We’ve heard your complaints about the government, politics and the news media.

You’re tired of the negativity and feeling you aren’t heard. And as journalists who live here, too, we want you to feel heard, and we want to be participants in improving life, not a part of the problem.

So, several local newsrooms and a civic engagement organization are making an offer: Let’s replace the anger and despair by quickly identifying where we agree and what can be done. 

You help get this started by using an online brainstorming application called Polis from your cell phone or computer. Read the question — “What is needed to help people have a better life?” — then vote on the ideas proposed by others that pop up on your screen. Contribute your own ideas, too. At the bottom of the web page, you can see in real time which ideas are emerging as most unifying – and where there might be insurmountable differences. 

You can be anonymous, it’s free, join at any time, invite others, and it even can be addictive. You could have a winning idea.

Keep coming back, because people will add new ideas to consider and the questions will change. You’ll have a chance to go deeper on the ideas you like the most, consider the ideal qualities in elected leaders and think about what motivates people to vote.

Later, we’ll have an in-person event to celebrate and discuss next actions.

Throughout, we’ll provide periodic updates. Signal Akron and our media partners, the Akron Beacon Journal and WKSU-FM / Ideastream Public Media, have wide reach in the Akron area, so the growing crowd wisdom will be witnessed by lots of people.

More importantly, our newsrooms will see what is important to improving life in the community and use that to hold local leaders accountable. You’ll see your work – the community wisdom – in those stories.

Get started by going to this web site: https://pol.is/6mhvipxs2z.

Thanks for joining in!

Partners in this project are Signal Akron, the Akron Beacon Journal, WKSU-FM/Ideastream Public Media and Fighting to Understand, a Northeast Ohio nonprofit with experience designing and holding difficult conversations. Last year, Fighting to Understand held several meetings following the Jayland Walker shooting that helped the community find common ground  on guns, policing, mental health and more. The Akron Bar Foundation and Akron Community Foundation are funders of this project.

Questions can be emailed to Ted Wetzel, ted.wetzel@fighting-to-understand.us or Doug Oplinger, oplingerdoug@gmail.com.

Editor-in-Chief (she/her)
Zake has deep roots in Northeast Ohio journalism. She was the managing editor for multimedia and special projects at the Akron Beacon Journal, where she began work as a staff photographer in 1986. Over a 20-year career, Zake worked in a variety of roles across departments that all help inform her current role as Signal Akron's editor in chief. Most recently, she was a journalism professor and student media adviser at Kent State University, where she worked with the next generation of journalists to understand public policy, environmental reporting, data and solutions reporting. Among her accomplishments was the launch of the Kent State NewsLab, an experiential and collaborative news commons that connects student reporters with outside professional partners.