Political Reporting That Moves Beyond the Horse Race

Photo credit: Jeff Griffith

We’ve spent years challenging the media’s obsession with horse race polling—here and here, for example—and calling for political coverage that goes deeper, exploring people’s priorities and values. So it was encouraging to see the findings from a new Nieman Lab report on an academic study of the Democracy SOS initiative, which examined how training in engagement-focused journalism influenced political reporting in swing-state newsrooms.

In 2022, 20 swing-state newsrooms received training from journalism reformers focused on community engagement and solutions-driven reporting—an approach that emphasizes listening to the public, surfacing real-world concerns, and connecting the dots between policy and lived experience. The result: a measurable drop in horse race coverage and a shift toward deeper stories on issues like rezoning battles in Charlottesville and workplace discrimination in Atlanta.

It’s a promising development—but just one piece of the puzzle. As the report notes, making sure better content actually reaches the public remains an unsolved and essential challenge.