Under the instruction of veteran political reporter Charlotte Grimes, a group of Newhouse students is reporting on Central New York politics. The stories are on the school’s news-based Web site, Democracywise.
Grimes is the Knight Chair in Political Reporting at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. This project is a perk for the city of Syracuse as Grimes has taken the eagerness and dedication of these journalism students and unleashed it on this election cycle. This means Syracuse residents have access to additional reporting on the current election, which includes the mayoral race, common council seats, judges and school board positions.
Recent topics include Syracuse mayoral candidates; voting by absentee ballot; election inspectors; registering to vote; and a series of pieces on “Voters’ Voices ’09,” which provides an overview of the local political sentiment going into election season.
“The idea for Democracywise came to me back in the summer of 2006 when I was trying to plan my political reporting class for the fall,” Grimes said. “I was having a hard time finding out who the potential candidates might be for the election. The conventional wisdom in journalism has always been this: We report the milestones in the election process: a candidate’s announcement that he or she will run for office; the party’s designations and the petition to be on the ballot. But people don’t clip and save those stories on their refrigerator doors. And after the brief life in print or online, the information disappeared from view at news organizations — until the beginning of the traditional start of the election on Labor Day. The Board of Elections also did not post candidates’ names until very near the dates of primaries or general elections.”
The site fulfills her intention extremely well. And it is real world, hard nose reporting and news gathering experience for her class. The students reporting on this election cycle include: Brian Amaral, Abram Brown, Lynette Chen, Steve Doane, Shard (c) Edwards, Brett LoGiurato, Silvia Milanova, Michelle San Miguel, Dan Scorpio, Jessica Shaw, Chris Shepherd and Julia Terruso.
Liam Migdail-Smith, who reported for Democracywise in spring 2008, maintains and updates the site’s Races & Candidates section, the political calendar and the democracy toolkit, including a growing dictionary of political and government terms.
“In creating Democracywise, my thought was to keep a permanent, easy-to-find archive or database of candidates and elections,” Grimes said. “That’s the great virtue of the Web — it’s infinite and always there. You can turn to it anytime. If you get interested in our local fall election in the spring, for example, you’ll find the latest info on who might be running.”
Ultimately Grimes wants Democracywise to speak to other news organizations: {Q}”I’d like Democracywise to be a model –or at least an encouragement — to other news organizations to take this approach: Keep basic information about elections and candidates available All The Time.”{Q}
Grimes bio
Grimes spent 20 years as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, including 12 years with its Washington bureau. She covered the Democratic National Conventions of 1984 and 1988 and the Republican National conventions of 1992 and 1996; the Missouri and Southern Illinois congressional delegations; the politics and policy of health care and international trade; the U.S. invasion of Panama; and the United Nations during first Persian Gulf War, among other stories.
For more information about Democracywise, contact Grimes at 443-2366 or [email protected] or go to knightpoliticalreporting.syr.edu/,democracywise.syr.edu/index.cfm. Or just check it out for yourself at democracywise.com.
