Melissa Rogers, visiting professor at Wake Forest University Divinity School and nonresident senior fellow in governance studies at Brookings Institution, and Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners, discuss political polarization and the role faith communities can play in protecting democracy. Learn more about CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program. GROSS: Good afternoon and welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Religion and Foreign Policy webinar series. I'm Rivka Gross, program coordinator for the Religion and Foreign Policy program, filling in for Irina Faskianos. The webinar is on the record and the audio, video, and transcript will be made available on our website, CFR.org, and on our iTunes podcast channel, Religion and Foreign Policy. We are delighted to have Melissa Rogers and Jim Wallis with us.   Melissa Rogers is a nationally known expert on religion and American public life. Her areas of expertise include the First Amendment's religion clauses and the interplay of religion, law, policy and politics. Ms. Rogers is currently a visiting professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity and nonresident senior fellow in global governance at Brookings Institution. Previously, she served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and executive director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and as chair of President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Ms. Rogers has also served as the director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at the School of Divinity, as executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and associate counsel and general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. She is the author of two books and most recently co-authored a report titled, “A Time to Heal, A Time to Build,” on how the executive branch should approach religion and civil society in the next administration. Ms. Rogers has been recognized by National Journal as one of the church-state experts politicians will call on when they get serious about addressing an important public policy issue.   Reverend Jim Wallis is a globally respected writer, teacher, preacher and justice advocate. He is a New York Times bestselling author, widely recognized public theologian, renowned speaker and regular international commentator on ethics and public life. Reverend Wallis is the founder of Sojourners, which is both a magazine and Christian community in Washington DC. And he is the author of twelve books, including America's Original Sin and God's Politics. He served on President Obama's White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and has taught faith and public life courses at Harvard and Georgetown University. Welcome, Melissa and Jim. Thank you very much for being with us today.   Melissa, we were hoping you could tell us a little bit about the effect political polarization has on the American religious community. And in addition, can you share what you know about efforts that faith leaders are making to support fair elections?   ROGERS: Sure, thank you, Rivka. I really appreciate the opportunity to be on this call with you. And thanks to the Council on Foreign Relations and Irina, as well as my colleague, Jim, and of course, everyone who's joined the call. So political polarization is a problem for us right now, including in the religious community. And I'll just mention three factors that are prominent in this polarization. One is, of course, a geographical sorting. Increasingly, Americans are living in like-minded political communities. And that tends to have a reinforcing effect on our views and also attends us to make more hostile toward views that are not shared. And we've seen this impact or a factor take place in religious communities as well. Whereas we used to have more of what we often called “purple houses of worship,” meaning houses of worship that included people that are both Republican and Democrat, red and blue in other words, thus making purple, increasingly, we see houses of worship that are more red or blue and not purple. So that's had an effect. Also political party sorting that's related, as well. There used to be more liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. Now we see less of that and that has created more of a partisan gap. And as religious conservatives have become an important force in the Republican Party, we have also seen an effect where the proportions of Americans who don't identify with a particular religious tradition has skyrocketed, and those people have become a part of the feature in the Democratic Party. So here we have kind of religion and partisan loyalties sometimes reinforcing each other, and that is also contributing to polarization.   In addition, we've seen religion used as a partisan tool, increasingly, and that not only has kind of a toxic effect on religion, but also politics, and we have to deal with that situation as well. Of course, in a factor that won't surprise anybody is this kind of what's often called “ideological siloing,” where we're not tuning in to shared media anymore, but rather to media sources that reinforce our own views, and including social media, that reinforce our own views. And, of course, this is true of the religious community as well. And all of these factors are kind of contributing to what Arthur Brooks calls a "culture of contempt," where we not only just differ with one another, but we actually have disdain for one another. And that is a regrettable effect of this polarization. And indeed in this report that Rivka mentioned, that E.J. Dionne and I wrote with recommendations for the next administration on religion and governance, we said that large groups of Americans currently fear that the triumph of their opponents will render the country unrecognizable and inhospitable to their deepest beliefs. Now, religion is only one dimension of this coming apart, but it's a significant dimension because it is part of our deepest divisions.   And if I could, I wanted to just read you two sentences from the report that sort of give some specificity to this fear. We say, "Consider how these issues often present themselves: One side fears that marriage equality and Roe v. Wade will be reversed and that Americans will be denied basic health care, commercial goods and services, and government-funded benefits based on an individual's gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. The other side fears their government will brand them as bigots for their religious opposition to marriage equality, close their colleges and universities, press them to engage in activities that violate their consciences and strip their institutions' tax-exempt statuses because of their beliefs and practices."   So you can see there the fears of at least two sides of this divide. And there are many divides, of course, and you can see how it is creating a great anxiety about the election and what will come out of the election. And I should also mention that, as you could hear in those specific statements, religious freedom has become polarized deeply as well. Whereas it used to be more of a force that binds us together, increasingly, as my friend Tom Berg says, it is itself an engine of polarization.   So what do we do about these things? We have our work cut out for us, of course, and in our report, E.J. Dionne and I recommend a number of steps that the next administration can take to heal some of these divides and reduce the polarization. And when I say next administration, we refer to whoever is going to take the oath of office in January. And we recognize that a president can't heal all these divisions and can't change the dynamics instantly but can take certain steps that will help us including recognizing that the weaponization of our divisions is not good for the country and needs to be addressed. And that the next administration can give people who did not vote for that administration some degree of comfort by indicating that their views are being taken into account and that the president is going to be the president for all Americans.   Also, we recommend that the next administration do something that the Bush and Obama administrations did very prominently, which is issue a call to community service, and to service, whether it's the pandemic, the economic recession, or systemic racial injustice, that we call on all of our communities, religious and non-religious, to immediately begin to work with the government and with one another to attack these problems and to build bridges across our differences and to bring about a greater measure of justice for everyone. And so we say that the task really begins with respecting everyone's dignity and recognizing that we truly are very far apart right now. And we need to do what we can to rebuild bridges toward one another.   Let me mention something that's going on right now that is helpful toward that end that some of you may be aware of. There have been some letters, including some letters that include leaders of faith-based communities and some that are wider efforts by civil society leaders, to say that we need to have free and fair elections. What does that mean? The letter signers, that include people of many different ideological perspectives, many of whom are probably on this call, who signed this letter, talked about the fact that we need to be able to cast our votes without interference, suppression, or intimidation. And that we all need to make sure that happens, that every vote needs to be counted, even if that takes a little longer this time than it normally does, and that leaders of all stripes, including government and non-governmental leaders, those in the civil society, in other words, need to ensure that we're imparting accurate information and not whipping up fears and trying to make sure that we are helping to make our passage through this election season as constructive as it possibly can be. And that, of course, leaders should accept the official election results and work to keep peace and ensure that there's not violence at the very worst point that we might expect from the election.   So those are some of the very good efforts that are happening with the help of many people on this call and including my colleague, Jim Wallis. And I just want to thank everybody for joining in for caring so deeply about, if they are people of faith, their faith, and all of us about our democracy and the health of our democracy, and a pledge of working toward a better situation in the next four years than we've had in recent years in terms of political polarization. Thank you.   FASKIANOS: Thank you, Melissa, and sorry to be late joining the call. It's good to see you both, and I'm taking over for Rivka. Jim, let's turn it now to you. You've stated that race is the most important religious issue in this election and that 2020 is a test of democracy and faith. So can you elaborate on your thoughts?   WALLIS: Well, just to agree with most of what the chair of the advisory committee I was on, so I like it when she's my boss. And she was very eloquent there about the polarization. Everything she says is so true and so dangerous. But I do want to bring the central element of race to this polarization. After the election in 2016, I remember saying right after that this is all about race. And I was really pilloried by many people who said, no, it's not. Well, the data now shows that it was and is. Let me give you a hopeful sign because people of faith are supposed to look at where hope is. So there's a sermon, I always look for good sermons, right. There's a sermon out there that gives me a lot of hope. In states where governors are literally trying to suppress early voting, I see long lines of people stepping up, standing up, driving a long way, waiting in line for a long time with record turnouts that we haven't seen before. And when I first saw that in Georgia and Texas, and they were standing there, I think, not despite voter suppression, which was happening, or even voter intimidation, which is now threatened, but because of it—because of it. They were standing up in line determined not to move.   And I just tweeted out that that reminded me of the first free and fair election in South Africa. Because I was involved in that, it felt like that to me. My tweets don't always get a thousand likes in twenty minutes, and forty thousand in twenty-four hours, and ten thousand retweets. I like to say they did, but they don't—this one did. There's a sermon out there, people are standing up, who understand as Black pastors, and parents tell me every day that this is a life and death election for them. When asked why they say the future and safety of their children. Now, in response to sermon, an altar call has gone out. This is my evangelical tradition. The altar call is clergy are showing up at the polling places. We've had this plan for over a year. "Lawyers and collars" we call it. Lawyers there to protect legal rights. The clergy with collars—Christian, Jewish, Muslim—alongside to protect threatened voters from intimidation. And this for us isn't a partisan issue or even a political issue, it's theological. I've had conversations with election officials in all these states where we quote Genesis, myself and a Black bishop, we quote Genesis: "And God made all humankind in God's own image and likeness." That's relevant to when you target votes to be suppressed because of the color of their skin. This is a throwing away imago Dei, the "image of God," or racialized policing. This isn't just political, this is theological. And so we have lawyers and collars in nine battleground states led by Black clergy and white allies. And clergy are coming to be chaplains at the polls. And even more will come after—I got a video last night from Steph Curry, an NBA basketball player, who's calling out young pastors to come to the polls. So really even more young pastors.   So this is really about whether there's going to be a "we" going forward in this country. Who's going to be the "us," who's going to be the "we." And the fact that we are moving from a white majority nation to a majority of minorities is underneath everything in this election, because I don't think we've ever committed ourselves in this country to a genuine multiracial democracy. And that's what this election is finally about. Now with that, I talked to some George Mason students on conflict resolution yesterday. And I said, when you're talking about a change this big, a genuine multiracial democracy, it's going to create conflict. It's going to create conflict. And Jesus said blessed are the, He didn't say peace lovers, He said peacemakers. Conflict resolvers—we're going to need a lot of conflict resolution, it's overcoming polarization. It certainly is that, but the polarization is deep. And Melissa is right, it's because we are separate from each other. We are racially geographically divided, purposely. Because as a Little League coach—I'll tell you, when moms get together and talk about the future of their kids, kids that I've coached, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, it's a bonding thing. It doesn't cross racial lines in this kind of country. How do we come together and understand who each other are as human beings made in the image of God? This is deeply theological. And media outlets are trying to prevent us from seeing that. And it isn't just the last several years, this administration is running on division. They're running on division because their core campaign tactic is running on division. And so that's what's at stake in this election. And it has everything to do what is being polarized, which is polarizing humankind over race and culture. So a lots at stake in this election and the country's feeling that right now.   FASKIANOS: Thank you very much. And now we'll will turn to all of you for questions and comments. So you can click on the participants’ screen at the bottom of your desktop to raise your hand there or click on the "more" button to raise your hand in that context. And we have the first, I'm going to take the first question from the chat from Reverend Canon Peg Chemberlin. "Melissa, do you see interest in each party for this work? Do you see national religious leadership embracing the report and developing work related to it?"   ROGERS: Thanks, Irina. You want to go ahead and answer? Yes, so my friend, Peg Chemberlin, who also served with us on the Advisory Council that Jim was referencing earlier. So thank you, Peg, it's great to hear from you and we appreciate your work always. So I can tell you that while we were working on the report, we reached out very widely to people who worked for past Republican administrations and past Democratic administrations, people of different ideological and religious stripes, and we felt like there was a real hunger on the part of people to try to work together and become less divided than we currently are. It was also the case, we saw real differences and imported differences over policy. But we heard at the same time the hunger to try to work together and listen to one another and that there is a number of pieces where we actually find common ground. And especially since we're before the Council on Foreign Relations meeting today, I wanted to emphasize all the common ground that we have on foreign policy issues, including about educating our diplomats so that they have better religious literacy when they go to work, and ensuring that we promote religious freedom around the world. We can't often agree about religious freedom at home, whether we have school vouchers or a governmental display that might include religious elements, but we can agree that what's happening to Uighur Muslims in China is a travesty that we must stop. So there was a lot of agreement reflected in the conversations in the report, and I hope that it will trigger many more conversations that will enable us to find more common ground even as we deal constructively with our differences.   FASKIANOS: Go ahead, Jim.   WALLIS: Melissa describes common ground so well and that's true. I've got all kinds—what we're facing right now is not Republican or Democrat. It's not conservative or liberal, left of right. There are real differences, genuine differences in democracy about many of those things with which we can find common ground. And Melissa and I have seen that happen again and again. I was on a call last night with evangelicals about the election, and there were evangelicals there who had been Republican their whole lives and who care about the issues that she was talking about. But they're speaking up and standing up now because they don't see that. There's all kinds of people from all kinds of traditions that have legitimately different views and different perspectives. But we're facing a call to division. This is a campaign based on division that makes polarization even more dangerous. I'm having to raise no matter what forum I'm in these days because that's what we're facing now. And I think the report is brilliant, by the way, just brilliant. You should all read it. It talks about how people who the Clinton, Bush, Obama administrations—Republicans and Democrats their whole lives—how they can find common ground. But are we looking for common ground? Are we trying to find common ground? That's the question here. And I think a lot of us want to but the danger of the polarization—we're living in different universes in this country where people aren't talking to people different than them. They're not even watching or listening to the same media sources. When I say what do you think about this or that, they haven't seen that. They haven't even read that. And if they knew where it's from, they wouldn't even pay attention to it. So we're at a place of being deliberately divided. And we're already, because we're human, full of divisions anyway. And with the report that Melissa and E.J. did, it’s almost a roadmap for how to bring us together. But we have to embrace roadmap of trying to find common ground amid all these polarized differences.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let's go to Razi Hashmi, and please identify yourself and unmute yourself.   HASHMI: Hi, Irina, Melissa, and Jim—great to be here with you. I am a CFR term member and foreign policy professional. So my question is related to not just the report, but also the elections and politics. So those on the left are often painted as being anti-religion or at war with religion, but in fact, there's a large and vocal religious contingent to those on the left. So whether it be Muslim, Jews, or those from other, maybe dharmic traditions. And so what advice do you have for those that are on the political left to really have conversations about religion? And especially when the other side typically has a very restricted, either Judeo-Christian kind of perspective on things, and how do we broaden the dialogue to ensure that all faith groups, and those that don't believe anything, are part of a conversation to focus on the problems facing America. Thank you.   WALLIS: You're describing the class I've got in three hours at Georgetown, all those people. It's called, “Faith, Race, and Politics 2020.” And they're from all our traditions, or no tradition, or even people who have left traditions or even call themselves agnostics on their most hopeful day, and yet we're having this conversation about how the faith factor, or how our different traditions or different moral sensibilities can bring us together across these ideological lines that Melissa was talking about. And I see it, it's my most hopeful time of the week, every week to see these young students who are finding the value or the spiritual value that can really transform politics, the faith factor. Ideologically, we're just so divided. And Melissa and I know people on the Hill who won't even talk together about any of this. Is there a way to go deeper than politics? I say don't go left, don't go right, go deeper. How do we go deeper on these international issues that you're speaking of that there is a lot of? But internationally, people are terrified of what's happening in this country. That's what I hear all the time, about the polarization and the moving apart from each other.   So this issue of division and what it means to bring people together is the very heart of our politics. We've got to go forward, we can't go back to normal. Normal wasn't good for a lot of people, people of color. Normal wasn't good before this administration. So we'd have to go back to better. How do we get better? And I think Joe Biden's trying to figure that out, too. I don't think he can solve all the answers by far, but we need a door opener to a better conversation. And the report that Melissa co-wrote is one of those great roadmaps. But how do we get to a roadmap? We're throwing out the roadmap. Part of this country is throwing out the roadmap to a common good. It's saying we're going to vote for who we hate, despise, and have no relationship to. Relationship is what brings people together, time and time and time again. We've been structured out of relationship geographically, media-wise, and certainly racially. We've been deliberately divided from each other. And until we overcome that division, the roadmaps won't even be read.   FASKIANOS: Melissa, do you want to add to that?   ROGERS: I'd just add really quickly, I do think it's a problem that sometimes religion is not seen in more progressive communities. And it's there, it's just not recognized, including by the media. And so we need to hold people accountable when they're not recognizing all the people of faith on the progressive side. And including, sometimes religious liberty claims are thought to be just the province of the conservatives. And if you look, you see nuns and Native Americans protesting events, pipelines running across their property because that's a religious problem for them or protesting over a border wall being built as one Catholic diocese did because they object to the border wall for religious reasons. So it's very important to highlight these things. I think journalists play an important role there. And I think, as we're thinking about how to work on these issues, language is so important. And we developed several sections in our report to language and how it's mistreated oftentimes. For example, people will say things like, well, the debate over LGBTQ rights is between religious people and LGBTQ people, entirely missing the point that many LGBTQ people are themselves religious, not even to mention the allies of LGBTQ people who are religious, and that there are arguments on both sides here that are made by religious people and sometimes inflected with religious freedom concerns. So part of our task is to work on our language so that we communicate better and hold media outlets responsible for doing better in terms of reflecting the realities that we live in.   WALLIS: Very quickly to underscore that point and your question, Razi. The core of the Democratic Party are African-American women. That's the core of the Democratic Party. The most religious population in the country, by far, and yet, when Democrats are reluctant to talk about religion, they make a big mistake here. So it's really a mistake for the left to be reluctant to embrace. Melissa's right, I'm with faith all the time who are in those protests and marches and struggles. And we're all over the place. And the Black churches have been the core of social movements in this country for a very long time—deeply people of faith. So how we get over this bifurcation and the whole, and when they say evangelical, I said last night on the broadcast, they mean white evangelical, because if you talk about Black evangelical—Black churches won't use evangelical because it has that taint of white evangelical. But Black churches are very evangelical, theologically. And so there's a whole conversation about faith that Melissa and E.J. are inviting us to, what does it mean to have faith. And let's not be afraid of faith, but let's make sure that faith is shaping our politics from traditions. And people of no faith at all have to be in this conversation. So this is a great, wonderful conversation that young people are ready for. A new generation is ready for a new conversation about how faith can help us going forward into genuinely a multiracial democracy.   FASKIANOS: Great. I'm looking at lots of questions here, both raised hands and in the chat, so I am overwhelmed with it. Tom Walsh talks about, "Can you comment on what it's like in the pews in the churches given the polarization, what's the pastor to do? Speak what they believe is trust to power or try to stay abstract and voice general principles? Are individual churches and temples fractured, do believers turn or tune into their MSNBC church or their Fox News' church." And somebody else also put in about, Whitney Bodman about the "call to come together sounds like a pie sentiment, a great idea, but without legs—since we're so siloed, where do you see the opportunities, the places where this can happen? My church, for instance, is solidly Democratic. We preach inclusivity, but God forbid, a Republican can walk through the door." So if you might want to pair those two?   WALLIS: Melissa?   ROGERS: Yes. So first, let me express my appreciation for all pastors and clergy. You carry a heavy load, and I have never been called to the ministry, and so I cannot adequately appreciate what you do, but I want to say thanks to you because I think it is really a challenge and it's becoming more so. I think, and Jim can speak more to this, it's very important, of course, to preach what God has laid on your heart and to preach words of justice, I think, especially today, when there are so many injustices that we see around us, including, most prominently, racial injustice and, hatred of other people and fearmongering of other people. I guess I think that in all these issues, they're going to be some places where reasonable minds are going to differ, but there's so much that we can unite around just to get started around saying no fearmongering on factors like race, religion, and ethnicity. That's not only un-American, it's at least against my religious tradition. And are we going to hold our elected leaders accountable for those kinds of things? Are we going to hold them accountable for not endangering the lives and the very safety of our fellow Americans? I think that's something we can come around very strongly all together. And then they're going to be issues where we differ. Sometimes, in my experience in the church, the best time to deal with the issues where we differ is in small group settings, where we engage one another in conversation and real listening, back and forth dialogue, so that we can correct each other when we're misunderstanding things. So that would be some suggestion.   How do we find common ground? I think we sometimes try to find common ground on too big of an issue, and instead we should be splitting off smaller issues to build trust. So for example, when Jim and I and Peg were on the Advisory Council under President Obama, we couldn't agree about whether certain issues of non-discrimination and taxpayer funding when they flowed to religious organizations. But we could agree, despite those disagreements, we could agree that social service beneficiaries, people who are getting federally funded social service benefits that are struggling need their rights protected. And we could add protections to ensure that no matter your faith or beliefs, that you're never turned away from a federally funded provider of social services, and we could agree on that. And that meant something. So I think looking sometimes for other issues, smaller issues, as places to start that are significant and of themselves and can be trust builders as we move forward is one way to think about it.   WALLIS: I've had megachurch pastors say to me, I only have my people if I'm lucky for an hour and a half, two hours a week. And Fox News has them 24/7—I don't have a chance. And then, there are other places where a sermon can sound like an MSNBC white paper. So how do we get beyond that? How do we get beyond our partisan, political, ideological polarization? For example, the fear question that Melissa talked about, so the mom of one of my staff was in her choir one morning practicing for church and the choir director says a prayer at the end before church and she said, "Lord, protect us from those caravans of immigrants that are coming from the South and full of drug dealers and rapists and leprosy," which I didn't see much leprosy there, and the mom said, "Wait a minute, we don't talk that way about of fear in this church. We talk about what it means to welcome our neighbors."   So getting back to the core issues of our faith, big and small, the small issues are important. But I want to say I spoke to a bunch of pastors a few weeks ago. I said, "Every week, all our pastors should say that white supremacy is anti-God. Anti-God, period. And antichrist. That's just the truth. And we have to say that in the middle of a conversation like this. And what does it mean for churches to then implement that in the way they relate one to another after this election? And so I want to say getting back for me as a Christian, it's what did Jesus say? And did He mean it? There are questions He asks, like who's my neighbor? And the Good Samaritan parable, which He used, suggests clearly the neighbor is the one who's different than you. That's what the text says—different from you. So loving our neighbors, with no exceptions, becomes a spiritual issue and also deeply a political one for this time. So pastors are in the middle of this because they're in politically polarized congregations. So how do we bring them back to the faith traditions of their people? I would say, love your people enough to preach the gospel to them. And I think that's what we're facing right now.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let's go to Bawa Jain. And please unmute yourself.   JAIN: Good afternoon, everybody. As good to see you, albeit virtually, Jim, after a long time. It's been a while since we met together. And hearing you all gives me some encouragement. But I'm wondering whether the people that we have on the call today are already the converted? Are we preaching to the converted? My question here is that I go back actually to Reverend Dr. C.T. Vivian, God bless his soul, who said to me, he says, "Bawa, we thought the days of segregation are over." Boy, were we wrong. I say this because when other people of faith, we know by all conservative estimates that 90 percent of our country follows one faith or the other, right? These religious leaders are uniquely equipped with a pulse of the issues in their own communities, yet, we are afraid to engage them. Why is media not covering the kind of things which you are telling us? My question is, can we move from all the papers that have been produced, I have nothing against them, I have great respect to building this into a movement that every common person on the street understand these issues and say, this is beyond what each ideology is left or right, red or blue. We are the United States. What can we do to make this a global movement? This is a time—time is ripe for this. What can we do?   ROGERS: So, I would just say, I thank you for your comments because they illustrate the pain and the fact that we want to be in one place and we are yet in another. And that pain has been certainly very much present for me in recent years. And so what do we do to overcome it? And I think it's going to take all of us putting in a lot of very intense effort. I know so many on this call, this is what you're doing. I'm preaching to the choir. But this election season has provided, and I think the aftermath of the election season, should provide us with opportunities for us to even take what we're doing to the next level, have conversations. I know it's prompted me to have conversations and reach out to people and devote more of my time to this than I ever have in the past because it is that essential. And because truly, lives are at stake. We have people who are being—their houses of worship are being attacked and set on fire. And they are being bullied and knocked down in the street simply because of the way they practice their faith. That is beyond, beyond, unacceptable. And so it's prompting, I think, a lot of us to take it to a new level and to do things that frankly I haven't done in the past, which is to engage people who I know are in my circles who disagree with me, including family members, and have those conversations for the first time in my life. That's been painful. But it's also been something that I feel like I cannot avoid. So I'm hoping that all of us, I think all of us are having these feelings on this call. And it's a question of can we share what we're learning and what we're doing and do things that are unprecedented for us and maybe even a little painful for us because the alternative is unthinkable.   WALLIS: Bawa, you're right, when you raised the tough question. A lot of us have been doing endless Zoom calls like this, all these past several weeks. But I don't know if these calls are getting to anybody who hasn't already decided how they're going to vote when, realistically, we're often preaching to the choir. So I was preaching to a big church in Charlotte, actually predominately white church, but very progressive church, on issues like race. And I said, "They say I'm preaching to the choir here." And the place was full of it and they all clap. I said, "Well, yeah, you're the choir." But good does it do if the choir stays in the choir loft? This choir ought to get outside this church, cross the sidewalk and get into the streets, because the choir has to just not sit there and feel like they're so righteous, and the others are so wrong, which is how we do this again and again. We have a serious—polarization is a way to describe it—but it's division. Eddie Glaude says we're in a quiet Civil War. Now, Melissa referred in her opening remarks to the danger of this becoming not so quiet. No matter how the election turns out, divisions aren't going away. This election won't be solved by a candidate or a vaccine. This is a polarization that goes very deep. And so the choir has got to get outside of the choir lofts and do what Melissa is saying. What does it mean to really listen and talk to people, even at Thanksgiving dinners, who are very different than us? That's going to be facing us no matter who wins this election. These issues aren't going away.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to go next to Tereska Lynam.   LYNAM: Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. Can you reinforce some ideas that we individually can go following on from your comment, Jim and Melissa, your opening comments? What energetically can we do as individuals for the days and weeks and months following the election, both if it goes our way and if it doesn't go our way? And how can we individually heal our families, our friendships, our communities because they are so fractured, and we do have so many different information points. Thank you so much. Have a great day.   WALLIS: Let me start with the days—five days. This election must be free, and fair, and safe. And all of us have to respond to the altar call, if you will, to make it so. That is so crucial because this election going one way or the other will be decisive in what we're facing going forward. And so I've got to do everything I can with lawyers and collars and Black clergy and their white allies to make sure these votes are all protected and counted. There's now the threat of voter intimidation, which we've never seen before. Like we have now real chaplains trained at the polls and for events afterwards to do what they do if conflict breaks out. So that's crucial.   But then the day after or the week after, who knows how long it will take to resolve this election, where we go forward is crucial here. And it's got to be very practical. We need concrete changes in the systems in this country. And I love it when I'm home with my boys and they and their friends every night talk about how to refound, as Eddie Glaude says, the third founding of this nation. The nation has to be refounded all over again. And that's the opportunity but the danger is going back to—literally we have our best angels in this country and our worst demons. Our best angels and our worst demons. We have our best angels and ideology often covers that Melissa does so well to explain. What are our best angels here, but we have our worst demons. And right now what's being appealed to is America's darkest side. Our worst demons and those demons have to be defeated. This is in my tradition, we call it "spiritual warfare." That's what's going on here. And so how do we get through that and understand that going for we got to change our ideological, partisan, party identities and ask what are our deepest and best angels or values? And how do we build on them going forward?   ROGERS: Yes, I would just add, I agree with all of Jim's comments. I think that it is very important to remember the power of your voice. Never underestimate the power of your voice, including with your elected representatives. I think that it's too often we think that, well, it's just me, I wouldn't really make a difference. And I sound like your eighth-grade civics textbook. But I've been on the other side of government working in government and see how when a person raises their voice and writes that letter, calls their office, says to their leaders, I expect better from you and I am watching you and I am telling you that this is unacceptable what you're doing right now. On the flip side to praise them for something good that they have done. That matters. It sends ripples and it matters. So please, I hope all of us will be saying, if we see our elected representatives going the wrong way, including things as awful as dehumanization of people, that we will, or spreading lies and conspiracy theories, or encouraging or inciting violence, even if unintentionally, even if the remarks are just flirting in this direction, we can't have that right now. And so I think holding everyone accountable, raising your voice, you can't take that for granted. Please do that. And know that we also have to hold our own side accountable. Dehumanization is not okay if it's done by somebody that we voted for. We have to then go to them and say, wait a minute, your language here is scaring me and you need to retract and do better. So all those things are very important in addition to all the things Jim mentioned.   FASKIANOS: And just to follow on somebody asked, it's not just about doing things individually, what should we do as the church or the synagogue or whatever you're— the mosque? What should we be doing as a body?   ROGERS: Well, I'll throw in a couple—go ahead, Jim, did you want to go?   WALLIS: Just to underscore what Melissa just said, your voice, every one of us is an influencer. When we look at influencers and say—I'm not them, they don't listen to me, I can't do anything. Everyone on this call has circles of influence. And when you trust your voice, the way Melissa's saying, that to quote a chat here from the comments, gives legs to what it means to bring us together. So in the synagogue, in the congregation, in the mosque, we need to trust our voices with our fellow congregants, with our clergy. Our voices, each of us has influence, so don't get off the hook by blaming other influencers. There's a lot to blame there, for sure. But each of us has influence so where we have a voice, use it, and use it in ways that are risky. You're afraid to speak because you don't know what other people are going to think. A lot of pastors are afraid. To use your voice means to take some risk, it means to trust your voice, trust your values, trust your faith, and use your voice even if that is risky.   ROGERS: Yes, I would say one easy thing for, and hear I'm speaking mainly to white, predominantly Christian churches, is to reach out to congregations in your city or neighborhood that are different, whether they're predominantly African-American Christian churches, whether it's predominantly Hispanic, or whether they are Jewish synagogues, or mosques, or gurdwaras. Those of us who do not feel threatened for the practice our faith every day, cannot adequately appreciate how our neighbors are feeling threatened merely for practicing their faith every day. So one easy step and you can work on your own through congregations, or you can work with something like the Know Your Neighbor coalition organized by my friend Gurwin Ahuja or the Multi-faith Neighborhood Network organized by Jim, excuse me by Imam [Mohamed] Magid and Bob Roberts, two good friends of mine, who help congregations and religious leaders come together across religious difference, and racial difference, and ethnicity differences and protect each other's lives and rights. That small step of reaching out to other congregations and say, we want to make sure that you feel comfortable in this neighborhood, that you feel safe. What can we do to help you? That can be one simple task that any church could do.   FASKIANOS: Thank you, I'm going to take a written question from Salam Al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council: "How do you suggest we counter the rise of religious nationalism, which is racializing religion? It's popping up in other parts of the world and also here in the U.S."   WALLIS: Well, there is a growing movement; the Washington Post had a story about it just this week. A growing movement of Christian nationalism, even called "patriot churches" in this country. It's the worst of that white evangelical heresy, which is what it is, that puts the nation first. And there really is no difference between Christian nationalism and white Christian nationalism. I mean, this is something that that is seen and felt by so many of our brothers and sisters of color, and who are really watching what happens in this conflict in these days and this election. To go back to what Melissa referred to, I'm a white Christian. I'll say that. Or even a white evangelical at its best. However, what is the operative word in that phrase? Is a Christian? Or is it white? Is it evangelical or is white? That's going to be really revealed in powerful ways in these next few days. And a whole lot of Black pastors and church leaders tell me that if racism isn't a deal breaker for white Christians, they're not sure they want to work with those white churches anymore. And I'll tell you, a whole generation of multiracial young people are never going back to church, if, in the end, white and American and nationalism overcomes what our traditions that we all know, say. And so this election is a test of democracy, it is that. It's also a test of faith, the integrity of faith going forward. Not just who wins the election, but what people will think of us as people of faith, particularly, as white people of faith going forward. But that's really all at stake now. It goes past the election, but this election is critical to defining a context and a framework for how we're going forward.   ROGERS: Yes, I just throw in a mention of a project run by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty where I used to work. They've got a project called "Christians Against Christian Nationalism.” And that is also a productive effort that is trying to tackle these issues in a constructive way.   FASKIANOS: There is a question from Mark Brinkmoeller: "In the book, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, Robert Putnam and his collaborators relate that their research shows that when political beliefs clash with theological beliefs, we here in the United States more often change our theological position to conform. What does this suggest about the state teaching or formation of U.S. religious bodies?" Melissa, do you want to go first?   ROGERS: Sorry, yes, I was on mute for a minute there. So I believe, and pardon me, I had a minute where I could hear what you're saying, but I believe it was about we're too apt to change our religious beliefs to fit our politics. Is that it?   FASKIANOS: Right, it was based on Bob Putnam's book.   ROGERS: Okay, yes, I think that's a good caution. And my friend Mark Brinkmoeller, I want to thank him for chiming in, he's another person working in these fields very intently and productively. So yes, we have to have people hold us accountable. One of the things that I think is a very productive, practical suggestion of many, including Arthur Brooks, is that we have friendships, we have close friendships with people whose politics differ somewhat than our own but share the same faith tradition. And that we try to hold each other accountable for things that we see that don't add up in the other person's perspective. So in preparing for this report, for example, we had a very good conversation with Peter Wehner, who has different political leanings than I do but is also a Christian. And so I think having those conversations can point out blind spots that we have in our own approach where we might be missing something theologically that we ought to be paying attention to and making sure that we're not letting politics control our fate.   WALLIS: I wouldn't normally lift up a podcast that I do in a webinar like this, but it goes right to Mark's question. Every time I do it, like yesterday, I said, this is a podcast for people who think that faith should shape their politics rather than the other way around. And the other way around is what happens, as Mark is suggesting, all the time. Mike Gerson, for example, Peter Wehner's best friend, Mike Gerson and I once did a poverty caucus, we had chief staff, legislative staff from Republican and Democratic sides work on ten poverty issues that need solutions. They had to be faith people from different sides of the political aisle. And Mike and I were amazed at the creative solutions that they came up with to these ten serious poverty problems. But when we began to start this poverty caucus, none of their principals, none of their bosses would enter in, because it meant talking with and working with the other side. I mean, these policymakers found answers instead of just finger pointing and blaming, they found solutions, and nobody wanted to hear them because of the party fighting on both sides. So that's why the faith factor could be really crucial here. And I want to keep raising that—what does the faith factor mean in our polarization and our division, in particular. All of our faith traditions talk about how we're being brought together as all of us made in the image and likeness of God. I go right back to the first book in the Bible, right there.   ROGERS: And could I just really quickly, Irina. Thanks, Jim, those were great comments. I remember that project very fondly and well. One of the things that both Jim and I are saying that I don't want to be lost is that both of us insists that people of all faiths and none are equal Americans, and that we should be defending each other's rights. And that's another divide that we need to extend our hand across that divide because religious people care about religion and non-religious people care about religion, because religion ends up affecting them. And so how do we go to bat for each other's rights to make sure that all the differences that we have to bridge are done, or that we do so, and that we defend everybody's equal dignity and infinite worth no matter of faith, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and more?   WALLIS: And young people are looking to who's defending the rights of others. That's what young people are looking toward. Who's doing that?   FASKIANOS: Great. And the final question I may take is from Thomas Uthup, "What is the role of media in spraying division versus unity?   WALLIS: Melissa, go ahead.   FASKIANOS: And how do we hold them accountable?   ROGERS: That's a biggie. And I hasten to add, I could name quickly a bunch of journalists and media outlets who are doing a marvelous job in this space. But then we also have those who are not doing so good of a job. And unfortunately, a lot of newspapers and media outlets have recently, over the past few years, cut the person that they had looking at religion and public life. And so then you'll have somebody who's not as practiced in these issues covering it, and they wander into any number of errors. So we just have to be very vocal. I mean, I know Jim, you have this experience, there are all kinds of times where I see things that are wrong in journalistic accounts. And I just contact the person and I would say nine times out of ten, I get some result out of that. Even a headline change, something that was misstated, corrected, a relationship with a reporter that makes a difference the next time. So I think sometimes we are too passive. And we just don't do that. It shouldn't be just a few people who are doing that. It's everybody who picks up their paper and see something wrong or tunes in and says, here's what's wrong, listen to me. And I would say nine times out of ten, you're going to get a better result. And that's worth working for. So that's it. Those are my thoughts.   WALLIS: Well, messaging is crucial for us going forward. And media and politics always see the value in bifurcation, in binary choices. And in conflict, they're looking for conflict. Melissa and I often look for people who are talking about how Christians, Jews, and Muslims are coming together on things. And there's all kinds of stories all over the country—amazing stories. The media never covers those stories. It likes to cover the conflict. We got to, in some ways, we have to create our own media. I'm all for calling up those reporters and trying to help them see a different world. But the messaging, in the faith we have our own messaging, we have our own outlets, we have our own publications, we have our newsletters, and I want to see our messaging be different and better and not just rely on huge media outlets that really are defining what to do by profit, despite some of the best reporters I've ever seen in the media. So a whole new generation of reporting has to happen. And I think people have faith have to be part of that, and say, we're going to change the message here. The message here is Jesus says the truth will set you free. And we're in bondage to media that is based on things that just aren't true and making us even not believe there is truth. That's even the deeper problem than the lies. Those who want to say there is no truth, so just trust me. That's what strongmen always do. And that's we're facing again.   FASKIANOS: Well, thank you both, for today's terrific call and to all the rich conversation that was going on in the chat and raised hands. I'm sorry, we couldn't get to all of you. But we'll have to continue the conversation in the wake of the election. So we encourage you to follow Melissa and Jim. You can follow Melissa on Twitter @melissarogers and @jimwallis. So those are their Twitter handles. We put in the chat a link to the report that Melissa and E.J. Dionne co-authored. And we'll share that in a follow up email as well. And please follow our Religion and Foreign Policy program on Twitter @CFR_Religion. We'll be holding more of these webinars in the coming weeks. So again, thank you, Jim and Melissa, for today's discussion. We appreciate it. And everybody, vote. Vote for sure. Stay well and stay safe and we hopefully can preserve unity or encourage unity in the wake of the election, regardless which way it goes.   ROGERS: Thank you, Irina. Thanks, Jim. Thanks, everyone.  

Tiffany Shackelford, executive director of the Society for News Design, speaks about opportunities for locally-based reporters to educate their readers as they cover the 2020 election cycle. Carla Anne Robbins, adjunct senior fellow at CFR and former deputy editorial page editor at the New York Times, hosts the webinar. FASKIANOS:  Good afternoon and welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Local Journalists Webinar. Today we will discuss opportunities for locally-based journalists to educate their readers as they cover this election cycle, with our speaker Tiffany Shackelford and host Carla Anne Robbins. I'm Irina Faskianos, Vice President for the National Program and Outreach at CFR. As you know, CFR is an independent and nonpartisan organization and think tank focusing on U.S. foreign policy. This webinar is part of CFR is Local Journalists Initiative, created to help you connect the local issues you cover in your communities to global dynamics. Our programming puts you in touch with CFR resources and expertise on international issues and provides a forum for sharing best practices. I will want to remind everyone that today's webinar is on the record and the video and transcript will be posted on our website, cfr.org/local journalists. I just will share a few highlights from our distinguished speaker’s career. Tiffany Shackelford is executive director at the Society for News Design and staff director of the voter communications task force at the University of Southern California Annenberg Center on Communication, Leadership and Policy. She is also the producer of USC’s election cybersecurity initiative. She was previously chief strategy officer and director of communications at the National Governors Association. And earlier in her career, she held roles with the Pew Research Center and the Pew Charitable Trusts, where she founded stateline.org to cover reporting trends and analysis on policies in the fifty states. Carla Anne Robbins is an adjunct senior fellow at CFR. She is faculty director of the master of international affairs program and clinical professor of national security studies at Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs. Previously, she was deputy editorial page editor at the New York Times, and chief diplomatic correspondent at the Wall Street Journal. So thank you, Tiffany and Carla, for being with us today. I'm going to turn it over to Carla to have a conversation with Tiffany and then we'll open up to all of you for your questions. So Carla, over to you. ROBBINS: Irina, thank you so much as ever, and Tiffany, welcome, thank you so much for doing this, you have an extraordinary resume and you're still you're doing an extraordinary number of things. It's a little bit intimidating, but it's so on top of what we need to talk about right now. So I looked at your report, which is elegantly designed. And you start out by saying that voters should be repeatedly informed of up to date polling place data, crucial deadlines for requesting and submitting mail-in ballots, and the practicalities of how to vote, either by mail or in person. And that each voter should be contacted through at least five communication channels, local news outlets, community and civic group outreach, digital messages, push alerts, and paid or in-kind advertising. So with the election just a week away, which is pretty extraordinary, we have a lot to talk about today, including what are the most important stories to be done right now about state and local efforts to get out or block this sort of information that voters most need. And what can local news outlets do as civic actors themselves? But before we do that, let's just start first with a very quick overview of this project and what we as reporters need to know, knowing that we really don't have a lot of time left before the election. SHACKELFORD:  Absolutely. You know, we started putting together this project and this task force of both public servants and academics and media types because while there was certainly a huge amount of people getting out the vote, working for voter information in various ways, what we saw is there was still a lot of confusion out there at just some of the basic information getting to people. Getting to people not with a lien, not with, you know, things baked in, but just how, when and where to vote. I think particularly, as you know, journalists or academics or, you know, big, big democracy types that a lot of us are we forget that there's about a 30 percent group of voters that are not super voters that are not going to automatically look at, you know, every single story and be following people every day. They often have to be reminded, and if it's not convenient, if voting is not easily understood, they're not going to make it, it's just not going to happen. And we really started to put together, you know, this concept that, you know, amongst the growing dim of just, you know, these voting messages, a lot of negative, a lot of drama, that people still were not able to very basically get information. We also assume, you know, I think as, you know, in media, and again, in some of our coastal ivory towers of sort that everyone understands how to get information on the web very easily. Not true. Often if an average citizen is not pushed information, they don't get, you know, they're not going to know that you need to go to the secretary of state's website, or that the League of Women Voters has some of the best information out there without someone to help curate that and really to help get that information out. You also kind of pointed out at the first that one of the things that we advocate for is pushing again, and again, you know, getting information, multiple channels multiple ways to people. This is often something that people forget, as well, there's a fairly common marketing rule of seven that you've probably heard about in your career. And it's simply, just to oversimplify it, it basically means that the average human doesn't actually absorb information until they've seen it seven different times, in seven different ways. So if you think about it, there is a method to the madness, when in your community, a new stoplight goes up and it blinks for thirty days. That's because they assume that that's the amount of time you're going to go through that seven times. So you'll notice it and won't blow through a stop sign or a stoplight the next time. It's, you know, this is proven again and again. You see marketers use it all the time, not just in digital things, but also billboards and, you know, television advertising. So it's, you know, it's very much based on these basic kind of sociological ideas that you have to get to people again and again and again. They're not going to receive information one time and then automatically retain or even absorb it. So that was, again, one of the reasons that we really said, it's got to be multiple ways, multiple levels. You know, and not just words sometimes, you know, also pictures, also audio, you know, various other ways of getting to people. So, that's a little bit about some of the basic background, I think that that went into thinking about the report. The other thing is, one of the things that we were very interested in doing is not adding a lot more, you know; the report is very short and that is intentional. And also we have curated lists that you can look at, you know, on our site and various other things. And, again, that was assuming that right now, people are actually in some ways getting more information to wade through. And you know, that that's not giving them just the basics that they need often. ROBBINS: So you looked at different states and their communication efforts, as well as giving them advice about different ways they could come up with, you know, communication plans. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, with the best and the worst that you saw?  And I think that would be really useful, because if I'm thinking about going into my community right now and doing some last minute reporting, because there's still time to get information out there. Last minute reporting about how well my local community is doing at communicating these things, maybe I can learn from either the best practices or the worst practices that are out there that you've seen. SHACKELFORD:  So there's quite a few states, particularly in the West that I think have done an exceptional way. Now, I'm not sure if it's related or, you know, where the correlation is, but some of them are also mail-in, all mail-in voting states. So you're talking about, you know, Colorado, Washington State, Oregon, Hawaii, these are some of the states that have been using voting by mail for years. So they already have the infrastructure to not only communicate that way, but also to do  the counting, etc. So they were able to use those resources, in some ways to educate voters in a way that others who were scrambling to quickly get, you know, additional mail-in voting couldn't. I don't have to tell this group that unfortunately or, you know, however you want to look at it, you know, every state has to balance their budget. It's not like the feds who can just kind of keep adding as they need to. And that means that in times of crisis like we're in, you know, what things get cut from state budgets. I mean, you already saw at least sixteen states making some fairly serious cuts in their budgets. And these were budgets that were already fairly anemic in some cases. Well, it's not hard to figure out that a soft item like voter communication is one that's going to have to go immediately. So, you know, a lot of those states, you know, while trying to use the CARES Act of money to get, you know, to do some stuff with cybersecurity, they don't, they can't also spend it on just basic education. So you saw a lot of those. So I would say that the states that have already kind of had that some of the mail-in voting were in a better position to do that. There's also states like Iowa, who still has one hundred newspapers, you know, and all, you know, doesn't have extreme news deserts. So they're able to, you know, really work with their media out there in Iowa to get voter education out as well. And there's some states who the secretary of state's and elections director's office has worked very hard together to get to get, you know, their services, well done in advance using cloud and enterprise solutions. Minnesota, for instance, has done a really good job. And they, I think, have educated, the secretary of state there has educated its citizens really, really well. The one thing I'll say that's somewhat interesting to me is, up until this election, I don't remember ever knowing or hearing about too many secretaries of state, with the exception, of course, in 2000, you know, and a few others, they're often kind of under the radar. And I think that's too bad and a lot of ways, because I think actually, by and large, and I've met almost all the secretaries of state in the U.S., they are doing, you know, really some of some of the best work and they are often unheralded, you know, and only demonized when there's a problem. But, you know, they there's no election season for them election season is constant. And I think that they have been really, you know, working hard to do that. ROBBINS: But the information that they need to be getting out the basic information is what are the voting days, where's your polling site? You know, if it’s mail-in voting, how you fold your ballot, you know, where you get all this other things? Is, are there other basic educational things that they need to be getting out? And how would I, a week before the election other than doing, you know, person in the street reporting, how would I be able to assess the effectiveness? I mean, I suppose there are several things. One is I could look at the budget they devoted to it, I could call them up to try to figure out how many communications they actually sent out, I could look at the push side of it. Are there are other ways of assessing the push side of it? SHACKELFORD:  There's multiple secretaries of state have put together some, you know, varying in quality and use of usability, I'd say applicate apps, of course, and they actually through the National Association of Secretaries of State, do have trusted elections, which has all of the election information in one place. I will tell you, however, one of my favorite sort of places outside of the secretaries of state that have those official websites, is actually what the League of Women Voters have put together, for every state, they are run by each League of Women Voter in that state. And they're the in my assessment, you know, they're the most up to date, and trust in some of the best trusted information. And they are often working together with their local media partners, to make sure that that information is getting out there. So I also would say that's a great way in terms of looking at how much, you know, was actually done by each state, that's a little bit harder to do than you would think and here's why. The lines are appearing everywhere, so there's not one line that's voter communication in any state budget, right. So some of its going to be in the election director's office. Some of it may be, you know, coming out of just a legislative budget or some other, you know, some other line items. So it's not really clear or easy to see which push would be for, you know, what I would call voter education, unfortunately. And I'm sure the National Association State of Budget Officers is tired of hearing from me on this very question, because I've asked multiple times to try and figure that out. But I don't think that it's as obvious as one would hope. But that is actually one of the things that I'm hoping to do after the election is take a look and see what different states spent and what actual communications happened in the analysis. ROBBINS: Did you find some states were more resistant to sharing information with you, more resistant to participating in this, you know, less willing to partner with you if you asked for information about what they were actually doing?   SHACKELFORD: On the contrary, actually, I think and sort of, you know, to the point of often forgotten, almost every secretary of state and election director that I've spoken with in this country is thrilled to give you information, wants to be, you know, at the table and has said, please, you know, just get the citizens my information. And, you know, they're often I said, I worked with governors for a long time, I will say that the secretaries of state have impressed me with their ability to remain as nonpartisan as, as possible, though, they are, you know, most often elected and very, you know, by a partisan or appointed by, you know, one party or the other. But I think that they truly by and large want the information to get out there. Now, you know, if I put on my Society For News Design hat and talk to you about usability, I, you know, they're not always as usable a site, as one would wish. Sometimes also, the other problem is that it's not just one secretary of state, in charge, you know, if you look at states like Wisconsin, or Illinois, the ballots are different county by county, sometimes. You know, those are, that's a county commission system. So those are, you know, that's a little bit different. And, you know, that's a different ballot, a different communication model, and, you know, a different kind of set of what's getting out to the public. ROBBINS: So that goes back to, I think, my first question, and I do want to throw this open to the group. I have an infinite number of questions, but to the group, which is, it's a week to the election, which means there’s still good to be done. Keep in mind, I'm an editorial writer, so I still believe in the perfectibility of man. So, you know, what stories could should I be looking for in my community, that, frankly, would put a little bit of heat on the right people to improve their communication skills between now and then, you know. How can I, what story should I be doing to assess how good a job they are doing in communicating what needs to be communicating?  I think that's, that's really the question, I'm having be my assignment editor for a minute. SHACKELFORD:  I've been extremely, I've been extremely heartened and impressed with the advocate groups on the ground. Some of the classic sort of well-known groups like the NAACP, and the Urban League. I've also been heartened and impressed with a large group of new voting advocate groups that are coming out, ranging from fashion to sports figures, etc. I think if I were an assignment editor, I would I would be out there talking to the advocates on the ground, to see what they're doing. They have different sets of, you know, different sizes of staff. There's one, the president of the NAACP in Georgia, James Woodall, incredibly impressive. He was doing voter education seminars himself at one point, simply to make sure that that information got out. They've recently also been doing things like party at the polls, you know. I'm interested in knowing that if all of the attention from sports figures and Hollywood types is that actually equaling you know, action, or is it actually activating people to get out and, you know, get registered, etc.? I'd also want to know, you know, you hear from a lot of different corporate organizations now that are actually getting voter or trying to get voter information out through organizations like Civic Alliance and others. Well, what's happening? How is that trickling down? Where is that going in the communities, is something I'm very interested in, in following and finding out. I'd also if it were, you know, if I can as an assignment editor, I would really also be looking at, you know, there's some really cool, you know, groundswell kinds of, or grass, I guess we would call it grass roots or grass tops, kinds of organizations, like Black Girls Vote, I Am Voter, who are doing all kinds of really interesting, almost pop up kinds of events around the country. I think that's pretty interesting, but I don't know, I'm curious to see if it actually, you know, motivates and gets people into those voting booths and polls. And the other thing that I'm interested in and I would love to see kind of looked at, is the amount of collaboration in some cases and the lack thereof amongst all these groups. You know, I think it's wonderful again, that all these groups are doing so many different things, but often they're not talking to each other and often they're not coordinating across. And that was something certainly we also in part of this report and putting curating all these groups just in one place, just to if nothing else, let them all know, hey, do you all know about each other? Because it's a funny space, right? Because you come in, you know, you every four years, a lot of people pair, you know, to kind of parachute into all things, voter communications and education. And then they forget about the other down ballot years. You know, and then there's a core group that keeps going, you know, I would love to see someone, you know, kind of report on who's talking, who's doing a good job of that collaboration in the state and who's, you know, frankly, missing some opportunities. ROBBINS: All right, thanks, Irina, should we throw it open to the group? FASKIANOS:  Great, so everybody can raise their hand by clicking on the participant’s icon at the bottom of your screen. And if you're on a tablet, click on the more button on the upper right hand corner, and you can raise your hand there. And our first question comes from Kala West. And please tell us what news outlet you're with. And be sure to unmute yourself. Q: Good evening, afternoon, everybody. I'm with WURD here in Philadelphia. Tiffany, to your point. There's a lot of ground organizations in here in Philly, we've been doing a lot of movement they have been working together, Party at the Polls is really big here. Just a whole lot of things are black clergy. However, last night, there was a killing of police shooting in West Philadelphia where a young man, a black young man was shot and killed by Philly police. And I am really worried that all of the rallying cries that we've been doing for voting will now be subsided to the police brutality. So my question is, how can we cover both because they're both important, but still emphasize the fact that we are a week away from voting? ROBBINS: Great question. SHACKELFORD:  That is an amazing question. And first I I'm so sorry to hear about this shooting. And I am but I'm also pardon to hear that that the Philadelphia organizations are working together are you perceive them to be because it was certainly a city that we were watching carefully to see. And obviously for Pennsylvania, for all of the reasons is that is a state that's high on my bellwether watch. I know that, you know, I know that a lot of national organizations that are actually asking themselves the same question. You know, the Washington Post, for instance, you know, went to I believe it's twenty-six or thirty-six people on the ground in states for exactly this reason, because they don't know if they're going to be covering an election, or civil unrest or other issues. I would say that, you know, here's where I wonder if there's even media opportunities amongst your colleagues within a city to figure out how—I once ran the Association of Alternative News Weeklies. And one of the things after sort of the initial shake up that the news weekly is realized is that they had to go from criticizing the daily media to collaborating with the daily media. And often we were finding that they were able to cover city hall or issues of governance a little bit better, while the dailies were covering the breaking, I just wonder if there aren't more collaborations like that, that we could all take advantage of. I feel like in the media world, you know, when, what is it, one in fifteen news organizations are no longer working. If we don't collaborate enough, I was just thinking, you know, could we, for you, for instance, call our friends at Lenfest, and see if we could collaborate the coverage. Again, I would also frankly, not to put too personal pitch on it. There are individuals and organizations like myself who are really I'm sitting here waiting to help coordinate and collaborate with you all on these on these issues. So I didn't give you a great answer, but those are a few ideas. And I would say that please get in touch with me afterwards. I will, you know, gladly help connect or collaborate with you or that goes for any of the journalist on the call. If I can if I can help do any of that. FASKIANOS: Yeah, we're waiting. We’re waiting for questions or comments. Over to you Carla. ROBBINS: Thanks, I always have questions. So I'd asked you earlier to be about beyond this issue of making sure people know where to vote and when to vote, which seems to be a pretty important question. And particularly in a lot of states where there are voter suppression efforts going on. How can we, this is, you know, a basic mechanical question. And there are many other questions that also I think, you know, about preparing people, politically preparing for what the count is going to be like, what's going to go on afterwards, but before we get to that and Kala's question to a certain extent deals with the after, with more with the context, and it was a great question. But just on the sheer mechanics of it, and there is still time to deal with that, I think newspapers, obviously, you know, have can do the basic things, which is use their websites, as one of many websites, people may not know to go to the League of Women Voters, or they may not know, to go to whatever other website in which you can put in your zip code and your name and find it. I mean, how many newspapers are just giving over their platforms to for the very basic ideas of how to find your voting place? How many of them, we used to on the edit page in Times and, they still do, do it as do the basic thing. Here are the voting hours, your endorsements, those sort of things. But to go to the next step, which is people know where to find their local newspaper, that much we know from polling that people trust their local newspapers. Are there local newspapers around the country that are basically participating in the mechanical, you know, here's how to find voting, here are the hours, rather than directing people to take the next step, which is to go to the League of Women Voters or to go to the secretary of state website, because we have generally have much more usable websites and everybody else does. SHACKELFORD:  Absolutely. All those years of, of the Minnesota fall, I remember that we used to do all the news, follow the eyeball tracking studies? Absolutely, we do. And you’re right, a lot of news organizations have really wonderful, really usable voter guide sites. You know, the voter guide, I think, for a long time was something we all took a lot of pride about, you know. Putting together the best voter guides and I'll tell you that amongst some other local news groups that I talked with, there does seem to be some, some pride coming back into, you know, the best layout of voter guides and some particularly in the online space about the interactive ones. So that's certainly wonderful. And you know, Axios, Vox, NBC, Washington Post, New York Times, all who put together really beautiful really usable websites. I'd say also take a look at McClatchy and Gannett, the chains also have some really nice voter, you know, voter tools, but also don't forget if you are lucky enough to have in your community, a Vermont Digger or a Minn Post, Texas Tribune, Mississippi Today, you know, the speed of nonprofit or just online only the Lion papers, the INN websites are really, I think coming into their own with voter guides that are easy to use and easy to look for. My concern, you know, and I'm sure —Oh, I also want to say that the public radio and television stations also, I've seen some beautiful things. The public radio station in Charlotte has a really nice voter guide. WRAL is a television station in North Carolina, who, I think, who's done a nice job there too in a state that's one to watch for a lot of different things rolling through. The concern obviously there is that's wonderful for the areas that have those trusted local media source sources, and I will, you know, to reiterate what you just said, Carla, we do know that that trust in local media continues actually to go up even not just trust it's going up, whereas the lower the national media, unfortunately, the trust there is on a downward slope a little bit. ROBBINS: I’m not taking that personally, but go on. SHACKELFORD: Please don't and I hope none of my other friends do. I'm just kind of telling you, that was my Pew hat coming out a little bit, to sort of have the reality. But you know, that's true, though about all things really, Carla. The governors had a poll done by Frank Luntz a few years ago, and he found very, very clear data that said, it wasn't even, you know, hate Congress trust your congressman, those guys were out the door. The only people that most people trusted in America at that point was governors and mayors. So I thought that, you know, it's a following a trajectory for everything. But I do worry about the so called news deserts, I'm sure most of us have read enough about news deserts, I do you worry, particularly around those areas and what they are using to get that information because they don't have, you know, a Mississippi Today or Minn Post, or Texas Tribune to give them a nice ballot. I will also say that the how is the piece that is the most different place to place, obviously, and also the most concerning. We are hearing stories of, you know, highly educated voters who are getting their ballots rejected because of strange logistics, like, in one case, I heard about a husband and wife, who the wife cert turned in the in her ballot and used a return a preprinted return address, you know, the kind we get from the Audubon Society for free or something, and it had her name and her husband's name on it, too, and they rejected it. ROBBINS: So that would be a good public service reporting would be to highlight, you know, things that are being done to avoid problems like that. And the last days and hours of it, almost be sort of a hygiene guide, you know, good voting hygiene. SHACKELFORD: And voting hygiene guides would be incredibly helpful. The problem is there is no national or even state standard. ROBBINS: But that's the sort of thing given the fact that that this is, you know, for local journalists, you go to your local election board, because it's not even for some places, as you said, it's not even a state standard. You go to your election board, and you say to them, what are the, you know, four biggest mistakes that you're finding that are unintentional mistakes? And how do we, you know, how do we avoid it, I'll help get the word out for you. And you might maybe, and then the advocacy groups could probably also help you with that, because they would be able to tell you, because some of this is just screw ups and other of this as are intentional, because I have to assume that, that some malevolent actors are also pushing out the wrong information to people. So people are messing up because of the wrong information. So not just a voter guide of place and time, but also a voter guide, on good voting hygiene might actually be a sort of a useful thing to do between now and Election Day. SHACKELFORD:  Absolutely. I've even encouraged if you are, you know, a multimedia sort of type of reporter go get, you know, film yourself with your, with your ballot. I mean, not what you're filling out, obviously, and, you know, I understand that that's, but film the, you know, let people see, let people experience it in that way, you know, that's one of the— ROBBINS: Or an origami of the folding (laughs) SHACKELFORD: I actually, I've made lots of origami jokes about that, you know, because it really, it is important. And I think too, if we think about education principles, some people learn visually, so wouldn't it be helpful? And, you know, we're all I'm sure really tired, and really no more free pizza in the news, no, I guess I can't even make that joke anymore. But, you know, it could, you know, these are the kinds of things that might even be a little creative and a little more fun than your average, you know, the drudge of the daily day story that you're trying to get out there, which is super important. But, you know, showing people just about basic civic information is I think, really satisfying, and could be a little fun. ROBBINS: The advocacy groups, I think would also, you know, be a great place for disinformation, they must have banks of disinformation, people being told to go to wrong polling places, people being told wrong days to vote, people being told, you know, you can't sit around and wait for the director of national intelligence who may or may not tell you the truth on you know, who's behind it, or who's doing what. And this is and you may or may not depending on the politics of your state, but I would think that the advocacy groups would, and, Do you know, particular advocacy groups that are keeping a bank of, you know, disinformation or pushing in the wrong directions? SHACKELFORD: There are several groups that are trying to do it, I will tell you, there's also some groups that are coming out of that I'm seeing like that are kind of fact check groups that citizens can use for disinformation, beyond news media as well. Repustar is one, and there's one called Reality, as well. And I can send the links to folks for that as well afterwards. And so you're seeing some, it's almost like the civic journalism of today. It's this, you know, civic fact checking, I guess, you might say. And so there's certainly some things like that, that advocacy groups right now, frankly, are, I think, you know, the resources that it takes to combat disinformation are very large. And I don't know that even some of the, you know, the best advocate groups are always able to, to really combat them, sometimes they're just, you know, just hitting them as quickly as they can, you know, ROBBINS: I mean if someone you know, if you know, that in your community that people are pushing out the idea that you can vote online; you can't vote online, just by saying this, you know, it's saying this, Kayla has a comment here, seniors are concerned about their ballots being safe. You know, there are things here, you know, that if you are aware of them that, you know, newspapers can actually add them to your list of hygiene or calming people down, or at least disabusing people of things, but it is whack a mole. And that's why we need to have other people to sort of curate what's out there. You know, this notion Democrats vote on this day, and Republicans vote on that day, that's one that's floating around. But we need to be flagged, whether it's floating around enough for us to pay attention to it for us to write stories about it or flag people to it. So you know, what sites and what sources are the best ones to help us with? That is really useful information. SHACKELFORD: And yes, you're right. And actually, there's quite a few that are doing that as well and we've got a list on voter communication.org. And I'm afraid if I say that a URL, I'm going to say the wrong so I'm going to, again, if it's all right, I'd love to send that out to everyone. And I will also say, you know, for the advocacy and this kind of concept of the bank of information of that. They are collecting them it's I think, not always necessarily sharing amongst each other. And so there's not one kind of National Bank yet, but I just wrote that idea down is maybe that that's the best idea I've heard in a while Carla. So maybe. ROBBINS: Come on you guys. We need questions from you guys. I'm like, what do I know? I'm like, you know, I'm a national security writer. Come on, you guys are like the experts on, what are you hearing from your readers? You know, we want to learn from you. Come on. Don't make me work so hard. Okay, while I do that, I'm cleaning, being a sound like Lindsey Graham, pleading for contributions. You guys, you heard him last night. Okay. We have a question here. Great. Can you read that? Irina? Wait. FASKIANOS: Yes, I can. I was just clicking into it. It's from Amie Rivers: for our low information voters who might be waiting until the last minute, what do we need to especially get out to them in the final days? SHACKELFORD:  So again, you know, I don't think you're going to be able to get them real time information about lines or anything like that. I think, again, this is where I would go back to that rule of seven. And for those low information voters, I would figure out as many ways as possible that I could get messaging to them. So you know, if it's, well, you know, I realized that most media doesn't have the resources to go and get their printed copies to people any longer. But I would say, you know, if you can get those messages out where those low information folks are, and that often is, you know, I worked with some corporate organizations to get messages on pizza boxes, things like that. Are there areas that, are there places that you could work with, with local businesses? Honestly, you know, if there is a, you know, I know we're not going out as much anymore as we do, but is there a delivery site locally, that would be willing to, you know, put out a just a quick little card about, your local media voting site. Think about that. Is there a way, I will also say I know that, you know, religious organizations to have a point of view, they're not the objective, you know, like media, but they are incredibly powerful, and they are often willing to really help. Also, organizations, you're not thinking about like the Teachers Association, a local PTA. Again, it is civic, you know, civic duty, you know, you're not asking them to get Dem information or Republican information to anyone, you're asking just for basic voter information. And so far, I've found that they've just basically been waiting for someone to ask, and they'll immediately get that stuff out to all of their giant lists. You know, and I think that that's a great way. We actually do, if it's helpful for anyone on this call, we've got lists and lists and lists of state associations ranging from religious to civic, to professional and membership associations, I'm glad to share that with any of you, you probably know who they are in your own state. But sometimes there's ones that you never thought about that are surprisingly willing to help. I also would remind you, here's where you could call your local state and city lawmakers and policymakers again, they do have, you know, they do have opt in information just to get it out there. And just to work with them, you know, in the same way that once upon a time, I think we all did remember, when we would we have the afternoon paper would also have the polling information. And if they if the morning paper, you know, The Washington Star was where I was, you know, the star would have it if the post had missed it in the morning. You know, I do think that with Facebook, and some of the other ways, you know that people are engaging online, there are ways to get to them. In that same way that we're not thinking about all the time. I again, we have all of these dependencies, and it's really just there to be helpful and get you that information, FASKIANOS: Right. And Tiffany, we will put together all the resources and send it out to the group for sure. SHACKELFORD:  Okay, great. Yes. So we can get all of those to you. And if you want language or introductions, even often I can give this to you as well. ROBBINS: So that's in many ways, sort of a project for the editorial pages, because it's, even though you're not taking a position, it's more sort of the newspapers or civic actor, although I think maybe that line is not as clear as it used to be. Since they're sort of people with much more sort of news and editorial melding together than it used to be. So I have a question about, you know, alright, the elections a week away, but the results are not necessarily a week away. So did you guys deal with in this report, questions that news organizations need to be asking themselves about planning for election night and the days after? And coverage, assuming that the results won't be called immediately? I mean, I think about the night that Obama won. And, you know, we had an editorial saying Obama won, we had an editorial saying Obama didn’t win, we had an editorial saying we don't know. And I remember that my boss the editorial page editor went downstairs, and because we weren't going to call anything before the newsroom called, and he called upstairs to me and said, okay, push the button for the Obama won editorial. And I was about to do it. And I was standing there with the copy editor. And I put the phone down. And then I called him back and I said, Andy, I'm putting you on speaker, can you just say that again? And with the copy editor listening, she said, Obama won, push the Obama button. You know, and it was that sort of moment, I thought to myself, what happens if I put the wrong editorial in the paper? You know, this is this notion of calling, you know, the week NBC called wrong in 2000 this notion there. We've made mistakes so many times before but now we're in so much more of a, and I was just looking at this Gallup poll, which was taken in October that found that only 59 percent of Americans say they're very or somewhat confident the votes in the upcoming president election will be accurately cast. And, you know, extraordinarily a minority 44 percent of Republicans and Republican leaning independents expressed confidence in this. I mean, we were at an incredibly fraught time. So did you guys deal with this question about it's not just a question of waiting for the AP to call. I mean, there's there is I would assume explication that has to take place in this and that coverage probably has to be taking place now as well. SHACKELFORD:  So that is, that is exactly an error, because we were trying to get this out in a timely fashion that we thought this is something we need to look at and it will be kind of next for us in terms of that election season, I suppose is what I've started to call it instead of election night. And one of the things, you know, frankly, we didn't necessarily look yet into what, you know, what could be done as much, you know, as we looked a little bit at history to see, you know, what had been done, other disruptions, trying to find even an example other than 2000, you know, where there was this level of potential unrest and disruption around a modern election, you know, even on a state and local level, what the longest time was, you know, before we get there. And again, what I think this, you know, come unfortunately, comes back to is just the trusted information. You know, it's okay, if we don't know what the election is, it's fine, as long as we're all waiting, we're all understanding that we're waiting on the same people to say what the end, you know, results is. And we certainly have started to think about, you know, are there ways that we can now pivot to communicate exactly that, and the message, there is a little strange, though, it's be patient. It's, you've got to just wait for a minute. And that's, I think, a hard message to tell most people, frankly, I think, you know, especially with just the absolute exhaustion that we all feel about, you know, going into the election, we didn't however, you know, I think, go enough into figuring out the potential solutions for journalists on that particular issue. I would say though, there are a number of groups and resources that are beginning to really start to offer some opportunities or offer some ideas. If you all are familiar with the American Press Institute's trusted elections network, they've got a lot of great information on this topic. I would also reference refer everyone to Joy Mayer, who's at Trusting News, is the name of her project. And she's got some great ideas in terms of educating to the public on, you know, what the election season is going to what the reality is of the of the potential links before we know. ROBBINS: I would love to hear from anybody who's listening in about, you know, how their newspapers are dealing with this, right now, if any of them have some creative approaches to you know, whether they're, you know, not referring to this, as you know, as Election Day referring to election season, when they've been whether they've been writing stories that's that prepare people that this is going to be potentially something that could last quite a long period of time. Because I think we could all learn from that, I mean, we now hearing from the head of the network's that they're not going to make the same mistakes they've made in the past. They're not going to be hyperventilating on election night, but we'll see if that's really, really the case. But I mean, that could have an enormous impact on whether or not we have civic calm, or we don't have civic calm. But I think given the level of trust that people have in their local newspapers, that that's, you know, pretty important. Even if people decided to go to sleep and wake up in the morning, what are they going to do, rather than just have a holding story? I think they're going to need a context story as well. Not just a holding story, not the Obama didn't win, Obama did with, you know, this, and not just to be patient, but what does this mean, the uncertainty of it? How does it play out? You know, then if we don't know, is it because something went wrong? Or if we don't know, is it because that's just the process now in the midst of a pandemic? And because we have a different voting system right now. And particularly if you've got, you know, one side or the other side, claiming that things have gone wrong, and then you add into this, this whole, you know, possibility with cyber, you know, this notion of a perception hack that, you know, something might go wrong, even intentionally or not intentionally, like, you know, the way the app went wrong in Iowa and there'll be people claiming that the whole election had been hacked. So I think people will be looking to trusted new sources for explanations rather than just holding stories. So I'd love to hear if people are getting those explanations in the in the midst of the crutch of the campaign. You know, I think it's time to sort of start hearing more preparation. I know, I'm nannying now but I'm an editorial writer. I nanny, that's what I do for a living nannying me. Anybody out there, have the guys on anybody have any of your papers done that? Kayla, you guys, I know Kala will talk, have you guys been talking about that at all? I feel like I'm calling on my students. Yes. Kala says yes. Q: Yeah, we were actually because I'm not able to pay for I'm with a radio station. I know, we're actually trying to do like an election week coverage. We have a few live broadcasts just to talk about how did people cast their ballots? Did they go to the polls? Throughout the rest of the week, we have a few folks coming on, to just talk about the different campaigns and whenever the news drop off who won the election, you know, we're really ready to double down on Hey, this is the president for the next four years. ROBBINS: How are you going to handle this if we don't know for days or potentially weeks? Q: Right now, the way we're looking at, if we don't know (unintelligible) sorry, I know to talk, I talk for a living. We're putting it as, until we know, we're putting together the agenda because we’re special, where that we're actually the only black talk station in Philly and in Pennsylvania. So we're putting together as, what is the black agenda that we want to put to this administration for the first 100 days? A lot of times, it's not until after they get in that we talked about the first 100 days. So we're really looking at what should we be petitioning for, for these first 100 days when it involves the black community. So we're really looking at things like that gathering groups, we actually have a lot of our black clergy rather, is Christian or Catholic, Muslim, where they're joining together, and they've actually brought a lot of time on the air to talk solutions with the people. So that's really what we're focusing on here, at WURD. ROBBINS: Irina, I see you, you called on someone. FASKIANOS: I did I called on Dan, to share with us, Dan Shelley. Q: Hi, Irina. I'm Dan Shelley, I'm the executive director of the Radio Television Digital News Association and Foundation. I was very pleased to hear what's happening in Philadelphia, particularly as it relates to the officer involved shooting that just occurred. I think, that speaks to one of the largest narratives in this year's election cycle, clearly, which is coming to terms with the nation's racial divide, if you will. And also all sorts of DEI related efforts and initiatives, and groundswells that we've been seeing across the country. I think it's also important to point out that the work that has that is being done and has been done in Philadelphia and around the country, Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, you hear about those cities in particular. But also it's happening in small towns even around the country. As this heightened sense of tension and urgency around all of the issues of 2020 seem to be coalescing into this, to some degree angst and consternation over the election a week from today. And it's led so far this year, just since George Floyd's death at the end of May, to more than 850 reports of journalists being assaulted, attacked, harassed, threatened, having their equipment destroyed in the United States of America. RTDNA is a founding partner of the U.S. press freedom tracker, which keeps track, as its name implies, of threats to press freedom across the country. And I can tell you that that number of more than 850 reports of incidents targeting journalists, most of which have come at the hands of law enforcement, by the way, is an exponential increase over the each of the last few years where we've had no more than about forty-five to fifty incidents targeting journalists and journalism across the country. So my contribution for lack of a better term to this conversation is to remind all journalists to watch your backs but don't back down, to make sure that you exercise as much caution and personal safety as you possibly can. I know that a lot of news organizations are providing armed or unarmed security crews to go out with journalists in local communities. The networks have been doing that for a number of years now, particularly overseas, but now it's happening with local newsrooms across the country, print, television, radio and digital. Unfortunately, there's also a large group of independent journalists who have what we used to call in the early days of the internet vlogs, video blogs, and websites and other ways of disseminating news coverage, who can't afford and don't have corporate backers to provide them with such security. There was an incident in Austin, Texas over the weekend, where an independent journalist was physically attacked by a small group of protesters just for trying to do his job of chronicling their demonstration against the death of a man back in April, at the hands of police in Austin. So this is a daily occurrence across the country, you don't hear about a lot of them. But there are those of us who are extremely concerned about the via the violence and the threat level targeting journalists in these final days of the election cycle, and my fear is that this climate will continue after the election, particularly if we don't know the results of the election for a number of days or weeks. And then perhaps even following that, depending on what the outcome is. So watch your backs, but don't back down. That would be my contribution, Irina. ROBBINS: And thank you, and we will also send around the link to the tracker, because that is not only an act of solidarity, it's also news. And a sense of exactly the level of civic distress that we are in when the truth tellers are at threat. Thank you so much for that. Irina, I think you're doing a great job of calling on people. FASKIANOS: Well, we are at the end of our time, so I can call on anybody else. But we did call on a few people. So, that was good. Tiffany Shackelford. And Carla, thank you very much for being with us. Tiffany, we're going come back to you get all the resources that you mentioned, and then sent out to the group along with the link to this webinar. And you can follow Carla on Twitter @RobbinsCarla and Tiffany @TiffanyShack, that's easy to remember. So we hope you'll do that. And of course, please visit CFR.org and ForeignAffairs.com for the latest analysis on the pandemic, election 2020, and more. And just please share your articles and suggestions for future calls for our future CFR local journalists webinars by sending an email to local [email protected]. So thank you all again for being with us. And to you, Carla and Tiffany. ROBBINS: Thanks, Tiffany. Thanks Irina.