I worked in traditional newsrooms for years, and one thing that always drove me crazy was how so many of the places I worked covered elections like horse races (who’s winning, who’s losing, who’s everyone betting on?) instead of how I wanted to cover them: as a marketplace of ideas.
There are so many hard things about working as an independent journalist on Substack—i.e. basically working for free, which you, dear reader, can change
—but one of the great things is that I’m in charge! And as long as I’m in charge, I’ll write about ideas. I’m launching a series on The Portland Stack called The Big Idea in which I’ll be interviewing city council candidates about one of their big ideas, and then editing these interviews into short, simple videos like the one above and sharing them with all of you. (And hoping you’ll share them with all of your friends— it’s also on Instagram as a reel if you prefer to share it that way.)
I’d want to make this series in any election, but especially in this election, because there will be 98 (!) city council candidates on the ballot this November—an almost 400% increase from the 2022 election, where there were just 20—and voters will rank up to six instead of just voting for one.
Most voters I talk with are totally overwhelmed. They’re not sure what district they live in (find out here), they don’t know who’s running in their district, and they’re unclear how they’re ever going to find the time or energy to research dozens of candidates and figure out for whom they should vote.
I hope The Big Idea series helps. The videos will feature just one candidate at a time, talking about just one idea, and each video will be under three minutes.
First up: Jon Walker, city council candidate in District 3. I’m starting with him, because his idea—which is that all the great ideas in the world don’t matter if we don’t implement them effectively—should serve as context for all the others in the series. (If you want to hear more from him, here he is on homelessness, the teacher’s strike, and Portland’s wasteful fights over public records.) For reference, here’s the article Jon mentioned in the video about the failed implementation of Portland’s inclusionary zoning policy and here’s another article he often links to about the failed implementation of the arts tax. (This is how he would have implemented the arts tax: instead of making people fill out forms & then hire collection agencies to go after all the people who don’t pay, he would have suggested adding the $35 tax to one of the existing ways voters pay the city—the water bill, property taxes etc.—and collecting the money that way.)
I’m not going to be able to interview and make videos for all 98 candidates, but I’ll try to get to as many as I can. I should also say I’m prioritizing the candidates who have ideas I like or find interesting and think should be elevated in the conversation about our city, so if you’re looking to be introduced to candidates in a more impartial way, I suggest reading the written responses candidates provided to the Oregonian or attending one of the many upcoming forums or panels. (A note: I worked in traditional newsrooms for years, and my experience is that journalists, just like everyone else, have biases and assumptions and personal experiences that shape their worldview and perspectives and thus make complete impartiality unlikely, if not impossible. Many news organizations now openly acknowledge this and strive for transparency over objectivity. I do as well.) But I’ll forever be a journalist and so the interview will always be fact checked, and if I find a candidate says something inaccurate or that needs more context, I’ll note the correction with an * in the video, as I did above.
Thank you for watching! Who else would you like to see featured in The Big Idea?
He's boring and he wants to make government in Portland boring as he is