Hello and welcome to the last Saturday before the elections here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is November 5th.
Do you know who you're going to vote for next Tuesday? I don't.
This past two months, I've been head down, so completely engrossed with the new job, that I've put off learning who's running for what, what their views are, and how they propose to make the community they want to serve a better place.
For every yard sign I passed on the drive to and from work, I would think, "Oh that's right. I need to see who's running for what. I need to go online and learn about that person." How will Gustafson be different from Gust aside from a couple extra syllables tacked to his name? Which Phillipe (I assumed the incumbent) and which Horner? And why am I wondering about which family they come from instead of what they want to do in the job? And do I even live in the right district to vote for County Commissioner?
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow had been the refrain of my procrastination until I saw a stack of eye-catching flyers advertising a public informational forum - that had happened two days prior.
How had this happened? I work at the school. How had I missed an announcement about this important event being held at my own place of employment? Had I been too busy tapping out just one more email during the daily announcements? Had I missed an email? Or a flyer taped to a wall? Apparently I had.
So, yes, partially it's my own darn fault. I have a responsibility as a civically-engaged citizen to know what's going on in my community. But in a community that no longer has a newspaper - the traditionally go-to place for all local news - where does one go?
Online.
I'd assumed all along that I'd be able to find everything I needed to know on the internet because, really, when has the internet not given me the information I needed? At school, I ask students, "Want to see my favorite trick?" Then I click the microphone icon in the Google search bar and say, "What is the cost of attendance for Bemidji State University?" My spoken words magically appear in the search box and voila! - the answer "magically" appears in the search results.
However, this morning when I searched "Warroad school board election 2022" the closest I got to anything useful was a link to Ballotpedia.org which only stated what the discarded flyer had said, that So-and-So was running for school board.
I'm internet savvy, so I went to the next most-used source for information: Facebook.
I am Facebook "friends" with some of the candidates on the ballot, so I searched and clicked on their profile pages. Then I searched and found the remaining ones and clicked to see as much as I could without the "friends" status. Among the shared memes, recipes, and adorable Halloween photos, I found little about the upcoming election aside from a modest smattering of "Vote for me!"
Can I say that I was surprised not to see a pinned post, let alone a link to an election website? Is it alright to say that giving a profile pic a temporary "Vote" circle around the candidate's face is not enough? That I really would have loved to have been able to read the content on that flyer in the picture that was posted?
Eventually, I hit pay dirt. Through all my social media searching, I found a link to a YouTube video of Tuesday's forum.
And that's the problem: I had to do a social media search, utilizing my own personal knowledge of the community to find what I was looking for.
We live in a contradictory world - a dichotomy of information overload and yet no information. Ever since the shuttering of the Warroad Pioneer newspaper, I've wondered how communities can best communicate with their residents. With no newspaper, what is the new information hub that will connect all the spokes to make the wheel? Information is out there and it is on me to find it. But how can I know about something if I can't find the information?
I don't think social media is fully the answer. Not everyone uses social media. I, myself, am down to a little skimming of my newsfeed and a once-a-week post. Not everyone uses the same social media. I will never forget a 4th grader's comment that Facebook is "old people SnapChat." Websites are great, but unless they are updated and maintained, the information can be stagnant and outdated. (Good news! The Roseau County election page information is up to date.) Blogs can be useful, but authority and veracity are up to the discretion of the content creators. (Yes, even the Wannaskan Almanac is subject to the same scrutiny.) And if you've got no internet (like last weekend's Sjobergs outage) or your battery goes dead on your device, then what? Newspapers and newsletters get content into people's physical hands, but we all know that not everyone reads those either. (You should see our stack of Northland Trading Posts which is where I tore out the formal public announcement about the upcoming election for reference.)
It's an uncomfortable tango the seeking and finding of information; the quantity and quality of it. I don't know what will fill the void of newspapers. I am hopeful for a radically reimagined way for communities to communicate with their citizens that is equitable and accessible.
For now, I'll be spending my Saturday scouring the internet and using my newspaper cheat sheet to bone up on who's running for what and what they stand for.
On This Day
Historic Highlights (credits)
Happy Birthday to You!🎶
Remembering You
Take time to know where and when you can vote on Tuesday and make it a great Saturday!
Kim
ReplyDeleteChairman Joe’s election cheat sheet (simplified): Always vote for the incumbent unless you have a good reason to turn her or him out.