ENGAGING STUDENT NEWSPAPERS IN ELECTIONS
If you are a student, you can reach out to your student newspaper and encourage them to play a key role in getting young people to vote:
Campus papers sometimes only cover elections in terms of specific news hooks, like a candidate who makes a campaign visit to their campus, or who graduated from their school. But they can do a lot more by being proactive–exploring the tangible differences between the candidates and how the positions they take can have an impact on student lives. Student newspapers can also help announce registration or get out the vote drives where students have an accessible opportunity to participate. These kinds of actions can help to create a campus climate where students recognize how much their electoral participation matters.
Students have repeatedly told us that they don’t vote “because the candidates and their ads are always lying, so you don’t know their real stands.” For some students, campus newspapers may be the only news source that they read and consider credible; they can help overcome this distrust by covering the differences in positions candidates have taken, both now and in the past; by clarifying complex and intimidating voting and registration rules; and most of all, combating the cynicism that says participation doesn’t matter. This could mean highlighting close races, interviewing local and statewide candidates, covering debates, and highlighting issues affecting students.
Student newspapers can also debunk misleading ads or statements, drawing on resources like politifact.com, or local media outlets that do a good job with their fact-checking.
Student newspapers can provide key practical information, like helping students navigate and understand complex and daunting voting and ID laws. Or furnishing information on early voting hours and locations, and how to find their polling station, using resources like vote411.org from the League of Women Voters.
Since students may be looking for ways to participate directly, it’s also valuable to highlight what they’re doing on-campus to get their peers engaged. Student newspapers can interview participants and promote events, as well as provide a forum for students to passionately argue or debate in support of their respective candidates.
However student newspapers decide to cover an election, the more they do, the more students will understand why their participation matters. Reach out to your student newspaper today to help them understand that they may well make a critical difference in whether young voters participate!