Getting the Project Moving

Initially, there was no blueprint for working as a team. No individual had responsibility for scheduling meetings, juggling assignments, or handling logistics. Often, one partner waited for another to take the lead.

Nevertheless, plans were made to:

• Conduct the poll in mid-May,

• Hold focus groups on the five major issues determined by the poll, and

• Report the results -- one issue each week -- starting in early June.

The focus-group participants came from the pool of those surveyed. The partners also decided to solicit questions for the candidates from citizens; the resulting Q-and-A's would run in the Globe Monday through Friday each week. In addition, readers would be encouraged to phone in, fax, mail, or e-mail questions. Each of the partners agreed to mention the others every time a "People's Voice" segment or article appeared.

From the beginning, the partners agreed on the need to remain editorially independent. For example, they agreed to start their coverage of the poll results at the same time, but produce series of varying lengths. The Globe planned a five-week series on major issues, including 30 days of questions-and-answers for the candidates. WBZ-TV prepared four packaged reports with analysis of the poll and comments from citizens. WBUR-FM planned six weeks of coverage, including a week about confidence in government.

To shore up the newsroom commitment, the Globe hosted a delegation from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism in Washington, a major funder of the public radio portion of the project. Pew Center director Ed Fouhy and chairman Hodding Carter III discussed the value of the election project within the broader concept of civic journalism. "They gave the group a pep talk, and I think that worked," WBUR's Fleming said.

Still, doubts about the project persisted.

"None of the reporters involved were eager to go out and listen to 'People's Voice' people," Mohl said. "This was not a sought-after job, it was sort of the dregs of the political stuff, at least I think it was perceived that way."

Fleming faced some opposition at WBUR, but he had the support of Bob Oakes, his assistant news director; Managing Editor Eve Epstein, an import from the Associated Press with state house experience; and several other interested staffers. But even supporters worried about the drain the project could have on the newsroom's already overtaxed resources; about a dozen of the station's reporters, editors, and producers contributed to "The People's Voice" between May and November.

WBUR business correspondent Bruce Gellerman was the most vocal opponent. Describing himself as "positive but skeptical," Gellerman saw "The People's Voice" as "mostly sloganeering, the same old wine in a not very new bottle. We have good ways of covering elections and I don't see the need to change the whole model."

In the Globe's state house bureau, reporter Scott Lehigh was also skeptical. Lehigh admired the concept, but objected to the use of citizens as substitute experts; he feared the effect "The People's Voice" would have on his kind of coverage: "I had the distinct sense at one point in the campaign that a story about the candidates going at it often went inside the paper, but a story on what [the citizens] thought went on the front page. In my mind, sometimes the citizens' comments about the campaign became more important than the campaign itself."

That concern had been heard before. Critics of previous experiments in Wichita and Charlotte had claimed that project enthusiasm often prevented more traditional news coverage from getting appropriately prominent display.

Lehigh's reservations were balanced by Don Aucoin, another state house reporter, who wrote three of the five issue takeouts. Aucoin, who calls himself the bureau's "Mr. Outside," says he enjoyed the chance to help citizens frame the debate. "In my mind, shut up and listen. That's what it was about."