DENVER -- As more than 10,000 news media representatives converge here for the Democratic National Convention, financial pressures have forced companies to scale back, team up and load up online. Blogging is not optional -- and may be done from a BlackBerry. Newspaper reporters are Twittering and shooting video. And some of the coverage is coming from the subjects of coverage -- delegates who blog and take photos.
Interviews with more than a dozen news organizations suggest a pattern of convention coverage that reflects trends in the industry -- fewer resources and greater emphasis on delivering locally-targeted news across multiple platforms.
Poynter Online checked in with news organizations from New Hampshire to California to get a sense of coverage plans. Here's what emerged from the conversations:
Financial woes have forced many news organizations to scale back. At the
Concord Monitor, "for the first time in memory, we're not sending anyone," said Ralph Jiminez, editorial page editor. "It's a reflection of where things stand these days."
"It's a shame that smaller organizations can't go," said Mark Edgar, a deputy managing editor of
The Dallas Morning News. "That means those readers are not going to hear or see or read about their neighbors who are there, who are part of the convention. Where else are they going to get that except their hometown paper?"
Edgar estimated that
The Dallas Morning News teams will be about half as large as in the past.
The
San Antonio Express-News and the
Houston Chronicle decided to send reporters, but no photographers. They'll get their images from wire services.
And
The San Diego Union-Tribune isn't sending anyone. "It's a decision that was made in San Diego. It's not one that anybody is happy about," said longtime political reporter George Condon Jr., who has covered every convention since 1980. "I think you'll see more news organizations probably making this hard decision four years from now."
Todd Merriman, the paper's director of news, said the paper was able to save $30,000 to $40,000 by skipping the conventions -- "a substantial amount of cash that really was not going to impact our primary mission of doing the best job we can in reporting local news."
Some exceptions are news operations in battleground states or those that have a larger stake in the race.
The State in Columbia, S.C., committed to cover the elections due to the state's early primary and the campaign of former Sen. John Edwards, a South Carolina native.
And Minnesota Public Radio, mindful that it will be swimming in coverage for the Republican convention in its hometown, decided to send a team to Denver to ensure that its listeners had balanced coverage.
Those financial pressures and the need for all types of media have spurred new partnerships. For instance,
The State is working with South Carolina Educational Public Television, the state's public television and radio network. A reporter from the newspaper will be included on the network's radio show, and the newspaper's Web site will stream the audio and have access to the network's video, said Leroy Chapman,
The State's governance editor.
The
San Antonio Express-News and the
Houston Chronicle, Hearst newspapers 200 miles apart, are teaming up to cover the conventions. Cost was a factor, said Scott Stroud, the
Express-News' politics/government editor, "but I also think it extends our reach a little bit. It allows us to lock onto issues really driven by local folks."
The Web site of Denver's
Rocky Mountain News includes headline feeds on its
special convention page pegged to next week's GOP convention from
The Star-Tribune in Minneapolis as well as DNC headlines from
The Hill.
CBS Television Stations, which owns and operates 29 stations around the country, put together a team to provide specialized coverage for those affiliates and is leaning on its stations in Denver and Minneapolis, according to Angie Kucharski, vice president of media strategies. The goal: provide additional coverage targeted for affiliates without having every station travel to both cities.
The mantra: local. Papers are relying on the national media and wire services more. Even papers that said they already have moved in that direction are emphasizing coverage of their delegations and enterprise more than before.
Some of those stories aren't about the presidential election at all. Journalists plan to capitalize on the confluence of political leaders and activists to write about upcoming gubernatorial and congressional races, even those two years away.
"We have to do the stories the wire can't or won't do," said Edgar of
The Dallas Morning News.
Everyone's blogging and multi-tasking. The State's Chapman estimated that his reporter will spend about 40 percent of her time blogging and 60 percent on traditional stories. She pre-reported substantial parts of the stories that will run this week to free her up to do that.
News organizations are seeking photos, blogs and participation from their state delegations. With cameras on pretty much every phone, it's easier than ever for delegates to show what life is like in the convention hall and around the city.
On a national level, PBS'
Vote 2008 Election Connection showcases photos culled from delegates, citizens and public media collaborators. How are they getting the photos? In part from Flickr groups set up for each convention, which anyone can join and contribute to. (
Here's the Democratic one, and
here's the Republican.)
They're experimenting, distributing their content in all media and across platforms. As Kerri Miller hosts
her call-in show for Minnesota Public Radio this week, a colleague next to her will blog about the show, moderate discussion online and tell her what folks are saying.
MediaNews, which owns
The Denver Post, has created a "widget" for its coverage of the Democrats. The widget, fed by the chain's stories, can be embedded on any Web site, and Gil Asakawa of MediaNews said he has offered it to blogs and news sites. He isn't sure how many places are using it, but the
New York Daily News is. (Scroll down to the box on the right that says "DNC headlines.")
Some reporters with little experience – or training – will see if they can do video blogs. That's happening at the
San Francisco Chronicle. "This is something they've never tried before," said Kathleen Hennessy, the paper's director of photography.
Rick Dunham, the
Houston Chronicle's Washington bureau chief, has been working Facebook and Twitter into his reporting recently and plans to continue experimenting in Denver and St. Paul. Hearst will do a podcast, which he hopes to use for in-person interviews. And because neither of the Hearst papers in Texas is sending photographers, he and other members of the Hearst team will carry point-and-shoot cameras.
"I have to say, I have grand plans, and I want to see how much I can actually execute," Dunham said.
Though he's not working with a videographer, he did persuade "Obama Girl" Amber Lee Ettinger to do video reports for the Web site.
All that content is going online, and news organizations have built special convention home pages to showcase everything. C-SPAN, for instance, has created a Convention Hub for
the Democrats and
the GOP.
Reporters are more mobile than ever. Matt Roth, assistant news director and executive Web producer for WFMZ-TV in Allentown, Pa., is blogging every step of the way, sending e-mails from his BlackBerry that are automatically posted to
the station's Web site. He uses his phone to take photos for the blog.
His team is shooting video with high-end cameras that record straight to a computer file, which can be transferred quickly to a laptop for editing. "Four years ago, we would have been editing tape-to-tape," said Bill Seiders, the station's director of photography. And they send their stories back to the station via the Internet rather than arranging for a satellite hookup.
Untethered, the team has more time and flexibility to report, Roth said, and they are producing more content, both for television and online.
Technology has made production cheaper, but travel still costs. For WFMZ-TV, it was a decision between covering the conventions or spring training in Florida.
"Given the political climate and the historic nature of this race," Roth said, "that was a no-brainer."
