WUWM’s 2024 election coverage has been recognized by Hearken’s Champions of Curiosity Awards.
The Champions of Curiosity Awards celebrate news organizations that put community needs and listening first in their coverage.
Here’s why WUWM’s coverage stood out
We knew Wisconsin would be in the spotlight as a swing state leading up to the 2024 presidential election. Rather than focusing on horse race stories, WUWM turned its focus to community information needs.
We launched an online election survey in November 2023, asking Milwaukee area residents what questions they have about elections, voting, and candidates. We received 1,095 responses.
To help answer survey respondents’ questions, WUWM created a digital voter guide that breaks down the races and questions on the ballot. Our explainers about constitutional amendment referendums were some of the most-read stories on our website: the November referendum explainer received more than 30,000 pageviews.
We distributed a printed version of the voter guide at public libraries, coffee shops and other public places to provide accessible information on what was on the Nov. 5 ballot.
In the months leading up to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, WUWM used the election survey to solicit community questions about the RNC and its potential impact on the city. We worked to answer those questions in our coverage. The questions we answered included why political conventions matter, what Wisconsin’s firearms laws would allow during the RNC, and how businesses in the security zone were preparing for the event.
Community members also told us through the survey that they wanted to hear from people with different political views to try to better understand them. With that in mind, we put together four voter roundtables.
The roundtables were in-person, recorded discussions between Wisconsin voters, moderated by WUWM reporters. One roundtable brought together people from different political perspectives for a respectful conversation. Another gathered young voters to talk about the concerns driving their vote. This was an opportunity to hear in-depth from voters who could help sway the presidential election.
We also tried a new strategy to connect with and inform our community: an animated video series aiming to demystify how elections work. Gertie’s Guide To Elections has Milwaukee icon Gertie the duck explaining why you should vote, how to cast a ballot, and what to expect on Election Day.
A few days after the election, on Nov. 11, WUWM sent a follow-up survey to everyone who filled out our initial election survey. In the follow-up survey, we asked people to tell us how they think we did with our election coverage. What did they find most helpful? Did they think we succeeded in our election mission of equipping Milwaukee-area residents to make informed decisions and affect change?
On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being "not successful" and 5 being "very successful" in accomplishing our mission, we received an average score of 4.1 from 99 respondents.
We are planning to continue using the feedback from the election survey to inform our coverage in 2025.
What Hearken says about WUWM’s work
Hearken is a pioneer in engagement journalism, offering technology and training for newsrooms to better listen to those they serve. The company works with stations like WUWM on listener-driven series like Bubbler Talk.
Hearken says its Champions of Curiosity award winners “are Hearken partners who’ve exemplified a commitment to engagement as good business through community-building and listening.”
Here’s what Hearken had to say about WUWM’s 2024 election coverage:
“At multiple points, WUWM could have stopped and said they had enough information to produce relevant election content, or enough content to meet community members’ information needs. But they kept going — beyond the voter guide and into the tailored RNC coverage, then the roundtable voter discussions, then the animated explainer video. And they’re still using all of the information they gathered from residents in 2024 to guide their coverage this year and beyond. We were so impressed by how in-depth they went with their engagement strategies and their resulting content — and it’s clear community members were, too.”
