RadioWhoWhatWhy: Election Integrity: Why Now, and Why WhoWhatWhy?

Every election cycle brings with it one state that comes to represent the zeitgeist of that election. We all remember Florida during the 2000 election. In years past, as Nixon used to say, it was all about Ohio. In 2016, Pennsylvania was the tipping point.

This midterm, all eyes were on the Peachtree state, as Georgia came to define not only Democratic energy but the issues of election integrity and voter suppression that were infused with so much political concern in 2018.

This is, in part, why WhoWhatWhy made election integrity and Georgia the centerpiece of its coverage of this election. With reporters and videographers on the ground — with more resources deployed than many news organizations two and three times its size — WhoWhatWhy “owned” this issue.

But as Russ Baker and Klaus Marre point out in this week’s podcast, it was about more than the candidates and the partisan politics. The focus was on how voter suppression impacted real people: citizens who wanted to vote, who took their obligation seriously, who cared and thought deeply about the issues, but were thwarted or unconscionably delayed in the exercise of their franchise.

Unlike Russia or Facebook or hacking, these problems were homegrown in Georgia, and only by being there — on the front lines — could WhoWhatWhy do the kind of reporting that our readers and listeners have come to expect.

Listen to WhoWhatWhy founder and editor-in-chief Russ Baker and senior editor Klaus Marre talk about what this all means, why voter suppression anywhere matters to all of us, and what WhoWhatWhy’s ongoing coverage will look like.