(instrumental music) - You know throughout 2020, Georgia's electoral process took center stage in American politics and in 2021, as you all know, and even those watching now, we took the spotlight.

Georgia really took the spotlight, and that spotlight continues today.

Today, we're going to simply look back on the 2020 election process, the season, and talk to some of Atlanta's top journalists who are joining us here today, who were frequently seen and heard on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and so many other media outlets.

And I'm also gonna share some of my experiences, including a funny critique by comedian Leslie Jones, the night of the election.

So a lot of news, a lot of fun, a lot of conversation, and a lot of information.

You're gonna get that here today in just one hour.

So we wanna officially welcome you.

First, let me introduce our panelists today.

We are delighted to have with us today, and this is in alphabetical order, Greg Bluestein, political reporter of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, welcome.

Stephen Fowler, political reporter, Georgia Public Broadcasting, Emma Hurt, political reporter, here at home at WABE News, Cameron McWhirter, author and staff reporter of the Wall Street Journal, Tia Mitchell, Washington DC Correspondent for the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

So let the conversation begin.

Greg Bluestein, hi, Greg, how are you?

- Hello.

- (laughs) Have you gotten any rest?

- [Greg] I have.

- Okay, well that's certainly good news.

Well, Greg, you dominated a national media coverage throughout the 2020 elections and runoffs, and you became known nationally as a prime source for Atlanta reporting and analysis.

Do you think the national outlets really relied on you and your reporting and that of local reporters to one get the story right, but two, to kind of be embedded in Georgia politics as it was unfolding?

- Yeah, I think it was a combination of both.

First off, I think the national media was caught off guard with something that we in Georgia knew was coming for awhile.

We didn't know that Senate control was gonna hinge on a runoff or two runoffs, but we did know that Georgia would have a consequential overtime election.

This wasn't a surprise to anyone on this panel, I had reported on the prospect of a nationally watched January run of the day that Johnny Isakson announced his retirement way back in August, 2019 and then the distinct possibility of double runoffs for months before the November election.

So I think that kind of surprise to them kind of forced them to rely and trust us in the local media in Georgia more.

I also think the pandemic changed everything too, outlets that might've cut back on the army of reporters they otherwise send to Georgia.

Relying on Georgia reporters more, and many of those that did send reporters to Georgia, couldn't send folks here for the entire nine weeks.

So those of us who had been covering this race since 2019, became ambassadors of a sort, and also, I think, was important too, it suddenly didn't require a whole logistical nightmare to throw people like me on the air.

Two years ago, three years ago, CNN would send cars to take me downtown headquarters, MSNBC or Fox would book expensive studios with green rooms and makeup specialists.

Fast forward to 2020, I get a call 10 minutes before airtime to go live, I'd amble up to this room right here, put a jacket on and do my thing.

So I think that made it a lot easier for the TV stations in particular, to put us on air.

It didn't require all the infrastructure it used to.

- That's interesting, you use the word ambassador and you also said that journalists were kind of caught off guard.

Emma Hurt, do you believe that you were caught off guard?

And can you talk about how you in particular and other Georgia journalists were elevated to this national level in representing Georgia journalism?

- I think we all knew the runoffs were looking likely, and that the national media hadn't really processed that Georgia had this weird runoff situation.

The level as Greg said, of importance of the runoffs was not something that I predicted, but as we're watching all the returns, there's the whole presidential drama, and then in the back of our heads are sort of side-by-side, we're all like, "Oh my God, wait a minute.

"The Senate is this really gonna happen?"

But I agree with all that Greg said, and I would also add, I think because the runoffs were kind of an extended period of time in which we were, for nine weeks, I guess, nine weeks, the, the center, it wasn't just like a two week period, it was a long time.

And so people also didn't, national outlets didn't send as many reporters for that entire time.

And meanwhile, every single day there were like five or six national story increments coming out of Georgia.

And so the volume, because we were the only game in town, because former President Trump was fixated on Georgia as well.

There was just infinite markets for every little Georgia story, and, you know, you're like, "Oh, you care about "this press conference with secretary "of state Brett Robinson.

"Okay, okay, okay, okay.

"I guess I'm gonna do a national story on this."

And I guess there's just thought there'll be news network at this press conference that used to be just like five of us.

So that was crazy, but you know, we were lucky to be here, and hopefully though, I think we can all agree, it will never quite happen again in the same way.

I think they're gonna change the laws so that it doesn't, and everyone on both sides of the aisle, except maybe the media buying companies would like this to never occur again.

- Yeah, it was quite a cycle to live through.

And Georgia was certainly the talk of the town, and it was the talk of national news, as we just said.

And Cameron, you had the opportunity to cover both, the national aspect and the local aspect.

How did it differ when you were going through this election cycle spotlighting in Georgia, spotlighting in the Senate race, and trying to tell that story in plain English to the rest of the nation?

- Well, I mean, I think Greg and Emma, both made great points, and I think it's important to note that their work, they were both in the trenches every day, every day.

And that played a big role in building momentum for us to go to our editors and say, this is a bigger, bigger story, it's getting bigger, you need to start paying attention to it.

And it's a process to sell it to our national editors, that it's a national story.

I think one thing you misspoke about earlier, you said the election cycle that was, it's never stopped, it's still going on.

I mean, this thing is gonna go on until maybe 2022, maybe beyond, and we're all sort of taking a little breather right now, but it's back on and you know, what's going on in the legislature, the angling that's going on, what is former President Trump gonna do?

I mean, this is going to put attention on Georgia for years, and it is going to put all of the people on this panel and all the journalists in this state on alert all the time.

Now, hopefully it won't be like what we just went through, but it's gonna be intense.

- Cameron, thank you.

And, you know, speaking on a national level, not only was the news being made here in Georgia, but also in our us Capitol January 6th namely, Tia Mitchell, you had some experiences there with that type of reporting of reporting, those kinds of stories that were so emotional and just engulfed, enveloped the entire nation.

And you had to bring that home to Georgia, how difficult was that?

- It was difficult in the fact that I wasn't only covering the story, I was experiencing it.

Decided to evacuate members of Congress from the chamber, and that was happening on the first floor, and all of a sudden, and then they try to evacuate us.

There were some members who were on the second floor, that's usually where visitors sit.

But again, because of social distancing, there were members on the second floor, which is also kind of where the media sits in the chamber.

They were trying to evacuate us, and then the next thing we were told was we had to shelter in place.

I was in the house chamber when writers tried to breach the house chamber, and for a while, we were locked in while police officers defended the chamber to keep it from being breached.

So I witnessed a lot of things firsthand, but I guess that helped me in a lot of ways, because as I was reporting it on that day, and continue, of course, to report about the fallout, I had a first person account of what happened from the perspective of being in the chamber when the breach was attempted.

So I guess it's just required me to really, figure out a way to compartmentalize the personal aspects so that as a journalist, I can remain objective, and continue to report on the continued fallout, but also, taking the time to think about how it has impacted me personally, so that I'm not totally disregarding that aspect.

- You know, and as journalists, we're supposed to be objective, but we felt these stories that were coming across, and that we were talking about.

Tia, can you quickly share one of the most frightening experiences you shared on January 6th?

- Well, I would say when we got locked in, so they were evacuating the house chamber, and there were 100 to 200 members of Congress, and probably a couple dozen members of the media like me.

And at a point they could no longer evacuate us, because the rioters were in the hallways, and it was just too dangerous.

So probably the scariest point is when they said, "Hey, we're gonna have to lock you guys back in the chamber, "just take cover and do the best you can."

And we had gas masks and unfortunately we heard a gunshot, and so that was really scary, and we didn't know how long we were gonna be in this posture.

We didn't know if the rioters were gonna get in, and there were about 50 of us, including members of Congress, including the members of the media, who would have been in the chamber if the rioters had got in, and, you know, just that unknown.

And then maybe 10 or so minutes passed, and they were able to clear the hallway enough to evacuate us, and we literally had to walk within feet of some of the rioters.

They were subdued at gunpoint by Capitol police officers at that point, but the fact that we could see them, spreading on the ground, these are the people who have breached the Capitol, and tried to disrupt the joint session of Congress.

- Wow, very incredible to watch on TV, but even just to read the stories, and how you helped bring that to life.

Stephen's Fowler, you make me feel guilty, because I'm not wearing my mask, but welcome.

We're glad to have you.

And we're talking about frightening stories, just how scary or how intriguing was covering Georgia Senate race, and the elections overall, the presidential election for you?

- Most of my focus has been on voting and elections, and typically it's a very boring mundane procedure.

People show up and vote, people are caring about what the results are when things are tallied, and certification happens and everyone goes home.

But we had two dueling narratives of reality when it came to how to work as votes were counted, even though they were counted three times, including once by hand, and you saw people face death threats, you saw poll workers being tailed as they went about their duties.

And you had people sending, you know, I even got screenshots of my parents' home address with people threatening me because of my reporting on the truth about elections.

- The president has continued to make baseless claims that he won your state.

What impact I'm wondering is this having on Georgia's Senate runoffs, and is this an attempt to discredit the election process in Georgia ahead of those crucial races?

- Well, it absolutely is an attempt to discredit the way things are run because you have to remember, Georgia has a Republican Governor, a Republican Secretary of State, Republican State House, and the Senate that passed these laws that govern the election, and pick Georgia's new voting system.

So Republicans have been in charge of this entire process, so to make the claims that there's some sort of fraud or an interference democratic plot would have to get rid of a lot of information about how things actually were.

It's not something you would expect to ever deal with in Georgia politics or even just politics in general at the state and local level, but really concerning how much democracy was in jeopardy it seemed like for a couple of weeks of culminating with a January 6th insurrection, because people didn't believe basic facts about how the vote went and how the government works.

- As journalists, often we find ourselves in the line of fire, but never so much then with this particular election.

Emma, let me ask you to any threatening phone calls, anybody telling you, Hey, change the story, change the narrative of what are you talking about?

- There was so much on all sides of this coming at us, I think I didn't get any direct threats like Stephen and others probably have fortunately, but I got a lot of feedback, a lot of anger, really like if you're telling someone something, they didn't wanna hear whether it was that there was no fraud or that gosh, that democratic campaign strategy, maybe wasn't X, Y, or Z from all sides, you're getting hate.

And that's true, really the politics I have learned covering politics, others have more experience doing, but it seems to be just the fact, because we're so divided right now, but with the attention, the volume of stories, it just was amped up by like a hundred, 200%.

And so the trolls were out in full force, the emails were often like, okay, cool, you're an enemy of the people.

All right, fun.

But we developed thick skin, but even this was next level.

- Yeah, thank you.

Greg, I read your tweets and you, what about you?

Did you have people that were coming for you so to speak simply for telling the story as it was?

- Yeah, of course.

I mean folks who went after my Jewish background to attack the reporting, and look, it was probably a fraction of what the candidates themselves got.

We were sort of on the front lines, but I just remember talking to Emma about it throughout the campaign, which is that thick skin.

I mean, we kind of have to tune all that stuff out, and it's not just the attacks and the emails, questioning.

It's also sometimes, what other outlets are reporting that our editors might be really interested in and us reminding editors, Hey, we wrote that story a month ago, we're onto something new now.

So it's all sorts of you get, you're kind of in the center of this storm and it's exciting, but it's also very high pressure, and again, I was talking to Emma and Kim went through this too in 2018.

We were in the center of the national media attention in 17 for the special election, and an 18 to a degree for the governor's race, where one of many premiere political battles there, but we got a taste of it.

And I didn't think anything could top the 2017 attention, we got when Jon Ossof ran for 6th district, because we were the only game in town.

And so the entire national media world sent every political reporter they could find down to Atlanta to cover that race, but 2020/2021 definitely top that.

And you just have to kind of hunker down and do your job.

- With that said, Cameron, you're a season journalist, and you've covered the elections before, any particular lessons learned from this last election?

- I think that you have to really, I mean, Greg pointed to this, but you really have to tune out the cacophony from social media when you're doing your job, because the threats would come, and we get (laughs) I'm sure everyone, I mean, everyone was getting crazy threats, everyone was getting nasty remarks.

People were sending me emails about my house, crazy stuff was going on, but it's a lot of hot air.

I mean, you really just have to focus and do your job.

And I think that it's very interesting, I worked for the Wall Street Journal, which is a conservative editorial section, and then the news side all we do is produce the facts, and to be lambasted as a leftist liberal, commie, was pretty surprising, but that's sort of the world we're in.

And I think all the journalists here could comment about, covering a Trump rally for example, and wearing a mask in part, because it's required by my job was problematic.

It was a political statement to be wearing a mask, and that would be something that you had to navigate, and going out to meet Republican voters in some of the rural parts of the state, and wearing a mask was something we had to negotiate.

It was a constant issue and a political one.

And I'm sure they all have stories like that too, but it was definitely difficult and will remain so.

- During this election, there were all the little sub stories happening and what happened to be the demographics, the ever-changing demographics in Georgia that sometimes national media just can't grasp, Tia, how hard was it for you to translate that in your reporting specifically with Georgia, supposedly turning blue, and the role that the youth played, African-Americans played, how important was that for you to get that across in your stories as a journalist?

- I think it's important to get that story across because that's part of the complete story.

Stacey Abrams rightly got a lot of attention for putting together a playbook that was executed in Georgia, but even she was very cognizant, very proactive about elevating other activists, other leaders in Georgia.

And I think it's important to tell the story, not only about what happened in Georgia with the general election and the runoff, but quite frankly, it's important context to tell the story about what's happening now, with a lot of the voting and election laws that are being proposed in the general assembly.

So we've got to give people that complete context that there is this coalition of activists, organizations, and then grassroots voters that are changing what voting looks like in Georgia.

And as a result there is kind of now and offensive to constrain some of that progress.

And whether you agree or disagree with that probably depends a lot on your politics, but we've we've got put it in context.

- Put it in context.

And Greg, you just reported yesterday about Atlanta center for political gravity shifting to Atlanta.

Why was it so important for you to tell that story after this particular election?

- Yeah, I mean, one of the things that kind of got underplayed, and that, again, everyone on this panel knows and recognized was that this wasn't some sort of overnight success for Democrats, this has been a trend that had been building over the years, Republicans won the state by eight points in 14, Trump won the state by five points in 16, Kemp won the state by a point and a half in 2018, just looking at those numbers, it is getting narrow and narrow.

And so this wasn't an overnight success, this wasn't something that was let alone by Stacey Abrams, and again, just like Tia just said, this was a narrative that even Stacy Abrams pushed back on, but also the Atlanta suburbs, which are getting more and more attention and are credited, I think partly rightly so for the demographic shift, and for the political shift in Georgia, they're not some monolith, they're not a stand in for white voters anymore.

And there might be in some other suburbs, and some other states might be stand-ins, but not in Georgia.

Atlanta suburbs are becoming increasingly diverse, and increasingly powerful politically.

And that's the story I wrote yesterday, just trying to tell the story that the rural lawmakers, the rural Georgia, which used to have an out sized voice in Georgia politics, even after the county unit system was disbanded in the 60s, it doesn't have nearly the center of gravity, it doesn't have nearly the force it does anymore.

And that's the story that will continue to shape 2022.

As cam said, this election isn't over, we've got another one already beginning next year.

- Yeah, the conversation of demographics will certainly continue.

Stephen, can you recall for us a story that particularly stood out to you and for you, during this last election?

- I think for me, it was back in February, March of 2020, when the Corona virus pandemic started to become a thing.

And we were talking to county elections officials across the state because they were busy rolling out this new hundred million dollar voting system.

And we were asking them how they were going to prepare for a potentially deadly pandemic, because voting is something that a lot of people show up to do and close type proximities.

And we heard from officials who were worried about elderly poll workers not being able to show up to work.

We heard about worries of polling places dropping out, because they didn't wanna potentially get a bunch of people sick.

And we heard about fewer machines, because they tried to figure out social distancing, and how to sanitize touch screens and things.

And that was back in February.

And they said that those were gonna be a problem when June's primary came, and lo and behold, all of those problems came to bear on the due night primary.

And I just remember reading all the national headlines about it was a disaster that nobody saw coming.

But here, you had the people running elections four months before that saying, this is the problem we're gonna face.

And I think it was a turning point in people paying attention to how elections were run in Georgia, and as we got closer to November, there was more stories and more scrutiny on how voting was going to happen, especially in what was going to be such a close high turnout election.

And so that's something that stood out to me because you had not just big Metro counties saying we're worried, but I remember talking to the elections director of a suburb outside of Albany, which at the time was one of the hardest hit areas in the country for the COVID-19 pandemic, and she was like, "Sorry, I was late to the interview "because I had three funerals for friends this morning, "and I needed to call and check on my daughter "who was a nurse at the hospital, "because she started running a fever "and didn't know if she was sick."

And just the humanity of the story so early in the pandemic kind of stuck with me for the rest of the cycle.

- Emma, I'll ask you the same thing.

What was your major takeaway?

What was the story that just gave you an aha moment?

- I'll apologize in advance.

Someone is doing like tree work outside my house, so if there's background noise, that's what's up.

I think that it was the stories that to us that maybe seemed obvious that we'd lived the context, but, you know, for example, I ended up doing kind of a full blow out like timeline of, we called it casually this isn't the title or anything, but the Kemp-Trump bromance, like what is the history of this relationship?

Where where did it first start to falter leading up to, the time in December, when former President Trump was tweeting about Governor Kemp all the time, and saying he regretted endorsing him.

And just being able to realize that we added a lot of value to the coverage and explaining this to people, this context, this background, that to us felt obvious, but suddenly it was nationally relevant.

And I like to hope improved people's understanding of what was really going on.

And I will silence myself and my trees now (laughs).

- Cameron, we have a question from one of our visitors and they said, you mentioned that even the Wall Street Journal, seen a right publication was considered leftist and this appears to be happening in every state, but as a journalist reporting from Georgia, where do you see the media universe heading?

- I mean, in terms of covering Georgia or in terms of what we're gonna be covering politically in general?

- Goes on to say, can a publication like WSJ, bring some other media back to the center, especially when reporting about regional politics?

- I think that's a very open question.

That's certainly, and it's one that the journal has sort of based its financial future on, we're doing very well right now, but let's see.

For example, one of the interesting stories that everybody on this panel has been covering is the implosion of the Republican party in Georgia.

I mean, it is, I don't know we could take a poll, but I mean, maybe there's five or six factions now, openly bashing each other.

I mean, that's a stunning thing when you think that this was the dominant political party in this state and has been for years.

So they are imploding and covering that if your center right, there are a lot of people who talk to us that don't talk to other publications, which is helpful in us telling the story of this implosion, this demise, or we'll see what comes out of the ashes of it.

- And with that said, there was so much going on with elected officials, those running for office, that my experience was, I heard from a lot of people who felt that their voices, their concerns were getting lost in all of this, Tia, did you find that when you talked to, when you walked the neighborhoods, when you talked to various people, did you find that they felt their voices was getting lost in this unusual cycle that was happening here in Georgia?

- I mean, I think that that is something that we, as journalists struggle with striking the balance between the political horse race stuff, who's winning, who's losing at any given moment, versus digging into the policy.

And you really, of course you can't have one without the other, the politics influences the policy, I know we at the AJC worked really hard to make sure that we were digging into the issues, and we were asking the candidates about issues, and that we were in the communities talking to voters as much as possible.

But I do think the circumstances, especially during the runoff, because it became bigger than just where the candidates stood on the issues, the runoffs became will Joe Biden get a democratic Senate, which could then really change the trajectory of his first couple years in office.

And that did become paramount, and I think voters also understood that they were doing more than just electing who they wanted to be their senators in Georgia.

They were possibly influencing the balance of power in Washington.

So I don't think it'll be, as you know, we've said that that was perhaps a once in a lifetime thing where two Senate seats in the same state would control the balance of power in Washington, those are huge stakes with Georgia at the middle, and that may never happen again.

And so future elections will allow us to even more so focus specifically on Georgia.

The runoffs were nationalized, most races will not be as nationalized in that way.

- Back to the putting Georgia in the spotlight, Emma, I'll ask you, this was the Atlanta journalists, Southern journalists covering all of this?

Were they ever misunderstood, do you think?

- I don't know if any more so than journalists around the country, I think we just were had more exposure given that moment, but I mean, there is a lot of distrust of the media on both sides.

It almost feels like a cliche to talk about it now, but it's still very real.

And we all encounter it talking to especially conservative voters all the time.

And so I think that, again, like the scale was just broader for us in terms of the number of stories we're doing, and the feedback we were getting from people all over the country.

Whereas normally you're hearing from Georgia voters.

I mean, if your story goes nationally, Cameron is hearing from people all over the country all the time.

Stephen and I, when we're on NPR is the same, but all of a sudden it was like every story I was hearing from people I'm like, you're not even a Georgia voter, hello.

So I don't know if we were necessarily misunderstood any more than everyone else, we just got a big brunt of it in that moment.

- Greg I'll ask you, is there anything about Atlanta reporting you wish the rest of the country understood?

- Yeah, it's a great question.

I mean, I think in general, we had to come to the realization, not just in this campaign, but previous ones that we can't let all that national attention change our game, at the AJC and other local outlets, we have a unique and distinct role that's separate and apart from the national coverage.

And that means we can't just pick and choose stories or candidates we wanna cover.

And some outlets do that, Cam and I would often chat about this on the campaign trail at 18, how some national media, not the journal, but they would not cover the race for governor beyond Abrams.

And only maybe mention Brian Kemp as the villain, we had to write about Kemp's background, we'd write about his health care plan.

We'd write his fiscal policy, his promise to enact abortion restrictions, all the things that are coming into play right now, we had to cover exhaustively back then.

And the national media and different outlets have different missions and different guidelines, but that wasn't ours.

So it's one of those things and I'd get attacked and at some point just tune it all out, but why aren't you writing more about X, Y, Z, or this or that story that we had covered extensively before.

And you have to make that decision that you can't get caught up in the national narrative.

I mean, sometimes when there's a story that elevates beyond everything else and you drop everything right.

But for the most part, we've got to cover our beats, and even if, especially, I should say, if we see a national story that doesn't align with what we know to be true down here, and there are some examples of that, at the start of the runoff there's an outlet wrote that Jon Ossoff didn't want Joe Biden coming down here.

I literally laughed out loud when I read that, because I knew that wasn't true at all.

And it was the talk of that morning, not for days, but at least that morning.

And again, it happened just recently with the talk of David Perdue and come back, it's splashy, it got its clicks, but anyone who actually knows the Senator knew that he was not relishing the idea of a 2022 match up at all.

He filed paperwork, but nothing beyond.

And so that's kind of where our experience covering these people, knowing these people too, knowing that David Perdue hated the campaign trail a few months ago, just a few weeks ago.

And wasn't begging for a return like that comes in handy.

- Wow.

Well, before I open up the floor to questions, talk about the Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, Raffensperger news cycle.

Was that pretty surreal to be covering elected officials being threatened constantly, pressured constantly.

What was that like Stephen as a journalist to cover that angle of a story?

- I mean, it's really interesting because of the night and day difference between Brad Raffensperger as Secretary of State and Brian Kemp, the Secretary of State, they're both Republicans.

They both have obviously conservative policies that they want for voting in Georgia, but they approach things in such a different way.

And Brad Raffensperger is, it was interesting to see Brad Raffensperger called a Republican in name only, when he's probably one of the most like a capital C conservative statewide constitutional officers we have.

And so much about voting in Georgia has been fraught for decades, but especially since the 2018 governor's race, that everything was a minefield.

And to see him get attacked by both low left and the right, sometimes the very same things was interesting to watch.

And to see people come to terms with a Secretary of State, who maybe did things that were more principle-based than aligned with partisan politics was fascinating to watch.

I mean, I've got copies of some of the letters of hundreds of handwritten letters and notes, that were delivered to the Secretary of State's office from people saying, I would never vote for you, but I respect you as a politician because of what you did to stand up for President Trump.

And as somebody who's covered election administration for the last two and a half years when it was an incredibly boring, sparsely attended topic to see it become the centerpiece of national politics, which is really interesting to see.

- If I could jump in on that just to add, I thought it was so interesting how Raffensperger, in part, because the senators called for his resignation, and he just drew the ire of Donald Trump, he got the brunt of it, whereas, Attorney General, Chris Carr for example, was actually in the courts defending the state's system against these claims of fraud, but he didn't really face the same front.

And so it was very like imbalanced seeing where the hate seemed to fly.

- Yeah, it was certainly a lot happening all at once.

And I'm gonna ask each of you, if you could wrap up the presidential election, the Senate runoff, what was going on with secretary Brad Raffensperger, and even the insurrection, would it change the way that you reported news in the future, elections in the future?

Cameron I'll begin with you.

- I would say no.

I think we're gonna be, I mean, again, going back to a point you made earlier, I think it's important to point out, I'm writing for a national audience, but the AJC, Tia and Greg, and that local news has had a lot of issues financially in recent years, I used to work at the AJC, they've suffered a lot in terms of cutbacks, but one thing they've always stayed true to is political coverage, they knew that local coverage was their franchise, local, regular steady, consistent political coverage, and that has paid off now.

And people in the state are starting to rely on that news, WAB did not have that kind of beefed up reporting, but now they have it, Emma came in and brought it, and Stephen, and so now there's really robust, local political coverage here.

And that has played a really crucial role in covering a really, really intense cycle that is, as I said, ongoing, it's not gonna change.

So when I go to my editors in New York or Washington, and I say, I think this is a big story, they have some grounding and they know that I'm not trying to pitch something, that there's a big story here.

- Yeah.

Emma, Stephen, I can attest to it and making national news even to this day on a daily basis.

And, you know, to your point, this election cycle is not ending it's, continuing.

Greg, I'm gonna ask you the same question, but before you answer, can you factor in the Marjorie Taylor Greene Factor?

Our audience wants to know, what was it like covering her?

And did you anticipate her getting the national attention that she's received?

- Yeah, that's been a trip, I anticipated her getting a lot of statewide attention, but not necessarily becoming a household name, to many political watchers around the nation.

And I first met with her down the street from where I live, when she was running for suburban congressional district here in Northern Atlanta.

And she was basically casting herself as a slightly more Republican, more conservative version of Karen Handel.

And she's transformed into again a household name for her spiteful, hateful, racist, xenophobic anti-Semitic comments.

But one of those stories too, that Cam was mentioning the resources the AJC has put behind politics.

And we're lucky that we were able to have Tia focus on her campaign during the 20 cycle while we were watching the Senate runoffs, and the Senate races, I should say.

But one of those stories too, that kind of, there's less attention because it's a Northwest Georgia district that doesn't have a major media market.

And there's not as many strong, yeah, there's good newspapers there, but they don't have the resources to focus on her campaign.

So it was really fascinating watching that evolve, and also we had bandwidth, but we didn't have as much bandwidth as even we wanted to, to focus on her rise in politics.

And I think also for your other question about takeaways and what we learned going forward, I think it's essential.

I think this was a great reminder for outlets, major outlets, to have elections reporters, as well as government and political reporters.

AJC's market has cultivated this theme for years, done a terrific job.

And I think one of our challenges going forward is that we need to do a better job reaching conservative audiences with our coverage of elections.

I'm guilty of this, but dunking on Twitter, isn't gonna change the discourse.

I jumped at the chance to go on Fox News, to speak with conservative audiences about our coverage and the storylines here.

And it's gonna be important going forward in non-political discussions, especially when it comes to Corona virus vaccine, too many Americans, including many, many conservatives don't trust taking the Corona virus vaccine because of misinformation.

So it's another avenue that we can explore going forward.

- Yeah, exactly.

We did stories on how bad information was getting out there on all levels.

Emma, I'm gonna ask you the same question, and can you factor into your response, Gabriel Sterling, another notable presence during the election who got caught up in all of this, and you know, he was gone silent.

So a lot of people wanna know, does he have a future after this?

what will he be doing?

Can you kinda gauge for us what your thoughts might be.

- I haven't talked to Mr. Sterling recently.

I don't know if others on this call probably might have, and might have some insight.

I will just say in terms of going silent, his job is not actually to be in front of cameras, his job is actually a pretty wonky procedural operations inside, behind closed doors kind of job.

And he was really thrust out there because the level of interest in the intricacies of the voting system was so high.

He was the best person to answer all the questions that everyone had infinite versions of asking.

And so in terms of him going silent, I would argue maybe it wasn't even really his intent to go up on full volume, and it was just an accident.

But I mean, there is talk about for sure what is his future?

Because he did develop such a national platform, like many other Georgians in the last three months.

I don't know, does anyone have insights-- - Why can't he get angry (laughs)?

- I talked to him two days ago.

I joked that he should write a book, which I hope he's doing, but also he should include a cookbook because he's all over Twitter with all his-- - His recipes (laughs) - [Emma] He's not silent on twitter about cooking.

So if you want more Gabriel's content.

- Oh, that's funny.

Well, Tia let let's move on here.

I'm gonna have you answer the same question, but kind of tell us the national spotlight.

Do you wish local journalists had gone more deeper in telling the story?

And in fact, were there a lot of stories missed in the process?

- There's always room to do more, there in particularly, us Georgia based journalists, Georgia is so diverse.

There are all these micro-segments of the population that I wish we had more bandwidth, particularly on the Democratic side because Democrats were so successful.

And we talk a lot about black voters.

When you think about Democrats, because they are the backbone of the Democratic Party in Georgia, but we don't talk as much to Latino voters, We don't talk as much to the LGBTQ community, and Asian-American voters, which also are important voting blocks to the Democratic Party.

And then on the Republican side, we talk a lot about rural white voters, but there are those, I would love to talk more particularly about those Republican voters who supported Trump in 2016, and had enough by 2020, and there's time to still do that.

That's the other thing for me, my job, I've only been the AJC's Washington Correspondent for a little over a year.

And when I got here, we were in an impeachment trial.

By the time the impeachment trial was over, Corona virus was starting to ramp up, and the Congress shut down in a lot of ways, like so much of America, but when it was functioning, it was pretty much solely focused on the Corona virus.

I would say through the summer, and then by the time that eased up a little bit, we were in election mode from June through January.

And by the time elections were settled in Georgia, I was back to another impeachment trial.

So I look forward as a Washington Correspondent to being able to dig into some of these policy issues that Congress itself is starting to get back to that they even weren't doing a lot over the past year.

So there's always more that can be done, but I think readers should also not assume it's not being done.

I think Greg mentioned people say, "Well, why aren't you reporting this?

"And why aren't you reporting that?"

Readers have to really go to the sources, do some Googling, do some searching of your favorite news website, because they probably have written about that thing you're curious about.

- Right, very interesting.

And Stephen, that leads me to this question.

You were very in tune to what national news was saying about Georgia.

What mistakes do you think national media made in covering the campaigns here?

- I mean, I think it's very difficult to kind of do drive by parachute reporting in general.

And I think with everything that was happening in Georgia, there were so many storylines.

I mean the major things that happened, the Corona virus, racial injustice movement, elections and voting, the Presidential race, the Senate race, all of those could be anchored in Georgia if you had the time and energy to do it.

And so I think sometimes the mistakes are, I mean, it's kind of like Greg mentioned, the Atlanta suburbs are not monolithically white anymore.

When you talk about black voters in Georgia, it's not just black voters in the suburbs, it's Southwest Georgia, who was a very key constituency to helping Senators Ossoff and Warnock win, and even when you talk about white Republicans in Georgia, there are a lot of different blocks within the state that have different issues, and so I think you miss some of the nuance by not having the understanding of Georgia, or having somebody living in Georgia.

I'm grateful that we have a Wall Street Journal person in Georgia who knows things.

I'm grateful we have a New York Times Bureau in Georgia that knows things.

And I think Emma and I have spent a lot of time on National Public Radio as people from Georgia who knows things.

But I think just when you are short on time and have a big story to do, it's easy to fall back on some of the same voices, and some of the same tropes, and some of the same people to represent shorthands for larger movements or conversations.

And I think many of the people that are quoted in national stories are good resources, but I think it misses some of the bigger picture of what's actually happening on the ground.

- Before we end today, we got to talk about Georgia, the assembly, the lawmakers' efforts to restrict voting rights here in Georgia.

If that happens, how will that affect the next election?

And do you see Georgia being in the spotlight again, Greg?

- Yes, we're gonna be in the spotlight again.

We've got a potential rematch between Governor Kemp and Stacey Abrams.

We all remember 18, what tremendous national attention we got from that race.

And of course, Reverend Warnock, Senator Warnock is back up again, not to mention all the congressional seats that we don't know how the maps will look quite yet.

We'll know by the end of the year, what those districts lines will look like.

And all the constitutional officers, and Democrats are looking to gain on their victories in November and January, and have a good chance to do so.

When it comes to the voting rights, and what restrictions will end up passing, and what measures will end up passing, it's still very much in play.

I think everyone I talked to from both parties acknowledges that they'll probably be some sort of new ID requirements for absentee ballots.

And polls show that there is a widespread public support for some sort of measure that does that.

Democrats are still going to raise concerns about that, but I think even a lot of Democrats who say that also acknowledge that it will probably in the passing, but what else is included in that package remains to be seen.

And if Republicans can push it across the finish line, because right now there are so many different, there's 70 or so proposals, there's two or three big ones moving through, they contain all sorts of different restrictions, and those restrictions will continue to get national coverage.

If you think about Georgia being the epicenter going forward, we are epicenter of voting rights battles, we were the epicenter of misinformation after the November election, we're the epicenter of politics because of those races, I just mentioned.

And we're also the epicenter in a way of former President Trump's future, because of the prosecution going down right down the street at the Fulton County courthouse, the grand jury is meeting this week.

And as the new District Attorney, Fani Willis explores whether or not to actually file criminal charges against President Trump.

So we are gonna continue to be in that white hot spotlight.

- Emma I know you're near the gold one too.

So what are your thoughts on that?

- I was just gonna add in terms of these voting restrictions, which Republicans have the votes to pass if they can keep their caucus aligned on it?

The question mark is whether there'll be in effect in 2022, given any litigation that might come.

So in terms of, in effect on the next election, that's very much an open question as well, because they might just be held up.

- Briefly back to this pandemic that we're in and hopefully winding down.

But Greg, you mentioned earlier at the start of our conversation, that one of the major changes the zoom, and the access that we've had to use and grow accustomed to, have there been any more notable changes that have altered your reporting style?

- Yeah, my office mates are my two kids (laughs).

(Lisa laughs) My seven and 10 year old were in virtual school for much of last year.

And my ten-year-old still is in virtual school, so we got to know each other even better.

I dragged them out on the campaign trail.

My 10 year old, I actually got to interview all four Senate runoff candidates and did YouTube videos with each one of them.

So they're very funny, my wife will kill me.

- Better than school, yeah that's better than school.

- But also I think everyone can speak to this, we all had to become science reporters, especially early on, I mean, there were days where I would write four or five stories a day, and not one of them was on political stuff.

The political coverage, it was all on the pandemic because we all had to be science reporters, especially early on when this pandemic really took hold and we had to go cover things that weren't necessarily comfortable for us to cover.

Things that would have been reserved for health reporters or science reporters.

Well, everyone at the AJC, and I bet everyone at every other outlet that's represented on this call that they had to become a pandemic reporter in some form or fashion.

- Cameron, how did your world change?

- Well, I'm talking to you from my office in my house, and yeah, I mean, my family is my newsroom now.

So I think the coverage getting back to one bigger picture about Georgia what is gonna change is, we're gonna see in the next couple of years, whether Georgia is about to become like Virginia where the Republican Party has fallen apart, and is irrelevant now, or are we gonna become North Carolina or Florida where it's back and forth.

And I think these next couple of years, politics is always gonna be an important part of any community, but Georgia really is gonna be in the spotlight for the next two years.

And if the Democrats can really sweep in, we all might be able to spend more of our brains on other subjects, 'cause the Democrats will start to sweep in, and we'll become a blue state, right now it's purple we'll see.

- Purple, yeah.

Cameron thanks, Emma, any predictions?

- (laughs) I mean, Republicans have had a big, big wake-up call, I think 2018 was scary for them, but this is very much not ideal.

And so there is awareness that they need to change their strategy, that what has been working is not working right now.

And so that involves registering new voters, building up a ground game that doesn't just appear right before an election, reaching out to minority communities and kind of find new voters.

I think the question is, as they do things like pass voting security measures, is that gonna undermine this kind of growth mindset that many of them are talking about that former Senator Kelly Loeffler's group kind of, and is emblematic of and whether they can find these new voters and convince them to come into the tent, so to speak, because right now the numbers demographically don't look good for them.

So how much can they stretch their voter base and find new voters.

- Stephen, what will be your focus moving forward?

- I think it's kind of like Cameron mentioned earlier about the future of the Republican Party in Georgia becoming as Democrats are riding this wave.

One thing that should happen in the next year and a half is more people will be vaccinated, the economy should be able to open back up.

Schools will start going back, and a lot of things that might make people forget about the bad times or the hard times will come into play that could affect sentiment of like Governor Kemp running for re-election, and Stacey Abrams trying to challenge him, which is where the voting laws come in, and just, Georgia is at a crossroads, it's the black hole in the center of the political universe, just sucking in time and attention, and money and questions.

And I think you will probably see both parties pitch the 2022 elections as kind of this battle for the future of Georgia, and with the maps being redrawn, and everything that I think it's just going to be a really interesting race to see kind of what direction Georgia takes after the turmoil of this past 2020, and kind of the changes that have been building up for the last decade or so.

- Stephen, thank you.

And Tia I'll end with you, where are we headed as a nation?

You were in Washington DC for the insurrection, and just still so surreal for many of us.

Where are we headed, and what will you do moving forward to tell those stories?

- So we know that nationally, on the Republican side, there's this split between what is considered the establishment and I guess, what we thought the Republican party was until the rise of Donald Trump.

And now we have the Trump supporters also known as Mega Republicans, and there's real conflict in the Republican Party that does impact, not just policy, but the ability for Republicans to win.

Again, Kelly Leffler and David Perdue were probably the first big casualties of that split in the Republican Party.

But it's gonna play out in 2022, and it's playing out now in Washington.

And then on the democratic side, right now Joe Biden has democratic majorities in the house, in the Senate, at least until 2022, but there's conflict still there about how progressive does he go?

How far to the left will he be pulled, and what will be the ramifications on that with voters?

And so that's kind of, what's playing out nationally, and we're just gonna continue to watch.

And I think it's gonna be paramount again on reporters like us on this panel to really listen to voters of all stripes to understand how that's impacting, how our elected officials are perceived.

- I'm being asked again, would you Tia and talk about the Leslie Jones' tweet, I heard she said it about you and me, I never saw the tweet.

So let's hear what she had to say about you.

- For me, she saw me, I think on MSNBC and you see my background.

- Right (laughs) So she said that my blinds indicate that I live in Atlanta, (Lisa laughs) which I told her well, since I live in Washington, but yeah, my blinds indicate my income level, but she said that I came across like an elementary school teacher that the kind of tells a parent like your child isn't bad, they just have attention issues.

So she called me very calm, very conscious is how she described.

(Lisa laughs) - All right, well, I didn't see the tweet about me, I don't wanna know, but yeah, she's pretty funny.

So thanks for sharing that.

Thank you all again for taking the time to be here.

And it was my pleasure to serve as the moderator.

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