How we do elections can be downright destructive to democracy.
The largest voting block during this fall’s primary? People who didn’t vote. Why would they, if their choice is between hell and high water?
Like democracy, journalism similarly faces a crisis of trust. As a profession, we’ve been no less responsible for amplifying the divide.
That’s why this election season — and just in time for Solutions Journalism Day — we’ve tried something different: prioritizing the issues top of mind to young voters and examining how local government impacts them.
Solutions journalism is central to that approach. In producing our election guide, we looked for opportunities to examine responses to those paramount issues.
Journalism has a duty to ask questions, and an obvious one raised by reporting on a problem is how we might fix it. Elections offer an ideal platform for that inquiry.
- Lafayette has a housing affordability problem. Adjusting zoning, as other communities have, could be an answer.
- Lafayette is losing young people. Doubling-down on Downtown’s success might help.
- Lafayette struggles with flooding. How far did millions in drainage infrastructure get us?
Solutions journalism has been a big part of The Current’s digest since we launched in 2018. This year, we hired a health reporter to cover Louisiana’s stubbornly bad health outcomes through a solutions lens.
For us, the practice — which applies rigor and skepticism to reporting about responses to common problems — is part and parcel of telling Lafayette’s whole story. It’s just solid journalism.
This election season, we used our reporting to ask candidates directly about what they would do about these problems. After all, it’s what voters want. Action, not words.
Fundamentally, that’s what solutions journalism is about. Highlighting solutions holds our leaders accountable to what’s possible. And what else are elections about if not what’s possible?
One Comment
Hi Christian,
I noticed that you suggest that developing, or retrofitting, downtown Lafayette is a pathway to keeping young folks in Lafayette. Seems akin to the "15-minute city," which is a plan our esteemed leaders in D.C. want to accomplish. Pie in the sky is what these "sustainability" plans are. We don't need cars . . . we should live and work in mixed-used buildings -- we can walk and bicycle everywhere. The Biden administration is doing a good job of scaring the hell out Americans. Drive electric cars or we'll all die; the "climate crisis" is the biggest threat to humanity; succumb and admit you are a white supremacist or we will label you and destroy you as a racist. These are the divisive principles of Biden and his minions. Mrs. Boulet brought one-quarter of a billion dollars to the seven parishes she "served" as president of APC. Many of the projects were wasteful boondoggles. Boulet will attempt to bring millions of federal dollars to Lafayette if she is elected. Guillory currently also plays the federal government money game. It costs us nothing, they say. The cost is an insurmountable national debt. When will politicians stop spending money -- which we do not have -- and say enough is enough. Probably never. Unless drastic changes occur, myopic and irresponsible human nature will doom America somewhere down the road.