NEWS AND FEATURE ELECTION-RELATED STORY IDEAS

NEWS FEATURE ON VOTER REGISTRATION + HOW TO VOTE
For high school publications, an article to write this fall to help students as a service to your readers is a “how to register to vote” basic news piece.  Explain the basics of voter registration to your school community, and how to find polling places — don’t assume that students know what to do. Interview students who have registered to vote.

Find rules about voting at The Youth Civic Hub NYC Election Portal and The League of Women Voters. Both focus on getting citizens registered to vote. The U.S. government also has a website dedicated to voting which answers common questions about voting and about the election process, run by an independent government agency.

Q&A WITH A LOCAL OFFICIAL
Try getting an interview with a local official, and ask them questions. An easy way to upload this quickly is to publish as a question-and-answer piece.

TALK AROUND CAMPUS
If you only publish one article before Nov. 5, make it a news feature that focuses on the issues which your school community cares about the most. If you can, get interviews with students with differing views. One effective way to bring many voices to your page is to ask many students the same question, and then publish 5-10 of their answers, edited to a sentence or two, next to their headshot.

PERSONAL PROFILE FEATURE
Ask around to find people (students or teachers or community members) who volunteer to work at a polling place, or who help to register voters. If you’re at a campaign event, look to see if there are high school students there, and interview them, like Teen Vogue did. Or interview students doing other things, like speaking to the crowd.

FEATURE ON NEW VOTERS
Interview students who will be voting for the first time in November to get their perspective on what being a “voter” feels like, and what issues they are looking at as they vote. Here’s a set of videos from PBS focusing on what Gen Z youth care about in this election. If you are doing podcasting, here’s an example from WNYC’s audio interview with several Gen Z youth.

FEATURE STORY ANGLES ABOUT GROUPS GETTING THE YOUTH VOTE OUT can provide a cool angle, like this piece in The Gothamist. 

FEATURE STORY ABOUT CELEBRITY INFLUENCERS, interviewing students about which celebrities or influences they listen to about social issues and voting. Professional media is doing these features already.

LIVE COVERAGE ON ELECTION NIGHT!
Get your newsroom together on election night(here’s an award-winning example from 2020) and try covering the election live by posting online updates, interviews, and analysis throughout the night. This is really exciting and fun to do — but make sure to let your school community know in advance via a preview story and social media posts what you’re planning on doing.

WHAT ABOUT OPINION COLUMNS ABOUT CANDIDATES AND ISSUES?

The U.S. elections are a major news event that should be covered as news, news features, or feature stories. Opinion pieces should be written carefully, and only after doing the bread-and-butter work of news coverage that your community deserves. 

CONTACTING OFFICIALS FOR INTERVIEWS

When you cover issues in this election, reach out to city officials who are involved in that topic. It’s worth it to try to get an interview with the official or with their spokesperson on issues that involve them and their policies.

Don’t be shy about emailing and calling (see below in this section for suggestions about how to find their contact info).  In New York City, your city officials — the mayor, U.S. representatives, state senators, city council members — are sources you can contact. If you don’t get a return email or phone call within a day or two, call or email again (and again, and again). Persistence can pay off. WHO REPRESENTS ME? NYC

Political parties maintain their own websites. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party State Committee in New York have websites that provide media contact information and platform information for their candidates, as well as providing press credentials to get access to their upcoming political rallies or campaign events.

LEGAL THINGS TO KNOW WHEN COVERING POLITICS

When you write about politics, give extra attention to legal topics and issues related to your rights as a journalist.  The Student Press Law Center (SPLC) has put together comprehensive information and advice about common legal questions and concerns student journalists face in election coverage.

One topic students often ask about is whether a school publication can endorse a particular candidate. If your publication’s editorial board is considering endorsing a candidate as a publication, read the advice from SPLC.

FREE "FAIR USE" ELECTION PHOTOS

A big challenge in publishing stories about elections and issues related to the election is finding photos you can publish legally, without infringing on someone’s copyrighted photos. Your publication should never take photos from a professional copyrighted news site without getting written permission from that publication. But here’s good news! Several sites exist that can provide you with legally useable images to use.

How about using photos taken by fellow student journalists? The National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) created a photo archive of campaign-related images that student journalists across the country have uploaded to be used in school publications — at no cost to NSPA member publications. The only requirement for member schools is that your publication has to provide photographer credit in the caption. Thousands of photos are available, with more being added as students attend campaign events this fall.

The Library of Congress has a huge photo archive that you can use legally and without cost because it’s a government institution (supported by taxpayers) that provides many great services to the American people — including images. They have the official portrait of Vice President Kamala Harris and the official portrait of former President and current Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump. You are licensed to use these photos because they are housed in the archives of the Library of Congress, but remember to provide proper attribution in your photo caption showing the source of the image. 

ELECTION-RELATED PROFESSIONAL RESOURCE HUB

Rather than relying on search engines, here’s an easy and time-saving solution in one place: a new website, funded by the Knight Foundation. This big hub brings together resources for professional journalists covering elections. You can get help finding background information on candidates, see voter polling data, and learn about election law.

AllSides has also created a 2024 Presidential Election page to provide balanced comparisons of candidates’ stances on issues, plus specific nonpartisan Voter Guides on major issues.

MISINFORMATION AND FACT-CHECKING

Fact-checking what candidates and their campaigns write and say is one of the most important parts of strong and responsible reporting during the election season.

The Poynter Institute is a highly regarded and trusted “think tank” for journalism, and Poynter has created a series of videos on ways to fact-check — and some cool tools to use to share information via GIFs.

As journalists, don’t assume that what you hear from candidates and campaign officials is always factual and truthful. When a source provides you with a quote, your job as a reporter is to double-check to see if it contains inaccurate information. Work to let your community know what’s truthful and accurate, and to correct what’s false and exaggerated.

Be careful with generic online searches: some sites you land on look like news sites, but are actually fake news sites called “pink slime” sites. Stay away from those, and don’t use them as sourcing for your reporting.

WHERE CAN WE FIND POLLING DATA?

Polls are used to find out what a group of people think on a given topic. In election years, polls ask eligible voters how they intend to vote, and also to find out which issues and candidates they care about the most. When you look at polls, it matters who conducted the poll, who paid for the poll, and who was asked to answer the poll.

The New York Times provides an updated polling section you can check. Another big polling organization, Five Thirty Eight, is now owned by ABC News, but has been praised by both major political parties — it’s often referenced by other major journalism sites.

WHAT DO PROFESSIONALS SAY ABOUT COVERING THE ELECTION AND THE POLITICAL PROCESS? (click on links for videos)

Interview with Brittany Hardaway, professional broadcast journalist and evening anchor for 13WREX in Rockford, Illinois. She remembers going to the voting booth with her mom as a child, and she has great “pro tips” for young journalists working on political coverage.

Interview with Logan Aimone, 2024 National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year. He teaches and advises student publications in Chicago, talks about bringing his students to report at the Democratic National Convention.

Interview with Tracy Anne Sena, longtime San Francisco teacher and journalism adviser. She gives tips and advice about best reporting practices when talking to candidates or going to campaign events.

ELECTION RESOURCES FOR JOURNALISM EDUCATORS

This presentation by student journalists and their adviser at a California school provides strategies for reporting on elections and key voter issues. Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization focusing on education, created teacher resources to help with teaching about the election.  Also check out these suggestions from Lareeca Rucker, a journalism instructor at the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media, with creative ideas on writing columns, covering election day, and even TikTok.

WHERE CAN WE FIND CURRENT EXAMPLES OF ELECTION-RELATED STORIES WRITTEN BY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS?

School Newspapers Online (SNOsites), which hosts hundreds of high school websites, created a special tab for election coverage, which will be regularly updated through November.

In August, Illinois student journalists received press credentials from the DNC to attend the Democratic National Convention, which was a huge news event. Not only did they cover the convention, but they also became part of the story on local TV stations. A young broadcast journalist from California also ended up in the national news while she reported there.

Here are student examples of convention news coverage in August 2024 in Chicago:

News story from an Illinois high school about a night at the Democratic National Convention
News story of the DNC by another Illinois high school  (compare the way these two articles covered the same event)

News feature about economic concerns at the Democratic National Convention in August 2024
Multimedia longform news feature about the Democratic National Convention in August 2024

Here are earlier examples of election-related news features:

News feature from May 2024 about what Gen Z students at an Oregon high school are thinking about in the coming elections

News feature “explainer” published right before the 2020 election recaps candidates and issues, and explains local and state initiatives on the ballot

A longform news feature multimedia package from 2020 created by an online “election team” who covered the California state convention