When I started my local journalism career in Sedona as Larson Newspapers’ copy editor under Managing Editor Ryan Van Benthuysen back in 2004, I got a crash course in how local media and the news business operated in the real world.
I had been the senior copy editor at The State Press student newspaper at Arizona State University, working alongside some great young reporters and photojournalists who went off to work for ESPN, The Arizona Republic, National Public Radio and The New York Times, and many others who, like me, went to work for regional, local and hyperlocal news outlets around the country.
Most of our reporters were students at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Telecommunication in the College of Public Programs, and we covered the news on campus and around Tempe as it related to the student body. It wasn’t until the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication was renamed in 2004 and became an independent school at ASU, moving its campus to Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix, that it really covered state and national news and produced some of the best — non- Ivy League — journalism students in the country and, I would argue, more well-rounded journalists than those from elite institutions. Now, more than 20 years since I graduated from ASU, only a handful of those fellow cub reporters are still working in the news business. Some transitioned to communications or government work, where the pay is higher and more stable, or simply moved on to other careers in other industries completely unrelated to the news business.
One of the first things I really learned here in Sedona beyond the technical details was from Assistant Managing Editor John Reid, who told me that people across the spectrum agree on 90% of things — good schools, equitable taxation, fairness and justice from public and private institutions, the rule of law and the social contract to not break laws fairly passed and impartially enforced, the honesty expected from leaders, employers paying and also protecting their workers — 5% are immutable things we won’t, can’t, shouldn’t and will never agree on — like religious beliefs or personal experiences — and it’s really only the last 5% of things we disagree on that we fight over in political, cultural and social spaces. It’s this last 5% that consumes our public political discourse, family political arguments and, now, our social media feeds.
Along those lines, the Center for the Future of Arizona, whose stated mission is to bring “Arizonans together to create a stronger and brighter future for our state,” is perhaps the most bipartisan and impartial nonprofit think tank in our state or the Southwest as a whole. It was founded by former ASU President Lattie Coor and Sybil Francis, who both earned doctorates in political science.
The CFA conducts annual and biennial surveys of Arizonans on all sorts of public policy issues. The CFA’s recently released Good Elections survey “shows 97% of Arizonans believe fair and secure elections are essential to a healthy democracy. Overwhelming majorities say elections should be accurate, trustworthy, transparent, safe, accessible, fiscally responsible, participatory, convenient and timely. Accuracy ranks first across political affiliations.” The survey also “found 81% support continuing early voting by mail, with majority support across political affiliations, and 66% trust state and local election officials to administer elections fairly, accurately and securely, again with majority trust across political affiliations.”
“Sixty-three percent prioritize convenient and accessible voting even if final results take longer, while 34% prioritize faster results even if some voting options are reduced. The access position is supported by 84% of Democrats and 74% of independent and unaffiliated voters, while 56% of Republicans prioritize faster results.”
According to the CFA, the majority of voters, 54%, do not believe a significant number of noncitizens are voting in Arizona elections. Of the 41% who believe there are a significant number of noncitizens voting, those numbers are a majority of Republicans, 72%, 31% of independent and unaffiliated voters and 11% of Democrats. Current Arizona law requires proof of citizenship to register to vote, and noncitizens who are improperly or illegally registered in Yavapai County totaled 30 people out of 193,506 active and inactive voters — or 0.016% — as detailed in our front-page story today.
“Trust in our election system is fundamental to making our representative government work,” stated Paul Bentz Sr., vice president of research and strategy at HighGround, which conducted the CFA survey. “We need to understand what is driving this gap and what can be done to restore confidence among these disaffected groups. Otherwise, we risk continued conflict around how our elections are conducted.”
The CFA’s surveys and reports are all on its website at arizonafuture.org and offer a great snapshot of what the majority of Arizonans want and believe about our state’s present and future.
