The election numerology blog fivethirtyeight.com has been publishing a series of fascinating “On the road” posts by Sean Quinn and photographer Brett Marty. Quinn and Marty have been traveling through battleground states investigating the “ground game” of the McCain and Obama campaigns, reporting on the voter registration and get-out-the-vote operations managed by volunteers and paid staffers in the regional and local campaign offices.
See the latest few:
Individually, these might seem minor, but the series as a whole makes for an important story that has been largely neglected by traditional news sources. It’s also the type of thing Wikinews could excel at, with a little more organization. Wikimedians all over the U.S. could go out the same weekend and do stories on the local dimensions of these national campaigns, and the result could be something very special.
Bonus link:
- The Wikipedian Candidate – an interesting analysis of the (it seems increasingly clear) ill-advised selection of Sarah Palin as McCain’s VP and the important things that don’t come across in a Wikipedia article, from fivethirtyeight.com’s Nate Silver
Honestly, I do a lot of local reporting, but I see enough about the election on every TV channel there is. In my opinion, people, especially an international audience, are sick or get sick of excessive election news. I know I do. The US presidential election is not the only thing going on in the world…and mainstream media focuses too much on it. If Palin takes a crap, I don’t really care.
I definitely get where you’re coming from, but I think there are some kinds of election stories that the mainstream media doesn’t, and maybe can’t, do effectively.
I think there could be a lot of interesting stories where a whole bunch of people report on the local dimension of a national issue, in which the sum is much more than just a bunch of local (and only locally interesting) news.