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Ballotpedia:Editorial approach to story selection for presidential election news events
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This article details our approach to selecting stories for "Candidate in the news" sections in 2024 presidential campaign articles. This provides a curated account of a noteworthy campaign's most important activity in the 2024 presidential election.
Stories are included because they say something about the candidate, his or her campaign, or the larger narrative of the 2024 presidential election. We do not necessarily select a story for each major candidate each day.
Stories are curated each day from a variety of news sources. When possible, we strive to select stories from neutral, unbiased sources. We do, in certain cases, include stories published by partisan or non-neutral outlets if it was significant and other sources were unavailable.
Have questions about our editorial approach? Email us.
List of story types
The following types of stories are typically included in our presidential election news coverage:
- Announcements of new policy positions
- Clarifications of old policy positions
- Comments on world events
- Comments on other candidates
- Noteworthy endorsements
- Campaign staff announcements or changes
- Ad campaigns
- Profiles by major media outlets
- Campaign strategy updates
- Campaign events
- Super PAC activity
- Party committee activity
Any stories not meeting the above criteria could still be included if they meet our broad criteria of telling readers something about the candidate, his or her campaign strategy, or the larger narrative of the election cycle.
For more, see Ballotpedia's editorial independence policy.
Differentiating between governing and campaign activity
We consider the following factors to differentiate between governing activities, actions a candidate takes in his or her capacity as a sitting officeholder, and campaign activities, actions a candidate takes in support of his or her campaign.
Typically, governing activities that do not warrant coverage as campaign activities include communications on official officeholder channels, proposing or signing legislation, issuing executive orders, coordinating or communicating about a government response to a major issue, or using the powers afforded to the officeholder in their official capacity.
These activities may be considered campaign activities if they include references to a candidate's political opponents, are paired with communication or activity from the candidate's campaign, are criticized or commented on by an opponent's campaign, or overlap with obvious campaign strategy.
Story types we do not include
While not exhaustive, examples of stories we do not include in our presidential news coverage are:
- Minor media or cable news appearances
- Celebrity endorsements or comments
- Fact checking articles not published by Ballotpedia
See also
Footnotes
