seeing 2020: A collaborative to REPORT the census

The 2020 census was always going to be a heavy lift.

The constitutionally mandated survey became a political lightning rod when President Donald Trump said his administration would add a question about respondents’ citizenship status. Opponents argued such a question would inspire fear in immigrant communities and stifle response rates in densely-populated urban areas where Trump is less popular. The White House said it would yield valuable data about the country.

That fight went all the way to the Supreme Court, where, the justices ruled against the Trump administration in a 5-4 decision.

This year’s census is also shattering precedent with its logistics. Respondents are, for the first time, asked (and encouraged) to complete their census forms online.

And now, in the shadow of the global coronavirus pandemic, the Census Bureau is having to reimagine its calendar and provide extra time for census workers to collect answers.

It’s against this backdrop that the APM Research Lab joined Seeing 2020—a collaboration led by Reveal at the Center for Investigative Reporting. The project aims to empower local and ethnic media outlets to report on the census. The project has three goals:

• Understand what local communities want to know about the census through a multipronged, multipartner listening initiative.

• Help local reporters inform their audiences so they can make educated decisions about participation in the census.

• Track and explain how the census’ potential implementation flaws might lead to disempowerment and disenfranchisement down the road.

The APM Research Lab has joined the initiative as an expert resource—along with PRB, Pew Research and others—to assist members of the media in their reporting about the 2020 Census, and we presented our first webinar to the Seeing 2020 network at the beginning of March.

Our presentation covered the basics about this year’s census and how it differs from its 10-year-old predecessor. Watch the full webinar above and stay tuned for more updates from our partnership with Seeing 2020.

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