Follow the Money

Tracking Local Campaign Finance

Each year, political campaigns break records for money raised and spent. Where does all that money come from? Who’s giving it? What are their interests in supporting any given candidate? Researching these questions has become a key part of national political coverage, and between the Federal Election Commission and various public interest organizations, basic access to campaign finance data is well understood. Things are much different for state and local elections. Reporting regulations vary considerably from state to state, and local news organizations are often short of the resources required to deal with the complexity of even gathering contribution data, let alone analyzing it.

For this Knight Lab Studio project, students will work with Knight Lab Professional Fellow AmyJo Brown, who is building a system called Public Ledger to organize campaign finance data in Pennsylvania. Students will learn from AmyJo about how she is building Public Ledger, and research the issues involved in expanding it to a limited number of additional states, including Illinois.

Faculty and Staff Leads

Joe Germuska

Chief Nerd

Joe runs Knight Lab’s technology, professional staff and student fellows. Before joining us, Joe was on the Chicago Tribune News Apps team. He is the founder of CensusReporter.org, and a proud board member of City Bureau.

Jeremy Gilbert

Knight Professor in Digital Media Strategy

Jeremy Gilbert is the Knight Professor of Digital Media Strategy. Both his work and teaching focus on the content and revenue strategies of existing and emerging media companies. He explores the intersection of technology and media, examining how new tools and techniques will affect the creation, consumption and distribution of media.

Project Details

2023 Winter

Important Questions
  • How are campaign finance contributions tracked at the state level, especially in the focus states?
  • What can be done in cases where data is not made available in a cleanly structured format?
  • How can leads for reporting be developed from campaign finance data?
  • Are there other important data sources besides campaign finance which ought to be considered when exploring influence on elected officials?
  • What are issues involved in developing a service based on government data for use by journalists or the general public?
Sample Milestones
  • Week 1-2: Get familiar with our partner’s project, and start getting up to speed with current thinking about tracking money in local politics.
  • Week 3-4: Begin examining Illinois public campaign finance data. Learn more about how Public Ledger is built, and what it might take to expand it to states with different regulations.
  • Weeks 5-8: Continue working with Illinois data. Explore, in-depth, the specific issues in expanding Public Ledger. If appropriate, examine data from a few other states.
  • Weeks 9-10: Wrap up project. Make recommendations about next steps.
Outcome

By working on this project, students will get direct experience with both the journalistic and data-handling issues involved in covering money in local politics. They will learn about what it takes to provide a data service that helps journalists work with this data that they would not otherwise be able to get.