Local newsrooms collaborate to enable informed voting regionally

Oviedo Community News is partnering with six other local news outlets to create a Voting Central Florida Voters Guide for the August primary election.

Editor’s note: One of the links in the newsletter mistakenly pointed to this article. If you’re trying to find the article “The dates you need to know ahead of Florida’s primary elections” click here. We apologize for the inconvenience.

The project is part of the News Collaborative of Central Florida, a group of independent local news organizations and aligned partners working toward a more informed and engaged Central Florida.

In addition to the Sentinel, other local news organizations collaborating on the voters guide are WKMG-News 6, Central Florida Public Media, Winter Park Voice, VoxPopuli of West Orange, Orlando Sentinel and the Osceola News-Gazette. The joint voters guide will appear on the websites of all the project partners and in print for those with print editions.

“Since launching Oviedo Community News in 2021, we have prioritized helping people get the information they need to make informed decisions at the polls,” Oviedo Community News Editor-in-Chief Megan Stokes said. “Our mission is to empower our readers to help shape their communities because they can’t do that without an unbiased, independent information source. Voting is one of the most powerful things a citizen can do.

“This collaborative effort will not only empower the people who read Oviedo Community News, it will empower those who live here but read other outlets as well. We want to help as many people as possible and this extraordinary effort shows that our partner newsrooms feel the same way.”

The news organizations collaborated to create questionnaires for candidates in federal, state, county and judicial races to answer. Hyperlocal outlets like OCN included city races as well. Questions range from asking candidates what are their top issues, how they would address affordability and even where they stand on Florida proposed constitutional amendment on property tax reductions.

“We want the candidates to answer in their own words how they will address issues that impact our area’s residents,” Sentinel Executive Editor Roger Simmons said.

Candidates have already been contacted several times to respond to the questionnaire. If a candidate does not respond, it will be noted in the voters guide. The news organizations may then provide as much information as possible from the candidates’ posts on campaign sites or social media to help voters.

“Of course our preference is for all candidates to answer themselves,” Simmons said, “but it may be telling for voters to see who responded and who did not.”

Some outlets will post before mail-in ballot go out while others will aim to publish by the end of July, in time for early voting and primary election day on Aug. 18.

The News Collaborative of Central Florida was a result of the Central Florida Journalism Ecosystem Summit, created in 2024 by Central Florida Public Media, Central Florida Foundation and Oviedo Community News. Collaborative members worked together last year on a project focusing on the impact of the state’s homeless camping ban.

This story is part of a collaborative initiative of independent local news outlets working toward a more informed and engaged Central Florida. A version of this article was originally published in the Orlando Sentinel.