Introducing Digital Democracy
See Part 2: A tasty recipe for a healthy democracy
I’m David Lesher, a co-founder of CalMatters when it started more than eight years ago. Earlier this year, I stepped down as editor-in-chief to direct a new project at CalMatters that we call Digital Democracy. This post is an introduction to the project and an invitation to share your thoughts or questions about this work.
Digital Democracy is two things: a website that will introduce the Legislature and its activities to a broad audience and a new tool for reporters that will use the latest technology, including artificial intelligence, to enrich their journalism. It also has some important and ambitious goals:
- Change the legislature, by creating more transparency and accountability.
- Change civic engagement, by offering a simple and nonpartisan portal to learn about state legislators and issues.
- Change journalism, with new technologies and data that give reporters a broad and deep look at government decisions.
Why are we doing this? As a journalist who has been watching California state government for nearly 30 years, it’s clear to me that the politicians and the decision-making process have become more opaque. A big reason, of course, is that there are far fewer reporters covering state government today. But there are other reasons too. Social media gave legislators a new way to reach their constituents without going through the press. And frankly, since California’s legislature has a Democratic supermajority, there isn’t as much opportunity for an opposition party to offer alternative ideas or question the existing ones.
Digital Democracy reflects the premise captured in the Washington Post motto: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” This new technology will gather an enormous amount of data from state government, including every word uttered in public hearings, every dollar given to a politician, every bill introduced, every vote taken and more. The artificial intelligence scans all of that data and suggests story ideas to reporters at CalMatters and at media throughout the state. The resulting stories will be posted on web pages designed to introduce each of the state’s 120 legislators to a general audience, not just the insiders.
The transparency created by Digital Democracy won’t focus only on conflicts or controversy, although those issues will be revealed. It will provide a better opportunity to understand how and why decisions are made in Sacramento and who is making them or influencing them. It’s about how the people we elect are weighing the special interests and the public interest when they make important decisions about our education, environment, health care, housing, transportation, prisons, taxes and more.
Digital Democracy will launch in January as the California Legislature reconvenes and prepares its agenda for 2024. Until then, it is being built by dozens of technicians, staff, students, faculty and journalists at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CalMatters and the global web development firm 10up. Ryan Sabalow, a journalist with 17 years of newspaper experience mostly at the Sacramento Bee, started in November as the first reporter working full time on Digital Democracy. Once it’s running at full speed in California, we are planning to duplicate this tool in other states around the country. Finally, as a nonprofit, we’ll continue to raise money for this ambitious project with special thanks to the support we’ve received from the Knight Foundation, Arnold Ventures and the Lodestar Foundation.
I’ll share periodic updates about our progress on Digital Democracy in this Medium forum and elsewhere. So please follow along and share any thoughts or questions. You can reach me directly at dave@calmatters.org.
