what we know about markets, it would seem that if traditional news organizations and the journalists they employ reformed their operations to deliver more accurate, timely, relevant, hyper-local and sometimes provocative and exciting news content, then more citizens, particularly millennials, will engage their stories and turn out for local elections; ad revenue will increase which will enable the news organizations to hire more journalists, and thus the City touts an increase in jobs and strong voting blocs, which are the foundations for strong communities.
*Tune into 900amWURD or 900amWURD.com every Friday evening during the 6 o’clock hour to hear me relive #TheWeekThatWas*
Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!™



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