A coalition of news organizations and university journalism programs have launched a new partnership to increase coverage of local elections throughout Florida. The collaborative, spearheaded by The Florida Trib, kicks off with coverage for the August 18 primary and will make hundreds of free stories available to voters across the state.
For the August primary, the Florida Election Reporting Partnership will focus on school board elections. This starting point reflects a serious need in the news landscape, the billions in public funding that school boards steward each year, and the reality of Florida’s recent ranking as having the nation’s lowest reading scores among its more than 2.8 million students, according to an Education Scorecard report.
Those stakes make access to reliable local information especially urgent. Yet Florida also has the country’s largest local news gap, ranking last nationally in media outlets per capita. That lack of coverage was clear during the last school board elections in 2024, when more than one-third of Florida’s 67 counties had no reporting, even though many had contested races.
Where coverage did exist, more than a third of stories were basic candidate Q&As, and most were behind paywalls. For many voters, that meant turning to unverified social media for information about races that directly affect their schools, families and communities.
“Many people across the state find themselves at a loss when looking for accurate information about local elections,” said Wesley Wright, assistant director of Student Media at Florida Atlantic University.
This collaboration has allowed his students “to learn about other parts of the state they aren’t familiar with, but also how candidates understand the myriad state and federal issues that impact their lives and the lives of children in their district. It’s my view that they will not only become better reporters, but they will also be more engaged citizens in general, having learned how this stuff works.”
With 27 news organizations and universities signed on – including the University of Florida, WFSU’s Rural News Service, the Miami Herald, and the Orlando Sentinel, as well as many television stations and NPR member stations – the collaborative will mobilize professional journalists and trained journalism students to background and report on school board elections across the state, reaching news deserts and metropolitan areas alike.
Florida voters will see 209 school board races in 2026, yet nearly 40% already have only one candidate. The Reporting Partnership will fill critical information gaps with nonpartisan coverage that goes beyond questionnaires, giving voters factual information on candidates, campaign finances and the context they need to make informed decisions. To ensure accurate information, the partnership’s reporting is guided by a custom dashboard built by the University of Florida that draws public candidate data from the Florida Division of Elections and county supervisor of elections websites.
A core focus of the Reporting Partnership is building a bridge to the future of local news by training college and university journalists to help fill coverage gaps beyond the current capacity of legacy and nonprofit newsrooms. That work includes teaching students professional reporting and writing standards, ethics, backgrounding and objective methods for gathering and conveying information.
“I’m thrilled to give these local races the attention they deserve,” said Amy Tardif, WUSF Editorial Manager. “Part of WUSF’s and public radio’s mission is to inform our communities about civic issues. … This provides real-world experience for the next generation of journalists working alongside professionals and with me, a professional editor.”
Visit floridaelections.org for more information on the Florida Election Reporting Partnership and school board election stories by our news and university partners.
Partners in alphabetical order are:
Florida International University
News Collaborative of Central Florida
News Collaborative of the Capital Region
Northeast Florida News Collaborative
Marian Chia-Ming Liu is The Florida Trib’s audience and product lead. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Marian has worked for The Washington Post, CNN in Hong Kong, The Seattle Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the Sun Sentinel, and Source Magazine. You can reach Marian at marian.liu@floridatrib.org.
Liz Flaisig is The Florida Trib’s Partnerships Manager. Her experience in journalism includes weekly, daily, and investigative reporting and editorial board writing at several publications including the Florida Times-Union, the Jacksonville Business Journal, and the Fort Pierce Tribune. You can reach Liz at liz.flaisig@floridatrib.org.
