WITF's Director of Journalism Scott Blanchard speaks to people at the News & Brews at the Lititz Shirt Factory on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023.
Tom Downing / WITF
How WITF and LNP are working to reduce polarization, encourage civil discourse and help communities work together
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Scott Blanchard/WITF
Tom Downing / WITF
WITF's Director of Journalism Scott Blanchard speaks to people at the News & Brews at the Lititz Shirt Factory on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023.
All day Saturday, I was at a deliberative democracy event with more than 50 people from Lancaster County. They were invited to listen to each other, learn from each other, and find solutions through civil discussion across political or other differences.
WITF, LNP | LancasterOnline, Franklin & Marshall College and the Steinman Institute for Civic Engagement partnered on the event because we believe it’s one way communities can set aside polarized rhetoric, and re-discover how to work together. We think, and there’s some research to back it up, that these efforts can help mend some of our torn civic fabric.
That goal seems even more urgent today.
Less than two hours after we wrapped up, someone tried to shoot the ex-president and current Republican nominee for the office.
We’re now seeing more of the toxic commentary that encourages people on different political teams to view each other as evil.
I guarantee, the participants on Saturday left having met not potential enemies, but a bunch of other thoughtful people who care about where they live and are willing to work with others to help make it better.
WITF, LNP | LancasterOnline, F&M and the institute have seen that dynamic play out more than once, and are committed to holding more deliberative democracy events in central Pennsylvania.
WITF and LNP | LancasterOnline will own the fact that news organizations – some to a greater extent than others – play a role in polarization by feeding off conflict in pursuit of audience. But our organizations, in addition to focusing on contextual, thoughtful journalism over coverage that alarms, are taking other steps – like Saturday’s “Reforming Democracy” event – to try to reduce polarization and encourage civil discourse.
By partnering with non-news organizations in this way, our newsrooms may be stepping beyond the expectation that we should report news, not make it. But our journalism has always been about public service; showing the successes, challenges and failures of communities; and telling the stories of how people work to solve problems.
Supporting deliberative democracy events is a way to extend that work. We can help make it possible for communities – the places where we live – to write new chapters in their own stories. And we can chronicle that journey with authentic, credible journalism that helps connect us.
Supporting those events also brings challenges for us: How do we maintain our journalistic independence from institutions we may have to report on? How do we ethically report on ourselves? We are working on the answers.
We think it’s vital that we meet those challenges. Newsrooms have some of the smartest, most civic-minded, thoughtful people anywhere. We can be – and need to be – leaders on civil discourse and problem-solving at a time when conflict-merchants tell us we should be at each other’s throats.
Martín Carcasson, a professor at Colorado State University, runs a program that works with organizations to put on deliberative democracy events. They are important because, he says, “We must be able to have tough conversations across perspectives that recognize and engage the inherent tensions and tradeoffs of difficult issues, and we must get beyond the unfortunate limitations of human nature that work against those sorts of conversations.
“Developing research in brain science and social psychology, as well as a growing understanding of how the internet, political parties and the media exacerbate many of our worst impulses, has helped us understand better the crippling polarization and hyperpartisanship that is undermining our political conversations and further eroding already precarious trust in the institutions on which democracies rely.”
To understand why deliberative democracy or “citizens’ assembly” events are different from things like town halls and public polling, here is F&M professor Stephen Medvic, one of our partners. He says these efforts are getting more popular in the U.S. and globally:
“The critical feature of such forums is that the assembly consists of a randomly-selected, representative group of community members who are brought together to deliberate about an issue. Prior to assembling, the participants are asked to read briefing materials so that they arrive at the forum better informed about the issue they’ll be discussing. Experts are available at the forum to be questioned by the participants, and small-group discussions, led by facilitators, occur on various aspects of the issue. The goal of the deliberation is not consensus but well-informed and deeply considered collective judgment, which often takes the form of policy recommendations.”
People at town hall meetings and in similar venues, Medvic says, are “self-selected” and “not representative of the general public,” although they are often informed about issues. Opinion polls, he said, can represent the general public, but they “capture views that are often uninformed,” especially on complex issues.
“The judgements rendered in deliberative forums,” he said, “are both representative of the public and well-informed.”
Saturday’s event was Day 2 of our deliberative forum on “Reforming Democracy.” The driving question was how democracy could work better for people in Lancaster County. (The event focused on that county in part because this partnership is using it as a lab before planning forums in other parts of central Pennsylvania.)
F&M used random-sample surveying to recruit a demographically representative group of people to participate.
Before Day 1 in April, our team prepared a briefing document on multiple democracy-related topics, and sent that to participants.
During Day 1, they narrowed that list down to two they wanted to deliberate about: voting access/regulations, and civics education/access to information.
On Saturday, experts gave brief presentations, and participants broke into small groups to have moderated conversations.
They then came back together, shared thoughts as a larger group, and then voted on actions they would recommend.
The results will come out in a report in a few weeks. We’ll get that report in front of lawmakers, community leaders and others. And we’re talking about following up with smaller public events where people can come and discuss the ideas this informed group of people came up with.
Our challenge is to get public officials to engage with the recommendations. Some of them may be skeptical about this new thing in their community, and some may think it’s just us – the news organizations, the college, the institute – trying to have influence.
I’ll say: It’s not us. It’s your neighbors, who pay taxes, who live with the consequences of your decisions, who vote.
These days, we hear a lot from the loudest voices – the ones who yell from one political extreme or another.
The people in the room on Saturday were not the loudest voices.
But they may well be the ones we should listen to.
The Associated Press and WITF’s democracy reporter Jordan Wilkie are partnering to tell stories about how Pennsylvania elections work, and to debunk misinformation surrounding elections.
