About the Gazette's Digital Voter Guide

This project was part of a collaborative effort between the Gazette's Digital team, reporters and the newspapers editorial board.

With roughly 40 candidates in the running for four local city council elections, the digital team sat down to come up with ideas of the best way to ensure readers would have access to all the information they need ahead of the election.

To create the Digital Voter Guide, the Gazette invited each candidate to the office to participate in a podcast, create a quick video introduction of themselves, provide a quick biography and meet with the editorial board to discuss their positions.

We chose to present the candidate information in quilt form, so each candidate would be equally accessible to the user, providing a reader with the ability to self-select who they wanted to learn about. In a way, this set up removes the reporter from the situation, and allows readers to hear directly from each candidate in a video and podcast.

The Digital Voter Guide was created by:

Zack Kucharski, Senior Manager of News Operations

Max Freund, Interactive Media Journalist

Melissa Roadman, Data Visualization Specialist

Hayley Bruce, In-depth/Enterprise Reporter

Rick Smith, Reporter

Jeff Tecklenburg, Opinion Page Editor

Liz Schott, Director of Editorial Relations & Board Secretary

Jennifer Hemmigsen, Columnist

Todd Dorman, Columnist

Katie Kuntz, Multimedia Intern