Daily Grand Rapids News agencies fail the public miserably when it comes to reporting on local candidates

For the past 25 years, GRIID has been monitoring local news in varying capacities. I have been monitoring the 4 daily news agencies – MLive, WOODTV8, WZZM 13 and WXMI 17 – documenting various issues, like election coverage. 

One thing that is vitally important for local news agencies, is to report on local candidates and races that impact people right here in Kent County and Grand Rapids. There are numerous sources of information when it comes to Presidential and other federal candidates, even state races. 

In my local news monitoring work, it is painfully clear that when it comes to reporting on local electoral races and candidates, the local news miserably fails the public. And just to be clear, when I say local election/candidate coverage, I am speaking about Grand Rapids races and Kent County races. On November 5th, there are only three races in Grand Rapids – the Mayoral race, the 1st Ward and the 3rd Ward Commissioner races. There are also four open seats for the Grand Rapids Public School Board of Education, plus one open seat for Grand Rapids Community College Trustee. 

For Kent County, there are a significantly larger number of local election races, such as the 21 Kent County Commissioner races, the race for Sheriff, Prosecutor, Treasurer, Clerk and Drain Commissioner. In addition, there are numerous Kent County judicial seats up for election on November 5th, such as the 3 races for 17th Circuit Judge, 2 races for Probate Judge, 2 races for the 61st District Judge, 1 race for 62A District Judge and 1 race for 63rd District Judge. 

Now, since Labor Day – when candidates and campaigns really ramp up – the amount of stories having to do with the local elections has been dismal, especially with the three Grand Rapids-based TV stations. Here are the number for local election coverage on local TV:

• WOODTV8 – 4 stories since Labor Day
• WZZM 13 – 2 stories since Labor Day
• WXMI 17 – 4 stories since Labor Day

The 4 stories run by WOODTV8 were a story about the Mayor’s Youth Council asking GR Mayoral candidates questions, a brief interview with GR Mayoral Candidate LaGrand, a brief interview with Mayoral Candidate Lenear, and a story announcing a debate between the two Mayoral Candidates. 

With WZZM 13, there was one story about the Mayor’s Youth Council asking the GR Mayoral candidates questions and a second story about the GR Mayoral Candidates debate at Wealthy Theater. 

WXMI 17 also had four local election stories, one about the upcoming Mayor’s Youth Council candidate forum, one after the Mayor’s Youth Council candidate forum, an announcement about a GR Mayoral candidate debate, and a story about the GR Mayoral Candidates debate at Wealthy Theater. 

It seems pretty clear that over the past two months, the only local election races that were worthy of local TV news coverage, was the Grand Rapids Mayoral Race. This means that none of the three Grand Rapids-based TV station did a single story about the following candidates/races:

• 1st Ward Grand Rapids City Commission Seat
• 3rd Ward Grand Rapids City Commission Seat 
• 4 open seats for the Grand Rapids Public School Board of Education 
• 1 open seat for Grand Rapids Community College Trustee
• 21 Kent County Commission races 
• Kent County Sheriff race
• Kent County Prosecutor race
• Kent County Clerk race
• Kent County Treasurer race
• Kent County Drain Commissioner race
• 3 races for 17th Circuit Judge
• 2 races for Probate Judge
• 2 races for the 61st District Judge
• 1 race for 62A District Judge
• 1 race for 63rd District Judge

When it came to MLive reporting on local election, it wasn’t much better. There were a total of 25 articles since Labor Day regarding local elections. However, in 22 of the MLive posts there was no real reporting being done. In fact, most of the MLive local election coverage for 2024 are a brief bio of the candidates, followed by candidate responses to question posed by MLive and the League of Women Voters. Now, I’m not saying that candidate surveys are not useful for the public, but this is not journalism. Journalism would require reporters to ask follow up questions, a verification of the claims being made by candidates and a look at past voting records for the candidates that are incumbents.

MLive did post three local election stories that were not candidate surveys. One story was about the Mayor’s Youth Council Mayoral Candidate Forum, a second was about a candidate forum hosted by a community group with both the GR Mayoral candidates and the 2 candidates running for the Grand Rapids 3rd Ward seat, and a 3rd story about misleading mailers being circulated in the 1st Ward City Commission race, mailers that attacked one of the candidates. 

Lastly, there was one additional way that the local news agencies failed the public, which was not one single story about campaign finances in the City or County races. By comparison, the local news all did stories about the new “I Voted” stickers, which should tell you something about whether or not the local news agencies have a commitment to informing the local community when it comes to local elections.