Journalism collaborations around 2024 U.S. elections include polls, listening sessions, voter guides, and more
Across the country, collaborations between newsrooms, universities, and community organizations around the 2024 U.S. elections formed a patchwork of efforts aimed not just at covering the election, but at listening to voters, amplifying their voices, and giving them the tools to navigate a complex and often disorienting political reality.
In the weeks and months leading up to November, quite a few journalism collaborations emerged, ones that were collaborative, urgent, and unflinchingly local. The Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University counted at least two dozen election-related collaborations across the country.
Many of these efforts were smaller, and more intimate in their ambition: polls tailored to the particular concerns of voters in the Midwest, community listening sessions held in places that the national media often overlooks, and voter guides designed to demystify a process that has only grown more opaque. A few were large, spanning multiple news organizations and nonprofits across the country.
As Carl Appen wrote, “everyone has faced challenges these past few years. The key in my mind is how you respond to them. I felt like the media world learned from the past and had at least one new system in place to help facilitate the spread of good information. Seeing it makes me proud and optimistic for the future.”
Perhaps this is a key takeaway from collaborative journalism efforts during the 2024 election cycle — many initiatives didn’t simply react to the chaos, they responded to the need for better, more responsible information-sharing systems, ones that could cut through the noise and rebuild trust, one story at a time.
Here’s a look back at six of the collaborative initiatives that attempted to ensure the 2024 election was not just covered — but understood in their communities — however large or small.
You can see the full list here. If we missed your election collaboration, please let us know! You can fill out this form to add it.
Six examples of 2024 election journalism collaborations
- Radio Ambulante Studios’ Listening Clubs: Radio Ambulante Studios collaborated with local organizations to expand engagement through audience-organized Listening Clubs in Texas, Florida, and New York, deepening relationships and informing reporting on Latino voters in the 2024 elections.
- Election Urgent Care: The Knight Election Hub, Votebeat, and Hearken, partnered with API and other organizations to provide rapid resource matching for election-related support, including safety, legal assistance, journalistic advice, data gathering, and more.
- The Charlotte Journalism Collaborative’s 2024 Election Hub and Voter Guide: The Charlotte Journalism Collaborative launched a 2024 Election Hub and Voter Guide, partnering across six newsrooms to create and distribute candidate surveys, election resources, and coverage in English and Spanish while engaging students for additional insights and community feedback.
- VoteBeat: Created a Slack community for journalists connecting nearly 100 election experts to answer voting-related questions instantly and on the record.
- Democracy Day: Democracy Day is a nationwide collaborative initiative aimed at highlighting the crisis facing U.S. democracy, equipping the public with essential context and information, and uniting various media outlets to raise awareness collectively.
- Detroit Free Press X American Communities Project: The Detroit Free Press and the American Communities Project partnered to analyze data and identify eight key Michigan counties that represent a diverse cross-section of voters’ experiences and opinions.
To learn about other 2024 election collaborative initiatives, check out our database here.
Catherine Devine is the 2024–2025 Civic Science Fellow at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. Contact her via email at devinec@montclair.edu.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a primarily grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism and support an informed society in New Jersey and beyond. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, the Independence Public Media Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation, Inasmuch Foundation and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. For more information, visit centerforcooperativemedia.org.
