It is encouraging to see this perspective, when everything else I read suggests the US electoral system is so deeply flawed. The common view in Australia is despair over what we see in your system, and relief that we have a truly independent electoral Commission that oversees free and fair preferential voting by all Australians, with no gerrymandering and universal acceptance by all parties that the results are accurate.
This article gives me hope that the flaws in the US system are at less overwhelming than I thought.
Hey David, thanks for reading, and for this perspective. I'm American, obviously, and reading these articles has given me totally new perspective too even though I live here... both in terms of where I'm hopeful and where I'm worried. It also helped me realize how little most of us here learn here about our own civics, which is its own problem.
Wait... the Elizabeth Green who founded Chalkbeat and wrote Building a Better Teacher is your *wife*??? I have a copy of that book in my classroom and it's literally on my TBR! Now I understand why the education chapters in Range were so good haha. This is truly worlds colliding for me. I hadn't heard of Votebeat before, but I know Chalkbeat well (how cool was the Abbott Elementary shoutout??). How did your wife decide to pivot from covering only education to taking on journalism about elections? Did she just find Range that persuasive? (Sorry, couldn't resist)
Haha...this is a banner comment. No surprise the most delightful Range Widely comment ever comes from you. Yes indeed, that Elizabeth Green. So, of course, when I was writing the chapter in Range on learning, I would tell her: "Geeze, you and your reporters have been writing about education for like years, and here I'm going to solve education in one chapter." And then she almost incinerated me with Superman laser beams from her eyes so I had to retire that gibe posthaste. ...As you might imagine the Abbott Elementary episode was a huge highlight.
As far as the pivot, she really is about that Steve Jobs quote. If there's a big problem, and someone should do something about it, her instinct is to be a someone who does something about it. When it seemed like election administration was an issue that was suddenly important, but hardly covered at a local level, she had a thought: make a list of furloughed or recently laid-off reporters in relevant locations and ask if they would be interested in reporting on voting — if she could raise the money for it. So she had a roster of people who were ready, and then could start approaching potential funders, and already had a bunch of logistical stuff in place because of Chalkbeat. I think the advice from others about whether to attempt to add Votebeat was very mixed, but her feeling was, worst case, she won't be able to raise the money and then its just her own time lost basically, and perhaps a little deflating or embarrassing. But here it is! And, Healthbeat, the local public health vertical also just started (https://www.healthbeat.org/). As you can tell, these topics are responsive to important themes that have largely disappeared (if they ever existed) in what's left of local journalism. As far as her range, interestingly, she was a teenager when she decided she wanted to write about public schools, so found an animating passion quite early. But more recently has expanded out, so I guess she's like one of those inventors at 3M who came in with a speciality and then later broadened out, rather than the probably-more-intuitive reverse.
That is incredible. Between this and what I just found from googling, she sounds so amazing! (Also: I just learned we were the same major! Just 15 years apart.) The fallout from Tuesday's election has been tough for me, but I find her example of someone who just does something about it to be really inspiring. My coworker and I have read through Votebeat over the past few days, and our takeaway was the same: these stories just seem like the ones the news should actually be covering. It's not sensationalist, it's not fear-mongering, and it seems like she even refrains from much editorializing (like she did in the Q&A). How cool to see she's trying to reverse every major force that's affecting journalism right now. I hope Healthbeat works out just as well!
Cool to hear her career path. I was hoping your answer would be something along the lines of she started it just so you would get off her back and bother someone else about adding more range to their professional life, but this makes sense too.
It is encouraging to see this perspective, when everything else I read suggests the US electoral system is so deeply flawed. The common view in Australia is despair over what we see in your system, and relief that we have a truly independent electoral Commission that oversees free and fair preferential voting by all Australians, with no gerrymandering and universal acceptance by all parties that the results are accurate.
This article gives me hope that the flaws in the US system are at less overwhelming than I thought.
Hey David, thanks for reading, and for this perspective. I'm American, obviously, and reading these articles has given me totally new perspective too even though I live here... both in terms of where I'm hopeful and where I'm worried. It also helped me realize how little most of us here learn here about our own civics, which is its own problem.
Wait... the Elizabeth Green who founded Chalkbeat and wrote Building a Better Teacher is your *wife*??? I have a copy of that book in my classroom and it's literally on my TBR! Now I understand why the education chapters in Range were so good haha. This is truly worlds colliding for me. I hadn't heard of Votebeat before, but I know Chalkbeat well (how cool was the Abbott Elementary shoutout??). How did your wife decide to pivot from covering only education to taking on journalism about elections? Did she just find Range that persuasive? (Sorry, couldn't resist)
Haha...this is a banner comment. No surprise the most delightful Range Widely comment ever comes from you. Yes indeed, that Elizabeth Green. So, of course, when I was writing the chapter in Range on learning, I would tell her: "Geeze, you and your reporters have been writing about education for like years, and here I'm going to solve education in one chapter." And then she almost incinerated me with Superman laser beams from her eyes so I had to retire that gibe posthaste. ...As you might imagine the Abbott Elementary episode was a huge highlight.
As far as the pivot, she really is about that Steve Jobs quote. If there's a big problem, and someone should do something about it, her instinct is to be a someone who does something about it. When it seemed like election administration was an issue that was suddenly important, but hardly covered at a local level, she had a thought: make a list of furloughed or recently laid-off reporters in relevant locations and ask if they would be interested in reporting on voting — if she could raise the money for it. So she had a roster of people who were ready, and then could start approaching potential funders, and already had a bunch of logistical stuff in place because of Chalkbeat. I think the advice from others about whether to attempt to add Votebeat was very mixed, but her feeling was, worst case, she won't be able to raise the money and then its just her own time lost basically, and perhaps a little deflating or embarrassing. But here it is! And, Healthbeat, the local public health vertical also just started (https://www.healthbeat.org/). As you can tell, these topics are responsive to important themes that have largely disappeared (if they ever existed) in what's left of local journalism. As far as her range, interestingly, she was a teenager when she decided she wanted to write about public schools, so found an animating passion quite early. But more recently has expanded out, so I guess she's like one of those inventors at 3M who came in with a speciality and then later broadened out, rather than the probably-more-intuitive reverse.
That is incredible. Between this and what I just found from googling, she sounds so amazing! (Also: I just learned we were the same major! Just 15 years apart.) The fallout from Tuesday's election has been tough for me, but I find her example of someone who just does something about it to be really inspiring. My coworker and I have read through Votebeat over the past few days, and our takeaway was the same: these stories just seem like the ones the news should actually be covering. It's not sensationalist, it's not fear-mongering, and it seems like she even refrains from much editorializing (like she did in the Q&A). How cool to see she's trying to reverse every major force that's affecting journalism right now. I hope Healthbeat works out just as well!
Cool to hear her career path. I was hoping your answer would be something along the lines of she started it just so you would get off her back and bother someone else about adding more range to their professional life, but this makes sense too.
This is a really helpful perspective -- thanks so much!
That exactly how I felt reading the stories, Mary. Thanks for reading and so glad you found it helpful!
And apparently your wife is a badass!
😆 no doubt about it...and I actually did have to look for time in her calendar;)
Whew! Glad she found you some. Big thanks to you both.