Errin Haines is founder and editor-at-large of The 19th*. Founded a year ago and based in Austin, Texas, the nonprofit, non-partisan newsroom covers the intersection of women, politics and policy. Named after the US Constitution’s 19th Amendment, their mission is to encourage the participation and representation of marginalised people in democracy. Her career has taken in senior positions at the Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and she is also a regular on-air contributor for MSNBC; and was recently appointed Ferris Professor at Princeton University, teaching a class on the role of race in the 2020 election. In this in-depth interview, Errin delves into her newsroom’s commitment to changing the narrative around underrepresented groups – and how their reporting avoids “cheap shots, cheerleading, partisanship and clickbait;” describes America’s recent “national reckoning” with insurmountable racial tensions and identity politics continually “shaping who and where we are as a country;” and shares her experience as a Black female reporter writing about President Trump’s racist rhetoric, and her hopes that Kamala Harris, the US’s first female, Black and south Asian to take the role, is the giant leap that American democracy needs.