Four hundred journalism students are being deployed to 50 newsrooms across Denmark to bolster local and regional media coverage of the upcoming autumn municipal elections. This initiative, named “Your Choice. Our Denmark,” aims to ensure comprehensive reporting of the municipal and regional council elections scheduled for November 18th.

The project is spearheaded by the Constructive Institute at Aarhus University, which specializes in training journalists in constructive journalism. The collaboration involves all Danish local and regional media outlets, the three journalism education programs in the country, Statistics Denmark, and researchers from the University of Southern Denmark and Aarhus University.

Minister of Culture Jakob Engel-Schmidt expressed his satisfaction with the collective effort to strengthen local and regional media’s capacity to cover the elections. He emphasized the “key role” these media outlets play in democracy, while acknowledging the significant pressures they face from tech giants that are diverting advertising revenue and reader attention, leading to recent layoffs in newsrooms.

Since the 2021 municipal elections, local and regional media have lost nearly 350 journalists, according to the Constructive Institute.

In addition to providing extra manpower through student journalists, the project will organize ten election festivals across the country to actively engage voters. Epinion will conduct what is described as the largest opinion poll in Danish history, surveying 400,000 Danes about their opinions and priorities.

Alex Nielsen, editor-in-chief and CEO of Mediehusene Midtjylland, lauded the project as “ambitious” and a chance to showcase “what local journalism can do.” The initiative is supported by several charitable foundations, including the Velux Foundation and the TrygFonden.