Election selections

Election Day is less than three months away, and we probably don’t need to tell you that we’re already in an unprecedented campaign season.

This, along with the already low trust the public has in the news media, means that the pressure is on journalists this year to frame their election stories in ways that are thoughtful, helpful, informative and trustworthy.

It’s hard to change newsroom habits, but there are research-backed strategies on everything from combating misinformation to writing about opinion polls that can help journalists make more informed choices in their election coverage. That’s why we’re partnering with Modifier and Trusting News to expand the USC Annenberg Style Guide that powers Stylebot to include easy-to-adopt best practices for election coverage.

So we’re doing something a little different in the newsletter this week and giving you a sneak peek of research-backed election advice for newsrooms.

We’ll start with an easy one: polls. Opinion polls are a staple of election coverage, but reporting on them is not without consequence. Here’s our advice on how to do so responsibly:

Opinion polls are snapshots in time and capture sentiment at the time they are taken, so write about them in the past tense instead of present tense: "Sen. Amy Klobuchar led the poll of California voters, which was conducted January 1 through January 10." However, be cautious about focusing on the likelihood of a candidate's victory over their stances on important issues. According to The Journalist's Resource, academic studies have shown this "horse race" style of reporting on polls, winners and losers creates distrust in politicians and news outlets, breeds an uninformed electorate and can even demobilize voters. It can also have disproportionately negative effects on women and third-party candidates, while boosting unusual candidates. If you have to report on opinion polls or the forecast of an election's outcome, be transparent about the methodology used in any data collection and explain statistical jargon, such as probability versus predicted vote share. If you have the bandwidth to realign your assignments, focus on candidates' policies and what their impact would be on your community. Meeting those information needs will help your audience make informed decisions at the polls. Read more from The Journalist's Resource here: https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/horse-race-reporting-election/

This election-related advice is now accessible to anyone who subscribes to Stylebot. But we don’t want to share it only with organizations that can afford it. That’s why we’ve partnered with the Knight Foundation, which will pay for small and nonprofit newsrooms to access Stylebot through the election. Learn more at the Knight Election Hub or simply get in touch by replying to this email.

And this isn’t the last election-themed newsletter you’ll get: Next week we’ll share some timely tips ahead of this month’s Democratic National Convention, and leading up to the election we’ll share advice on writing about key topics, such as abortion, immigration and LGBTQ+ issues.

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