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December 14th, 2012

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Crowdsourcing campaign spending: What ProPublica learned from Free the Files

We started Free the Files as we do with any major data project — asking ourselves what story we wanted to tell (how dark money spending was impacting the election) and what information we had available to tell it (thousands of PDF files).
But turning the files into something reportable would require manual review of each document, a crowdsourcing challenge compounded by the fact that we had no idea exactly how many files we would be dealing with. Every day volunteers reviewed hundreds of files, and every day we downloaded hundreds more from the FCC web site. It was like starting a race without knowing when you’d hit the finish line.

Read how ProPublica made Free the Files successful, how they tracked the project, and how they made it fun on Nieman Journalism Lab.

November 16th, 2012

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Historic votes, hidden from live coverage : CJR

Initiatives on same-sex marriage were on the ballots in four states during the election last week. Jennifer Vanasco had promised to live-tweet developments on the initiatives for WNYC, but had difficulty since she found few outlets made realtime information available about how the ballot initiatives were faring. An informal poll on social networks to see how others were following the issue didn’t turn up much specific to the issues or any important ballot initiatives. She writes on CJR that people said they were watching “Twitter and Facebook, followed by the interactive maps and lists at The New York Times and CNN.com or the CNN mobile app.” With both the New York Times and CNN maps, readers had to know which states were voting on the issue, then drill down to information on that state. Vanesco was watching the same outlets and explains why she feels this coverage wasn’t enough:

First, it is not okay for Twitter to be the main source of information for something as important as gay marriage battles in four states. Twitter, as we all know, is often wrong. Even when journalists are tweeting, they can do so impulsively, passing on incorrect information that they would never let into a story without double checking it. Twitter is not a reliable source, and it is a shame that people had to resort to relying on it on these issues because they felt like updated information wasn’t otherwise available.
Second, people should not have to know that an issue is important in advance in order to keep track of it on election night. One of the primary jobs of journalism is to bring critical issues to the attention of media consumers and to explain why they should care. People I queried — who are smart, regular consumers of news — were embarrassed that they didn’t know those races were happening. But it wasn’t their fault. It was the fault of election night coverage.

Read more about how Vanesco thinks that reporters can improve the way they cover important ballot issues before the next national election and why it’s critical that they do.

November 12th, 2012

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For places like BuzzFeed and HuffPost Live, the recently launched streaming video network from The Huffington Post, the challenge is emulating the style, but not necessarily the substance, of traditional media. For BuzzFeed, that means setting up bureaus and putting reporters on the trail. For HuffPost Live, that means reports from the field, check-ins with bureaus, and empaneling a group of experts.

Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith discusses their record traffic on election night with Nieman Lab’s Justin Ellis.

(Source: poynter.org)

November 8th, 2012

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Get inspired by digital coverage of the Nov. 6 Election

As Americans tuned in to the presidential race on Tuesday, newsrooms around the country experimented with ways to wrangle large amounts of data and provide live updates. Here are some areas where digital journalists created exceptional work:

Illustrating the election
The Guardian put together an interactive illustrated recap of President Obama’s and Gov. Romney’s path to the White House. Wendy McNaughton live-illustrated election night from NPR headquarters, giving readers a glimpse of what radio looks like. (Interested in illustrated journalism? Check out the ONA12 session on why comics make good journalism and advice from Erin Polgreen of Symbolia Magazine on how editors can work with comics journalists.)

Watching the voting
Facebook’s real time vote counter was an excellent representation of where people were voting. As voters took to the polls, Instagram was flooded with pictures from people who had voted. The NY Times pulled together a beautiful interactive of the photos. As photos of people’s ballots began to show up on the service and on Twitter, ProPublica and other outlets warned that photographing ballots is illegal in some states.

Tools for voters and journalists
Google’s comprehensive election and polling package included resources to find polling stations and ballots summaries for each state. (Check out more from the ONA12 session Election Tools & Data and look for slides by Google’s Jesse Friedman detailing features of these resources and more.) Wall Street Journal built whattimedothepollsclose.com, a searchable micro-site with data for each state.

Live coverage
Dozens of websites did excellent work covering the election live, reaching viewers who wanted a second screen experience. NPR’s beautiful election dashboard displayed live updates, a gorgeous Tetris-inspired map and results all on one page. Al Jazeera created excellent interactives and continued highlighting issues important to voters throughout its live coverage.

Students did a great job collaborating on live coverage. Columbia’s Tow Center partnered with Columbia Journalism Review to provide live coverage and the #jeelection project, a partnership between 24 J-schools across the country, used RebelMouse to compile election coverage. (Interested in best practices for media collaborations? Check out the ONA12 session The Business of Collaboration.)

Demonstrating the power of Data
The New York Times “Paths to the White House” charted ways in which either candidate could achieve enough electoral votes to win the election, and it was updated live as results rolled in. The Times also prepared a valuable “shift map,” which demonstrated how voter sentiment changed between the 2008 and 2012 elections. WNYC’s election night map went beyond the traditional approach and broke down counties by their demographics, using terms like “immigration nation” and “evangelical epicenters.“ (Interested in working more with data? Check out the notes from WNYC’s – and ONA Board member – John Keefe’s Into to Data Viz workshop.)

Monitoring voter suppression
Mother Jones put together a map of areas where there were incidents of voter suppression or poll problems, along with an explainer on voting. Partnering on the initiative, the Daily Beast captured information online and on Twitter using the hashtag #troubleVoting from voters who reported trouble with casting their votes, and put them in touch with reporters who verified their stories.

Showing the Big Picture
The Washington Post’s supergrid used a beautiful visual timeline to present events throughout the campaign and the election results.

Spelling victory on social media
The election was called before 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday night. The Obama campaign tweeted out “four more years” at 11:16 p.m., a tweet that has become the most retweeted of all time (over 789, 534 retweets at time of writing). The same message, with the same photo, was posted on the Obama Facebook page, and has become the most liked photo on Facebook, with over four million likes at time of writing. Looking to up your social media game? Check out the ONA12 session Social Media Debate: Best Practices and Bad Habits.

What other great examples of digital coverage did you see? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter by using the hashtag #ONAissues.

November 7th, 2012

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Newsrooms on Election Night

Jeff Sonderman has pulled together over 30 photos of newsrooms in the U.S on election night.

November 6th, 2012

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Social Media and Voting

The Pew Research Center has just released new statistics on how voters are using social media during this election.

According to their report:

22% of registered voters have let others know how they voted on a social networking site such as Facebook or Twitter.
Social media platforms have also become a notable venue for people to try to convince their friends to vote.
30% of registered voters have been encouraged to vote for Democrat Barack Obama or Republican Mitt Romney by family and friends via posts on social media such as Facebook or Twitter.
20% of registered voters have encouraged others to vote by posting on a social networking site such as Facebook or Twitter.

The full report is available from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

November 5th, 2012

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Documenting the Vote 2012 | Citizen Media Law Project

The Citizen Media Law Project has created a guide for journalists who will be reporting from the polls this election. Know your rights as a reporter and the boundaries you must observe in order to respect voters’ privacy.

November 5th, 2012

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Journalism Accelerator, Kent State University, the Poynter Institute, and the Civic Commons have partnered to answer a number of questions that digital journalists face when covering politics. They are crowdsourcing answers to the questions below, and will be compiling the answers in an Ethics Best Practices Guide to Political Coverage.

What happens when social media and political coverage collide? How do you handle the challenges of “access journalism” like requests for quote approval? How can journalists keep politicians honest? Could a different approach to reporting improve the flow of information to voters?

Join the conversation on the Journalism Accelerator website.

October 31st, 2012

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Despite the usual complaints of lack of access to candidates — practically speaking, there isn’t any — the power dynamics between the campaigns and the media have shifted significantly toward reporters. And the old journalistic hierarchy that once aggrandized major newspapers and national networks has flattened out, giving any boy, girl or baby on the bus with a Twitter feed the same opportunity to drive the race as the most established brand names.

For campaigns’ traveling press corps, social media has changed way game is played - The Washington Post

The Washington Post looks at how the power dynamics have changed between the traveling press and the Presidential candidates, emphasizing the influence that reporters have on social media.

(Source: Washington Post)

October 15th, 2012

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67.2 million viewers tuned into the first debate, according to Nielsen, making it second only to the Super Bowl so far this year. That’s a mind-blowing level of tune-in. More to the point, Mitt Romney clobbered President Obama and in the sort of shift that political operatives dream about, moved four to six points in the polls…
[T]he use of social media, far from pulling away audiences, tends to create a magnetism around big event television. Even those with only a marginal interest in the matter find themselves pulled in by the conversational water cooler that springs up on Facebook and Twitter. But for all the hype about social media and politics — and I’ve dished up my share — the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that more than 8 out of 10 viewers of the presidential candidates’ debate simply plopped down in front of their televisions and watched.

Televised Debates That Sell More Than Just Drama - NYTimes.com

(Source: The New York Times)

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Get inspired by digital coverage of the Nov. 6 Election

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