How newsrooms across all 50 states came together for U.S. Democracy Day 2024
By Joe Amditis and Beatrice Forman
On September 15, 2024, newsrooms across the U.S. came together for the third annual U.S. Democracy Day. This year, our national pro-democracy reporting collaboration — which coincides with the International Day of Democracy — saw unprecedented levels of participation and community impact.
“Thank you all so much for participating in the biggest Democracy Day we’ve ever put on,” said Beatrice Forman, Democracy Day’s project coordinator, in a celebratory email to participants.
She wasn’t exaggerating.
We counted a whopping 241 news organizations from all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Together, they produced more than 268 pieces of journalism about democracy and threats to our democratic institutions — a 47% increase in participation from last year and a 98.5% increase in the amount of content produced by our reporting partners.
How did we accomplish this? By giving news organizations the tools they needed to sustain themselves — literally and monetarily — as they connected their audiences with civic information.
This was all thanks to financial support from Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Hearken.
How we supported newsrooms during U.S. Democracy Day 2024
- 17 news organizations received $34,000 total in funding to directly support democracy-focused reporting and engagement projects.
- 66 news organizations received $75 gift cards to help newsrooms buy food for their journalists
- 47 news organizations participated in a pilot NewsMatch fundraising campaign on Democracy Day to raise more than $57,000 for local news.
But Democracy Day isn’t just about the numbers.
The quality and diversity of work from our reporting partners were equally impressive. From investigating voter disenfranchisement to launching new media partnerships, news organizations across the country found innovative ways to engage their communities in the democratic process.
As noted in the Local Fix newsletter, Triad City Beat, a free biweekly publication in North Carolina, dove deep into the challenges of voting while homeless. Reporter Gale Melcher shared powerful stories of individuals like Ron Schultz, who’s been unhoused for two years.
“They want you out of sight, out of mind. But we’re here,” Schultz told Melcher.
Meanwhile, newsrooms like The Tributary in Florida and NowKalamazoo in Michigan saw Democracy Day as an opportunity to strengthen their financial foundations. As part of our collaboration with NewsMatch, both secured up to $500 in dollar-for-dollar donation matches, with NowKalamazoo securing nearly 400% of its initial fundraising goal.
Several organizations also used Democracy Day to build the capacity required to do this necessary work over the long term.
The Modesto Bee — a McClatchy paper serving communities in Central California — announced the hire of Kathleen Quinn, a full-time civics and democracy reporter who will spend the next two years producing service journalism through a California Local News fellowship.
In Southern California, KPBS, Voice of San Diego, and inewsource used Democracy Day to launch “Public Matters,” a new partnership focused on accountability reporting and events that get San Diego residents revved up to participate in local decision-making. The project has already yielded impactful reporting on the city’s failed community engagement strategies.
Several recipients are focusing on reaching communities where they are. The Austin Common took voter education to local bars throughout Sept. and Oct., incorporating election-themed questions into pub quizzes to reach young adults who may not typically seek out political news. VNN Oklahoma is producing multimedia content exploring presidential decisions impacting Indigenous communities, aiming to empower Native voters who are often overlooked in election coverage.
And after Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance repeatedly spread xenophobic misinformation about Springfield, Ohio, The Haitian Times pivoted to host a town hall to correct the record — even as bomb threats nearly upended their event.
Other projects tackled misinformation and voter confusion head-on. Central Pennsylvania’s WITF News created a suite of stories explaining election administration, with plans to translate key content into Spanish to reach a wider audience. Over in Pittsburgh, PublicSource “pre-bunked,” proactively addressing potential misinformation themes before they can take hold. Down south, Mississippi Free Press is building on its existing “Trusted Elections” work to fact-check voting locations statewide and report on solutions to systemic issues in the voting process.
Several stipend recipients employed innovative formats and collaborations to reach voters. In Madison, Wis., Isthmus Community Media partnered with a community radio station to investigate the impact of Wisconsin’s new voting maps through multimedia storytelling. The Connecticut Student Journalism Collaborative is empowering college journalists to create explainer content for their peers about voting processes and democracy, landing many student journalists their first bylines in major regional new sources such as The Hartford Courant and Connecticut Public Radio.
Paying it forward
Ultimately, our goal is to make sure the impact of U.S. Democracy Day extends far beyond Sept. 15 or a single election.
To that end, our reporting partners made more than 170 stories and pieces of original reporting available for republication (for free), allowing their crucial work to reach even wider audiences.
To get you started, here are some pieces of exceptional reporting with national appeal.
Must-read reporting from our Democracy Day partners
- Prison Journalism Project: The Life of an Elected Official Who’s Also in Jail, by Shameeka “Meek” Hayes (the first woman elected to public office while incarcerated)
- Carnegie Knight-News21: As civic knowledge declines, programs work to engage young people in democracy by Delaney Chase and Emily Richardson
- Barn Raiser Media: Project 2025 and Its Plans for the Nation’s Public Lands by Stephanie Woodard
- The Border Chronicle: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is targeting border nonprofits to swing the November election to Trump and authoritarianism by Melissa del Bosque
- InvestigateMidwest: Deportations, raids, and visa access. How the presidential election could alter life for immigrant farmworkers by Skye Chadde
- The 19th: ‘Voting feels like a battle’: In Mississippi, a group of Black women is reimagining voter turnout by Barbara Rodriguez
- Prism: Project 2025 was in the works for decades. Why did the mainstream media fail to inform readers of its threats to democracy? by Ray Levy Uyeda
- The Associated Press & WITF: Why do election experts oppose hand-counting ballots?
- Louisiana Illuminator: Opinion | The GOP’s unquenchable crusade against noncitizen voting, which is already illegal by Greg Larose
- InkLink News: A barista criticized the Manchester Police Department. Officers quietly pressured his boss to fire him by Patt Grosssmith
- North Dakota Monitor: BadAss Grandmas want you to get involved for democracy by Michael Achterling
- Georgia Recorder: Georgia leaders worry mail delays could cause many absentee ballots to arrive too late to count by Stanley Dunlap
- Isthmus Community Media: Do newly competitive legislative districts in Wisconsin drive civic engagement? by Liam Beran and Steven Walters
- InvestigateWest: Among Idaho Lawmakers, It’s Freedom Caucus Vs. Freedom Caucus by Daniel Walters
None of this would have been possible without the tireless work of the Democracy Day organizing team and the enthusiastic participation of the hundreds of journalists and newsroom partners across the country.
In particular, this year’s successes were thanks in large part to the incredible work and care of our project coordinator, Beatrice Forman. Without her, our list of 2024 accomplishments (and this post) would be much shorter and much less impressive.
As we look toward 2025, it’s clear that U.S. Democracy Day has become more than just an annual collaborative initiative—it’s morphed into a powerful pro-democracy journalism movement, growing stronger each year and committed to keeping our democracy intact and our communities informed.
In the words of Spotlight PA’s Christopher Baxter, “I have two children — ages 3 and 5 — and someday, they will ask me what I did to try to make our community and country better. With our work and your support, I know we’ll have a good answer for them when that day comes. With our work and your support, I know we’ll have a good answer for them when that day comes. I’m up to the challenge for the next five years. Are you with us?”
👋 Read more from U.S. Democracy Day:
🗳️ Contact the Democracy Day organizing team!
Email info@usdemocracyday.org, sign up via Airtable here, or check out the Democracy Day project page to learn more about what pro-democracy reporting looks like in practice.
Joe Amditis is the assistant director of operations at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. Contact him at amditisj@montclair.edu or on Twitter at @jsamditis.
Beatrice Forman is the project coordinator for U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide, pro-democracy reporting collaborative. Contact her via email at beaformanwrites@gmail.com.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism, and in doing so serve New Jersey residents. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Local News Lab (a partnership of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, and Community Foundation of New Jersey), and the Abrams Foundation. For more information, visit centerforcooperativemedia.org.
