Midwest Democracy Project

Ben Stewart&

Tracy Pfeiffer

"At its heart, The Midwest Democracy Project is a grand experiment to find new and better ways for citizens to get informed and engage in civic debate. Our project aims to be the go-to source for trustworthy information as we vote on and discuss significant civic issues in our communities.That information will come from a variety of sources: from local media in the Midwest, from candidates and public officials – and most importantly, from citizens themselves."

Concept

Video Series: The real life experiences of Missourians

Five Major Topics in 2010 U.S. Senate election:1) Health care2) Jobs/economy3) Political shift -- conservative?4) Energy/environment5) Immigration

The Process

• Required a fair amount of driving• Ben: 3,061 miles (55 hours)• Tracy: 1,573 miles (20 hours)• TOTAL: 4,634 miles (75 hours)

The Process

• Direct phone calls always seemed to be the best way to find sources, though sometimes email addresses were the best we could find

• Sometimes the perception of exposure for the source’s cause was enough leverage to get them to agree to an interview (i.e., Jennifer Bird or Clinton Guenther)

• We always made it clear that they were speaking for themselves as Missourians and that our videos were not going to favor any one source in any way

Former Governor Bob Holden (St. Louis, MO)

The Evolution of the Project

The very earliest conceptions of the project were quite different from the final product:• Documentary style shooting/editing• Truth-squading• Using political ads and campaign

trail audio/ video• Including a graphics scheme to open

the video and for lower third titles

These four elements would change as the project went on

Clinton Guenther (Rolla, MO)

Crafting Videos

• Contacting an organization or company and speaking with the leadership was usually just a first step to finding other potential sources in the community that could speak independently

• Agricultural cooperatives and police departments proved to be some of the toughest to work with because of strict media-relations rules that they have

• Politics is a sensitive issue, so many private citizens prefer not to get involved with videos

Cisse Spragins (Kansas City, MO)

Crafting Videos

• One of the big challenges in writing scripts, especially in politics, is writing succinct narration and cutting the interviews down to the bare essentials

• We tried to develop a good balance of sources that played off one another

• One nice discovery we made was that people really aren’t as partisan as they seem on the 24-hour news networks. Most of our sources were very civil and thoughtful.

Cisse Spragins (Kansas City, MO)

Crafting Videos

• B-roll was another interesting situation that required some creativity on our part while maintaining objectivity

• We tried to pry into the lives of our sources a bit to ask them about opportunities for good visuals

• We found that the time constraints involved in balancing classes, jobs, and other interviews often had us thinking on our feet in the field

Cisse Spragins (Kansas City, MO)

Crafting Videos

• The directions that interviews took also needed our attention

• We needed to anticipate what one subject would say and create questions based on the responses we had already heard

• Each of the topics in these videos was very broad and needed to be narrowed down, but we made sure to allow each source to speak about what they felt was most important

Joya Tyler (Columbia, MO)

Ethical Issues and Questions:

- Choosing sources- Balance- Necessity- Relevance- Mission- Aiming for diverse sources- Age- Gender- Race- Class- Nationality

Joya Tyler (Columbia, MO)

Ethical Issues and Questions:

For example: The “conservatism in Missouri” video• Representing which parties/views?• 1st goal: find someone who switched

parties since the 2008 election• The term “reddening”• Inflammatory comments

Joya Tyler (Columbia, MO)

Ethical Issues and Questions:

For example: The immigration video• How do we define "directly affected"? What

are the opportunities? The limits?• Drawing the line between objectivity and

purpose• Handling sensitive issues• B-roll

Jennifer Bird (Arnold, MO)

Appealing to our audience:

• Who consumes political news? Online political news?

• College students versus 24+ residents

Jennifer Bird (Arnold, MO)

Appealing to our audience:

“We truly are a state of parts… Saint Louis is the most western city of the East, and Kansas City is the most eastern city of the West – and those are two totally different cultures. The Bootheel is as “deep south” as any place you’ll find. Southwest Missouri is the hill country of Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, West Virginia… North of 70 is the corn country of Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas, and places like that.”

- Former Governor Holden

Jennifer Bird (Arnold, MO)

Appealing to our audience:

How much do we need to worry about regional differences in the state?• Kansas City area• St. Louis area• Central Missouri• South Missouri• The Boot Heel

Examples:• Choosing topics• Focusing each video• Changing video titles

Justin Stephan (Clinton, MO)

Suggestions for the future:

Citizen journalism: Style Guide• Example Style Guides:

• Institute of Southern Jewish Life, Oral History Department (here)• The University of North Carolina, Asheville (here)• The LARGEMOUTH Citizen Journalism Manual

(here)

Justin Stephan (Clinton, MO)

Suggestions for the future:

• Mobile reporting• Probably not the most financially efficient

• But what are the alternatives?• Developing multiregional networks• For single pieces• For a series

• Video: Uniform Graphics

Ronald Bonar (Versailles, MO)

A Video Section:

• Transcripts• Search Engine Optimization• Ensure understanding• Ability-conscious• Sometimes people cannot watch videos, but still want to consume the information in the video

Mike Plunkett (Kansas City, MO)

Campaign Trail-Oriented Videos:

• We did not pursue this structure for our videos this semester due to objectivity concerns

• As stand-alone issue studies, though, these could effectively educate voters on both the rhetoric and the

known facts

• Could include ads that candidates put out, video we’ve collected at trail stops, and infographics with voting records

and other useful data

Ryan Hendrickson (St. Louis, MO)

Viewer reactions:

• “There’s nothing better than talking about such a hot topic with personal stories. Some people won’t care, but if you put it into a story, you persuade people to care.”

• “It’s not like a documentary, but it was a good summary. It will encourage people to do more research. A good icebreaker. I would have kept watching if it were a bit longer. It was attractive and you kept me engaged.”

• “There may be smoother ways to transition from the introduction, but the end was smooth.”Miguel Ayllon - Hispanic male, age 29(on Immigration video)

Ryan Hendrickson (St. Louis, MO)

Viewer reactions:

• “I could have easily watched another minute on top of what you had. It could be four to five minutes. “

• “It seems to help close the gap between what’s going on in the political world and how laws will affect real people. It helps outsiders understand more.”

• “There is a distinct difference in tone between the people being interviewed and the narrator, who is lower energy.”

Daniel Masters, white male, age 20(on Jobs/Economy video)

Ryan Hendrickson (St. Louis, MO)

Videos:

1. Health Care2. Jobs/Economy3. Conservatism in Missouri4. Environment and Energy5. Immigration6. What Comes Next