What makes the 2020 election different? ‘The degree of angst’
The presidential election is a year away, but already a “significant source of stress.”
Washington Bureau Chief Susan
Page has some advice: “Stay engaged. Be informed. I also think people should maybe reward those who lower their voices. There are so many loud voices, those who portray those with a different point of view as unacceptable or evil. We want the country to come together, especially after the election. The ability to talk to each other is something we should do more of.”
Page and I were in Chicago on Thursday to hold a town hall on USA TODAY’s election coverage. Our goal: to help fuel those conversations with facts. To be an oasis of clarity. To drive participation in the election.
Page has covered every presidential election since 1980. The biggest change she sees now: “The degree of angst.”
“People on both sides see the future of the country they want at stake in this election,” she says. “It’s true for supporters of President Trump and also true for President Trump’s fiercest critics. People feel the stakes are higher, and neither side feels confident they are going to win.”
Plus, she says, the velocity of information is so much faster. And “the ability to distribute inaccurate and malevolent information has grown so much.”
Here’s how we’ll help. We’re asking every candidate about the issues that matter most to you and letting you hear from them in their own words. Our first candidate roundup on health care published this week. We’re listening to you, and sharing your thoughts and concerns with candidates and those in power. We’re fact-checking speeches. We’re untangling complicated issues.
What can the country do? “Show some respect to each other,” Page says. “Thanksgiving coming up is a good time to do that.”
We played recordings from slain journalist Don Bolles for his widow, Rosalie. “It was a good life with him.”
On June 2, 1976, Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles went to meet a source at the Hotel Clarendon in Phoenix. The source didn’t show up, and Bolles headed back to his white Datsun parked outside. As he backed out, six sticks of dynamite placed under the car exploded.
Eleven days later, Bolles died.
He was 47.
A year ago, The Arizona Republic rediscovered a dozen locked file cabinets and documents compiled in the 1960s and 1970s by Bolles. The cabinets included notes from The Arizona Project, a group of journalists who launched Investigative Reporters and Editors and were determined to find out who ordered the Mob-style hit on Bolles outside that hotel.
The files are the source of a new investigation by
The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reporters found cassette tapes of his phone calls, illegal wiretaps and recordings his fellow Republic reporters made of interviews with politicians and the powerful, police and the FBI, mobsters and moles. Thanks to those tapes, The Republic reexamined Don’s life and his quarrels with the Mafia before his death.
Now, for the first time, Bolles tells
his own story about the powerful forces of good and evil in mid-century Phoenix and Arizona. “Rediscovering: Don Bolles, a murdered journalist” is the latest podcast from The Republic and azcentral.com. The show launched this week with two episodes and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
While interviewing Bolles’ widow, Rosalie Bolles, reporter Richard Ruelas played her a recording that Bolles, for some reason, made of a random conversation with her.
The topics centered on getting estimates for a kid’s braces and a mishap involving an EZ-Bake Oven. Rosalie smiled and laughed at hearing her late husband’s voice. Particularly when Bolles, on the tape, told her he would be home early that night.
On the tape, Rosalie gave the “Ha” response indicative that, as the spouse of a journalist, she had heard that line before. Hearing the tape in her living room, Rosalie laughed at the memory.
She then paused and got tearful. She was silent for several seconds as she composed herself.
Then, she said, “It was a good life with him.”
More than 40 years later, this story is still a punch in the gut to journalists (and all those who care about freedom of the press). Our reporters face danger every day.
Bolles was going to an interview. In search of truth. And was killed for it. Thank you for reading, and thank you for supporting USA TODAY. To receive this column as a newsletter, visit newsletters.usatoday.com and subscribe to The Backstory.
“People on both sides see the future of the country they want at stake in this election . ... People feel the stakes are higher, and neither side feels confident they are going to win.”
Susan Page
Washington bureau chief