Covering the actions of state legislatures has long been viewed as the journalistic equivalent of forcing people to eat broccoli. Such political news may be part of a citizen’s “healthy” diet, helping them stay involved in the democratic process. However, it has long been assumed that most people find such offerings unappealing.

But what if this perspective is wrong? What if audiences are not intrinsically disinterested in state government reporting and might respond favorably to editorial efforts that make this coverage relevant to people’s lives?

That’s the theory held by a series of new digital ventures that have placed coverage of state politics at the center of their editorial missions. While they vary in important ways, all share a belief that audiences can be persuaded to pay attention to state government reporting.

Whether this theory will prove economically viable in the long term is uncertain. However, their efforts provide broader lessons that can be valuable for news managers thinking about political audience engagement – and audience engagement initiatives more generally.

My analysis is based on research conducted with colleagues at the University of Washington’s Center for Journalism, Media and Democracy, where I serve as co-director. For two years, we’ve interviewed the journalists involved in these new digital ventures and tracked their editorial offerings. Our findings highlight several lessons of audience engagement.

Know your audience

One thing that all the digital news organizations we studied share is a clear understanding of who their audiences are – or should be.

For some, the audience is a restricted group of political insiders. Paul Queary, who runs a Substack newsletter on politics in Washington state, targets lobbyists and their clients, as well as government officials – roughly 500 or so people, he estimates.

“You’re letting go of the mass audience,” he explained, in favor of a “much smaller audience” that is willing to pay for news that directly impacts their professional lives.

Similarly, Reid Wilson, who founded Pluribus News, a site dedicated to covering policymaking in all 50 states, sees his “core audience” as “12 to 15,000 legislators and staffers” who work in statehouses around the country.

For others, the audience is urban professionals who are not necessarily interested in state politics. Axios Local, which now operates in 30 cities, is premised on the idea that people will pay attention – as long as the news is presented in a brief, compact manner and made relevant to their lives.

Others aim wider. States Newsroom, a non-profit that now operates newsrooms dedicated in all 50 states, conceives itself as being a “paper of record” for issues pertaining to state legislatures, according to its publisher and CEO Chris Fitzsimon.

“Even though we’re a digital publication,” he explained, “our stories are reprinted…by a lot of small rural papers who don’t have state government coverage.”

This audience is made possible, he noted, because so many of these newspapers have had to give up their subscriptions to wire services like the Associated Press due to cost concerns.

Add value by anticipating audience needs

The audiences these organizations have–or desire–in turn shapes the editorial strategies they pursue to engage audiences. For those building an audience of political insiders, they need to provide added value for audiences already deeply knowledgeable about politics.

Queary of the Washington Observer, for example, explained that he doesn’t “write about what the governor said” or whether a particular bill passed. Instead, “I try to focus on stuff that’s original to us” and that highlights “the influence being applied [on the policymaking process] and who’s behind it.”

That, he said, is what political insiders are keen to learn – and, crucially, what they can’t know by reading other news coverage. This strategy differs substantially from news organizations that seek audiences outside the circle of political insiders. For them, they don’t try to “cover every turn of the screw” as bills make their way through the legislature, as Fitzsimon from States Newsroom put it.

Such news, he said, is of little interest to most readers as it demands regular attention to policymaking processes that are opaque and often abstract. Instead, Fitzsimon says, they “try to explain how decisions are made and most importantly, what effect they have on people’s lives.”

Exploring the impact of policy on the lives of audiences – that is the key theory of audience engagement behind outlets like States Newsroom and others. Audiences, in this view, care about the effects of policy rather than the game of politics. Favoring the former over the latter means asking, as one long-time reporter put it, “why anyone outside the state capitol should care” about events within it.

Will these efforts to engage audiences work?

Both strategies face hurdles.

It’s not clear whether sufficient numbers of political insiders will subscribe to newsletters and whether advertisers will see value in reaching these audiences. Similarly, it remains uncertain whether efforts to emphasize policy impact will draw audiences towards a form of political news coverage that they have long ignored.

These approaches do highlight the importance of defining an audience clearly, and developing editorial offerings that add value by anticipating that audience’s needs. And that’s an insight, regardless of success or failure in this case, worth thinking about when dealing with issues of audience engagement more generally.