The following is a letter to members of the WNA and WBA from John Smalley, who recently retired from the newspaper industry and is now a public information officer for the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Smalley also serves on the board of the WNA Foundation.
Warm greetings to members of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association and the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association.
By way of introduction, I’m John Smalley, a longtime and now retired journalist from Wisconsin and former editor at the La Crosse Tribune (2002-2008) and the Wisconsin State Journal (2008-2020). These days I am working part-time for the Wisconsin Elections Commission in the Public Information Office. I am also a past member of the WNA Board of Directors and a current member of the WNA Foundation Board.
I’m writing today to let you know of an important opportunity you can take part in to help educate the public about how Wisconsin’s elections system works and build confidence and trust in our democratic system.
As news providers, I don’t have to tell you that public confidence in our elections system has suffered over the past several years. You see the consequences of this environment every day in your reporting.
Here at the Wisconsin Elections Commission, we see a lack of public understanding of the state’s elections system as a significant contributor to the decline in public confidence, compounded by a social media age in which viral false information can often take the place of accurate information and proper context.
To help fill the void of information about how the mechanics of our democracy really work, the WEC’s public information office has spent this year developing an education campaign that will explore the various aspects of elections administration in Wisconsin in a straightforward and hopefully fun and engaging way. The project consists of a series of four short videos, about 6 minutes each.
The last week of September, the videos will be made available for high school social studies teachers to show in their classrooms, generating an engaging civic-minded discussion with students.
We also hope to share the videos with the general public via what we hope will be a successful campaign of house ads and radio PSAs statewide.
That’s where you come in.
Our specific ask is simple: we would be very appreciative if you would begin running print ads our partners have developed at least once a week for four weeks, starting the last week in September. More frequency than that with the ads would be welcome, of course. And to our broadcast friends, we will appreciate any airtime we can get, ideally running a 30-second spot we’ve created a few times a week over those same four weeks. Again, any increased frequency would be welcome and appreciated.
We have worked with a great design team at Multi Media Channels in the Fox Valley to create two camera-ready house ads that will be made available in various sizes through the normal WNA channels. (Shout-out to Kim and Kris at MMC for their great work on the ads!). At the same time, we will create a ready-to-air 30-second spot that WBA leadership will make available to all members.
Our video vendor is in post-production now, finishing off final edits on the video series, and we feel very good about the “rough cut” versions we’ve seen so far. Meanwhile, our MMC friends are close to completing the very sharp looking house ads. And the 30-second radio spot will be ready soon as well.
We will launch the content the last week of September and encourage teachers to start using the content in classrooms then. Our goal is to make the video content as accessible as possible, and we’ll encourage media members and any other partners to post the video links on their websites.
By mid-September we will deliver the house ads and the radio spot to the two associations for further distribution to their members.
We have received support from many partners, including the WNA and the WBA. The WNA Foundation formerly endorsed the project at a meeting earlier this year.
We have also partnered with the Department of Public Instruction, and they will be helping us get our video series – complete with lesson plans – into high school classrooms across Wisconsin. We have a young woman serving as the host/narrator in each of the videos, and she brings a lot of energy. We’ve tried to make the videos fun, lively, and fast-moving.
In closing, we want to point out that this elections education effort is specifically not a get-out-the-vote drive or a push to increase voter registrations in high schools or elsewhere. While we definitely want people to register and to get out and vote, the point of this project is to simply share factual information about how the elections process really works in Wisconsin. We seek to inform and to provide useful, basic information about voting in our state.
Our goal is to increase elections literacy and understanding among Wisconsin citizens, including soon-to-be voters at the high school level, along with members of the general public. We believe a better-informed citizenry is a good thing when it comes to elections, and helping to educate the public is a key part of election security and integrity. We hope you agree and will join us in the project.
Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to learn more about the project. And thanks in advance for any support you are able to provide.
Best wishes,
John Smalley, Public Information Office, Wisconsin Elections Commission
John.smalley@wisconsin.gov / 608-790-0336
