A cross-section of Summit County gathered together on June 2nd, 2016 to help improve Ohio medias coverage of the election as part of Informed Citizen Akron. Of the 18 individuals selected to participate, none knew each other prior to the event. Some acknowledged their apprehension discussing politics with people unfamiliar to them but were surprised and pleased to learn the ground rules established at the start to help structure their conversations.
Kyle Bozentko, Executive Director of the Jefferson Center, led participants through an overview of the Citizens Jury process and their role in the Informed Citizen Akron project. Informed Citizen Akron is a collaboration by local and statewide media partners to re-imagine and outline the ways in which Ohio media can respond to the unprecedented political spending with substantive coverage – diverging from many newsrooms around the country to dig deeper into the needs of their audiences and communities.
The Akron Beacon Journal is a leader in the efforts of Your Vote Ohio, the media collective engaged in this coverage transformation. Managing Editor of the Beacon Journal, Doug Oplinger, joined the Citizens ‘Jury to highlight some realities of today’s newsroom. One aspect of Oplinger’s presentation, repeated by multiple jurors as eye-opening, was the significant decrease in revenue over the last 40 years and the decline in dedicated reporters.
Michelle Henry, President of the Center for Marketing and Opinion Research, joined the jury to present on the statewide polling Your Vote Ohio is conducting to get better insight into how Ohioans are approaching this election. Henry highlighted results from the initial round of polling, focusing on Ohioans policy priorities and (dis)satisfaction with the current state of political affairs and the medias political reporting.
As the jurors broke into small groups, they discussed top policy priorities and identified perspectives that might not be included in typical issue coverage. The citizens then imagined questions relating to these issue areas they would like answered by the media. After an intense amount of discussion, the jury concluded for the day, to begin again at 8:30 on Friday, June 3rd.