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MORE POYNTER ONLINE ELECTION COVERAGE | |
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We know many of you were fully engaged producing your own coverage, so we pulled together examples of work that's worth a look from all different media, in markets of varying sizes, all across the country. Beyond Election 2006, many of the tools and approaches on display over the past 24 hours hold promise for everyday coverage going forward -- up to and including Nov. 4, 2008.
See examples of election-night innovation in this gallery.
1.) Personalized Results Tracking
CNN's AmericaVotes2006: This is the cleanest page I have ever seen for keeping track of what a network has projected. CNN makes it easy to keep up with massive numbers of races in one spot. CNN also allowed users to enter up to 20 races that they want to automatically track. The projections are listed in chronological order with the newest ones at the top. -- Al Tompkins
Fox News' Track Your Races: Fox News also allows you to build a tracking program to watch just the races you care about online. The Fox News Web site also was streaming live video of Fox Radio. Why they were running video of radio and not of TV was beyond me. -- Al Tompkins
2.) Citizen Reporting
 Screengrab from Videothevote.com
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The Washington Post's "Report Your Voting Experience" page: I also like the Washington Post page allowing people to report any problems they had voting and asking if a reporter could contact the person. -- Al Tompkins
 Screengrab from Columbusdispatch.com
Columbus Dispatch readers share their voting experiences. |
3.) News, at a Glance
Exit poll summary: USAToday.com compiled the most useful roundup of what exit polls show: It is simple, easy to read and compares attitudes on issues to the last election. -- Al Tompkins
4.) Blogging the Count
The Blog Party: This element of CNN.com turned bloggers into an adjunct of the CNN reporting team and made the story on many of their blogs the party itself. -- Jill Geisler
CNN's Blog Party: I like the CNN Blog Party. It is a roomful of partying bloggers with an open bar. They spent the night blogging about politics and blogging about blogging. Clearly this is something that local newsrooms could do in 2008, assuming we are still blogging in 2008. The party includes Wonkette, MyDD, Fishbowl DC, The Huffington Post, LostRemote, Instapundit and lots of other big names. -- Al Tompkins
Lots of News Orgs Have Blog Parties: CNN got a lot of attention for inviting bloggers to a classy Washington bar.
Despite an apparent fear among some mainstream news organizations to use the word blog, USA Today launched Electionline, a self-proclaimed blog that closely followed results throughout the night.
More often than not, the posts on the blog reported on what other news organizations were reporting. It noted the projections being made the major television networks -- and the projections and results being released by The Associated Press.
It even mixed in some fun. Did I care what the president ate for dinner? Electionline told me:
As he ponders what the election results may or may not mean for the last two years of his administration, the White House says President Bush is dining tonight on corn bisque, beef loin with squash and spinach gratin, tomato salad, and -- for dessert -- apple and almond tart with vanilla ice cream.
Joining him on what seems to be a boys' night in: Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, political czar Karl Rove, communications chief Dan Bartlett, former Commerce Secretary Don Evans, RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, and businessman/friend Brad Freeman. -- Pat Walters
Time's Election Night blog included entries from Joe Klein and colleagues Ana Marie Cox and James Poniewozik.
 Screengrab from time.com
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"The Midterm Blog" provided some insiderish views of reporters covering the election. What are the challenges they've encountered? What criticism do they have of industry coverage?
Among Cox's posts: "Of course, I live in the District, so it's not like it matters. Still, I tend to have a rather knee-jerk negative reaction to the pious position that journalists are somehow "above" the voting process. It presumes that readers are too dumb to understand that someone can have opinions but not express them publicly and that journalists are so important their votes matter more than others'." -- Candace Clarke
 Screengrab from beloblog.com
Dallas Morning News Election Blog |
5.) Equipping the Voters
-- Meg Martin
Vlogs: Some stations and Web sites that are not carrying live coverage are still posting fresh vlogs with videos constantly coming in from the field. Here is WSB-TV in Atlana. -- Al Tompkins
7.) Continuous Content
CNN's Lower-Third Election Graphics: My favorite innovation so far: CNN is leaving its lower-third election graphics up through commercial breaks. Advertising sold locally by the cable company is running full-screen, but network commercials are squeezed back to make room at the bottom of the screen for the latest vote totals, updates on the balance of power in Congress and other up-to-the-minute election information. ExxonMobil, AARP and Lending Tree are sharing space -– their paid commercial space –- with the story of the day.
Maybe the decision-makers at CNN spent some time watching local television on snowy mornings last winter. At such times, some stations have begun scrolling weather-related school closings continuously at the bottom of the screen, right through commercial breaks.
This makes obvious sense from the viewers' perspective. When they tune in looking for the very latest information and find their favorite channel in the middle of who knows how long a commercial cluster, they aren't likely to wait patiently for the resumption of reporting. They are far more likely to grab the remote and look elsewhere for what they need to know now.
From the perspective of advertisers, continuous content makes even more sense. The old thinking among TV sales types was that their clients would never tolerate any intrusion into their paid time. But viewers are now more willing and able than ever to skip traditional commercials, and advertisers are more eager than ever to make their messages impossible to avoid.
Product placement, video news releases and other forms of marketing messages masquerading as journalism have justifiably provoked a backlash and undercut the credibility of news organizations that indulged in such tactics. One logical alternative to letting commercials creep into content is putting content into commercial space. It looks like it's working for CNN. -- Scott Libin
8.) The Graphic Traffic
MSNBC's Full-Screen Graphics: The full-screen graphics MSNBC used to track changes in the congressional balance of power were refreshingly unimaginative: simple, straightforward and understandable at a glance. They relied on the quaint convention of words aligned with numbers. It wasn't as self-consciously low-tech as Tim Russert's now-famous whiteboard, but it was similarly unpretentious and a lot easier to read.
The same content on Fox News Channel took the form of seating charts illustrating the space Republicans, Democrats and Independents would occupy in each chamber. It looked like the kind of theater map you'd use to order concert tickets online.
That can be challenging for those who don't think visually -- or maybe spatially is the right term -- but it worked better than what CNN did to convey the same information. That graphic looked for all the world like an old-fashioned typewriter keyboard with color-coded keys and only three letters: R, D and I.
One graphic touch on CNN that worked well despite being more style than substance: A small series of bars -- like the ones measuring signal strength on cell phones or audio volume on video-player software -- were colored in to indicate the percentage of precincts reporting in each race. The same value was provided in old-fashioned numerals right next to the digital-looking bars, but somehow the consumer-electronic touch made the information more engaging.
Over all, Fox News Channel tended to manage better than its competitors to keep production values from overshadowing content. With the occasional exception, such as the balance-of-power graphic noted above, MSNBC's animations and set design subjected viewers to a merciless sensory bombardment, sometimes at the expense of clarity. And CNN seemed to be suffering from a shortage of seating. Its anchors and analysts spent a great deal of time striding purposefully around the sprawling set, in front of an electronic wall so crammed with data and images it was almost impossible to process. The display of technology was impressive, but the night's news was complicated enough without all the elaborate choreography. -- Scott Libin
CNN's Online Graphics: CNN used graphics well to convey the story. In the network's broadcast, we saw a wall of graphics that told stories from around the country. Online, there were graphics that charted the overall picture, updated continuously. -- Jill Geisler
WSJ Poll Reviews: WSJ.com, the Web site of The Wall Street Journal, focuses on words, not graphics.
But buried in the site last night, I found a great graphic. Why
wasn't it played more strongly?
Another bonus: Unlike nearly all other content on the site, this piece was accessible to non-subscribers.
The graphic I'm talking about is in the left sidebar of this page; headlined "Review the Results of the Latest Polls." -- Pat Walters
USA Today's Graphics Interpretation: It's a horse race and they weren't ashamed to tell us it was.That's the impression USA Today's front page left me with last night. More than any other major national newspaper's Web site, USA Today's relied on a graphic instead of words. Horizontal bars charted the progress of the Republican and Democratic parties as each crept hopefully toward dominance.
Story headlines were dwarfed by the illustrated partisan horse race.
I found it to be a pretty useful approach. -- Pat Walters
Live Chats with The Washington Post: In my opinion, The Washington Post had some of the best photojournalism online last night.
But an aspect of the newspaper's online coverage that I found more interesting appeared in text.
Robert Kaiser, an associate editor for The Washington Post, fielded questions live starting at 8 p.m.
The conversation, while lacking the urgency of a live chat room, was pretty lively.
Every few minutes, he answered a new question from a
reader. -- Pat Walters
10.) Listening In
Voter Voices: When it came to documenting the experiences of the people who voted in the election, audio seemed to work well.
The Washington Post ran "Voter Voices." -- Pat Walters
It included a nice interactive map -- which would have been made nicer if the election had been tighter.
There was also a neat photo/audio feature on the voters of a certain precinct. -- Pat Walters
NYT Rocks the Voting Map: Maps are hot stuff on news Web sites these days. Every major national newspaper had a map of some kind. But the one put together by The New York Times was the best one I saw.
 Screengrab from nyt.com
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This map is worth checking out for a lot of reasons, but my favorite feature is its organization. The map of House races was drawn not drawn by state, but by congressional district. It makes Montana a tenth of the size of Massachusetts.
The map of the Senate races could be viewed in two ways. In the first, you could opt to see a traditional map of the country, with states separated by their geographic borders. In the second, you could choose to see a strange looking map, with states drawn corresponding not to their geographic borders, but the size of their populations.
This project no doubt was an immense undertaking. Who knows how many hours Times staffers logged on this one. But if it gets started now, what's to stop anyone from building something similar for another news Web site by 2008? -- Pat Walters
12. Who Won? Screenbrab from www.wusa.com
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Now it's your turn. What did you see last night or this morning that impressed you one way or another? Add your favorites to the feedback section of this article here.
