Elections in recent years have been marred by false and misleading claims of fraud. Anticipating an acceleration of the trend, editors and news directors from local newsrooms began reaching out to the American Press Institute in early 2020 for support addressing the issue. The onset of the pandemic and a corollary shift in election practices […]

No work of journalism should be focused more on what matters to the public than election coverage. Voters, after all, are the decision makers. But journalists don’t always make the right assumptions about what’s of interest to the voting public. One of the main concerns about political journalism is that it reflects the interests of […]

The 2020 election may be remembered best for misinformation. Led by the defeated president himself, partisans — including elected officials — and others seeking to sow doubt about the legitimacy of the election spread false claims about voting and election results, undermining confidence in the foundations of our shared democracy. After the 2016 election, in […]

The pandemic made nearly every facet of life more complicated. That, in turn, altered what kind of news people needed.  In response, many journalists offered a “back to basics” journalism, distilling key issues to help make them easy to understand and act upon.  Greater complexity was particularly true of voting in 2020, where many states […]

The pandemic created new challenges for journalists trying to help audiences make sense of a contentious election, one already complicated by abrupt shifts in voting processes and widespread misinformation spread online and by public officials. Just knowing how to vote safely was a major concern. In response, election reporting had to be rethought – in […]

American elections are highly decentralized, with local and state laws and processes governing election administration in more than 10,000 jurisdictions across the country. As in elections past, issues will pop up in some jurisdictions and not in others. It’s critical for journalists to understand what those issues might be, how the misinformation ecosystem will accelerate […]

This year’s election will have problems, and journalists need to handle them with care. Here are five guideposts for doing so. Elections are the highest of journalism’s high-wire acts. Everyone’s paying attention, and mistakes can be devastating. This year, that pressure is intensified. Election administrators are under stress because of the COVID-19 pandemic, changing laws […]

The American Press Institute today announced additional recipients of its Trusted Elections Network Fund micro-grants.  New funding to expand this initiative to improve audience-centered elections coverage comes from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. We are grateful for the additional support, allowing us to fund an additional 5 newsrooms, and bringing the total number of funded […]

The American Press Institute today announced additional recipients of its Trusted Elections Network Fund micro-grants.  New funding to expand this initiative to improve audience-centered elections coverage comes from Craig Newmark Philanthropies and ElectionSOS, an initiative of Hearken and Trusting News. We are grateful for the additional support, allowing us to fund an additional 11 newsrooms, […]

API’s Trusted Elections Network connects journalists with experts in elections and misinformation to help audiences participate knowingly and meaningfully in elections this year. As part of that effort, we’ll publish occasional roundups of elections- and misinformation-related news we’re tracking, especially from participants in the network. If you’d like to learn more about the Trusted Elections […]