Click on the following questions to join the conversations on the Pol.is app.
On Monday, a group of media outlets and civic nonprofits announced a partnership designed to help encourage constructive political dialogue and find solutions to issues important to Northeast Ohioans.
The project, called "We Can Disagree," will consist of conversations on the app Polis and at least one in-person event moderated by Fighting to Understand, a Northeast Ohio nonprofit with experience designing and holding difficult conversations.
"We Can Disagree" is led by Doug Oplinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who worked at the Akron Beacon Journal for nearly 50 years.
Ideastream Public Media, The Akron Beacon Journal, and Signal Akron will survey the online and in-person discussions for story ideas and to understand issues important to community members as we shape our election coverage.
This initiative is part of a broader commitment by Ideastream Public Media to inform our election coverage by listening to our audiences.
Ideastream has been gathering ideas from the communities it serves in Northeast Ohio in a variety of ways: Our reporters are out paying close attention to what is happening in the community and seeking feedback from community members. Ideastream is soliciting story ideas online and on social media as part of the America Amplified project, and hosting events across the region, including a political roundtable discussion in Warren in October. And the "Sound of Ideas" Community Tour series seeks to explore and understand what's important to the communities we cover.
Doug Oplinger lays out clearly why this joint project is so important and shares how you can get involved.
Doug Oplinger on being heard
We’ve heard your complaints about the government, politics and the news media.
You’re tired of the negativity and feeling you aren’t heard. And as journalists who live here, too, we want you to feel heard, and we want to be participants in improving life, not a part of the problem.
So, several local newsrooms and a civic engagement organization are making an offer: Let’s replace the anger and despair by quickly identifying where we agree and what can be done.
You get this started by using an online brainstorming application called Polis from your cell phone or computer. Read the question — “What is needed to help people have a better life?” — vote on the ideas proposed by others that pop up on your screen and contribute your own ideas, too. At the bottom of the web page, you can see in real-time which ideas are emerging as most unifying — and where there might be insurmountable differences.
You can be anonymous, it’s free, join at any time, invite others, and it even can be addictive. You could have a winning idea.
And stay tuned, because people will add new ideas to consider and the questions will change. You’ll have a chance to go deeper on the ideas you like the most, consider the ideal qualities in elected leaders and think about what motivates people to vote.
Later, we’ll have an in-person event to celebrate and discuss next actions.
Throughout, your local journalists will provide periodic updates. They have wide reach in the Akron area, so the growing crowd wisdom will be witnessed by lots of people.
More importantly, journalists will see what is important to improving life in the community and use that to hold leaders accountable. You’ll see your work — the community wisdom — in those stories.
Let’s get started by going to this website.
Partners in this project are the Akron Beacon Journal, Signal Akron and Ideastream Public Media and Fighting to Understand, a Northeast Ohio nonprofit with experience designing and holding difficult conversations. Last year, Fighting to Understand held several meetings following the Jayland Walker shooting that helped the community find common ground on guns, policing, mental health and more.
The Akron Bar Foundation and Akron Community Foundation are funders of this project.
Questions can be emailed to Ted Wetzel, ted.wetzel@fighting-to-understand.us or Doug Oplinger, oplingerdoug@gmail.com.
