Who will win in the 2024 elections? If Vermont Public has its way, the voters. – The Boston Globe

The effort, called the “Citizens Agenda,” is a departure from the conventional political reporting that Kinzel has made a career on, spending days calling politicians, advocates, and experts. But in August he and Patterson, the outlet’s executive editor, set up a table outside of Montpelier’s Federal Building with a sign that asked passersby: “What do you love about Montpelier?”

Most pedestrians declined to stop. But those that did made an impression.

“We all feel property taxes are an issue,” Kinzel said. “But when you actually meet somebody who says, ‘I’m not sure I can stay in my house any longer because the property taxes are so high’ … it reinforces the belief that this is a very important issue.”

In following the Citizens Agenda, Vermont Public is trying to forge relationships with the public at a time when trust in the media has never been lower and the business has never been harder. The effort, which aims to strengthen democracy and civic engagement, comes as traditional news organizations have lost large shares of their audiences, contributing to job losses and cutbacks across the industry.

Journalists at the outlet — which includes a news website, TV station, and radio station — have spent the year speaking to more than 600 residents at diners, gas stations, and concerts about state and local politics across all 14 Vermont counties.

“They’re really able to dig into these local issues that people are concerned about, as opposed to how is [Donald] Trump pronouncing Kamala [Harris’s] name right now,” said Michael Wood-Lewis, CEO of the Front Porch Forum, a Vermont social network that counts nearly half of the state’s adults as active members and is helping amplify Vermont Public’s election coverage.

Hearken, a company that builds technology for audience engagement, and Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, established a guide for the Citizens Agenda ahead of the 2020 elections to give newsrooms a blueprint for changing their political coverage. The goal is to hear directly from news consumers about the issues most urgent to them, then use those responses to shape coverage.

”No longer as news organizations can we presume to understand what our public needs from us, nor can we assume that being first with the latest salacious turn in a campaign is what actually matters,” Rosen and Hearken CEO Jennifer Brandel wrote.

The initiative was, in part, born out of the 2016 election, when many traditional new organizations were shocked that Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton. That was a prime example of broken political coverage, Rosen and Brandel wrote, illustrating a lack of understanding about issues that resonated with wide swaths of voters and gaps in polling quality.

“It’s not compelling enough to organize your coverage around who’s ahead and who’s likely to win, and tactics needed to win,” Rosen said. “That’s part of politics, but it’s not enough.”

Several other newsrooms across the country have adopted the Citizens Agenda this year, including Spotlight PA, Washington state’s Cascadia Daily News, and over 30 newsrooms in Colorado including The Denver Post and Colorado Public Radio.

Elodie Reed, a Vermont Public reporter who hosted one of the outlet’s “office hours” in northern Vermont this summer, said she usually starts by asking people how they spend their days. She jots down notes and asks residents if they mind being contacted later.

Reed recalled talking to one woman who said she doesn’t usually vote or otherwise participate in politics.

“I was like, ‘Well, everyone cares about things. So what do you care about? Are there things in your life that could be easier, that you’d like to see change?’” Reed said.

The woman began talking about how her grandkids couldn’t get into pre-kindergarten. She added she has a disability and applying for disability benefits is difficult. Those were all important public policy issues, Reed said, but the woman didn’t think of them that way.

After the conversations, reporters enter notes into a database. The top issues for Vermonters, gleaned during the conversations and an online form, were climate change, housing, taxes and affordability, education, and health care. While Patterson and others expected most of these issues to be important — especially in a state that’s seen devastating floods — hearing directly from residents helped validate their coverage.

The bulk of Vermont Public’s reporting from the effort is still to come, but some takeaways are already reflected, like in a voter guide that focuses on candidates’ responses to top issues. Patterson also said an environmental reporter is devising a climate glossary. And a section of Vermont Public’s Democratic gubernatorial debate focused exclusively on climate change.

After asking candidates Peter Duval and Esther Charlestin if they supported the state’s Climate Superfund Act, host Mitch Wertlieb asked: “Christina from Barre City is concerned about energy costs. … Esther, how do you propose addressing climate change while keeping affordability top of mind?”

Duval, who lost the Democratic primary held on Aug. 13 for governor to Charlestin, said he appreciated the substantiveness of the questioning.

“I was pleased not to be asked a horse-race question,” he said.

The Citizens Agenda effort is aimed not only at providing voters with more information about candidates, but also trying to establish trust with residents. That includes visiting some of the more remote northern parts of the state.

A 2023 Gallup poll found that only 32 percent of Americans trust the media “a great deal” or “a fair amount.”

“One tried and true way that we have of building back that trust is to just talk with people and be in the communities as best we can and take the veil off of the work that we do,” Patterson said.

Paul Heintz, editor of the VTDigger, said the publication is watching Vermont Public’s coverage and trying to incorporate some of the Citizens Agenda approach into its own reporting. He cited an expanded voter guide, which this year includes more campaign finance information and translations into different languages.

“It’s important to respect your readers and to not assume that they’re just looking for entertainment,” Heintz said.

Not every resident wants to take part. The vast majority of the people who walked by Vermont Public’s table in Montpelier didn’t even glance at it, reflecting how much work it takes to reach voters. But for those who did, the chats forced them to think of what questions they had for candidates.

“I had to stop and think, well, I mean, there’s a million questions,” said Gary Hass, a Barre resident and publisher of the weekly newspaper The World, who stopped by the table. He suggested asking how candidates can prevent efforts to overturn the election and how spending programs passed by state Democrats affect affordability.

“This is good,” Hass said. ”Reaching out to the public right here.”

Aidan Ryan can be reached at aidan.ryan@globe.com. Follow him @aidanfitzryan.