In the current media universe, many of our traditional methods of voter outreach—such as mailings, phone calls, and door-to-door contacts—seem to have limited effectiveness. California’s Easy Voter Guide and the Voter’s Edge websites are excellent sources of nonpartisan information, but the challenge is how to get the unengaged voters to those resources in the first place.

With these concerns, we have been exploring new ways to communicate with voters. On September 15, we will learn more about reaching out through media such as LAist and KPCC. These affiliated local news sources have played a valuable and major public role within our communities by reaching out to voters, especially young voters, through radio, print, podcasts, and online reporting. The people who turn to them for information about entertainment and community events also benefit from their voter guides at election time.

Our speaker, Ariel Zirulnick, Senior Editor for Community Engagement at LAist, will share with us how LAist came to see this as an important contribution to the civic life of our communities, what specific initiatives they are taking, and how they measure their impact. Larry Mantel, host of KPCC’s popular AirTalk, the longest-running daily talk show in Southern California, will make a brief appearance. He will speak to the role that radio plays in engaging and informing voters and present his ideas on the best avenues to reach the unengaged public.

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