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Regan Ray  When it comes to election coverage today, journalists no longer own the stage. “We are making it more of a two-way conversation,” says Mark Sikstrom, executive producer of CTV.ca. “That’s certainly where web 2.0 is going." Going, for sure, but not yet gone – at least in Canada’s major news organizations. "I bet you it’s not going to be fully 2.0, but we’re getting there,” says Marissa Nelson, senior editor of digital news at the Toronto Star. “Canada is still a bit behind on Internet trends compared with the Americans. You had Obama announce his vp by text message, I don’t think you’re going to see that sort of interactivity here." Nelson says thestar.com is "building on 2006" and "trying to deliver the news in as many ways as we possibly can to our readers." To this end, the web team has produced its Canada Votes 2008 portal which features details for the 47 ridings in the greater Toronto area (accessible through a clickable map), an issues page that organizes content by topic area, a federal poll tracker, a voter guide and a "Lighter Side" section devoted to ensuring the coverage "isn't only earnest" and "brining some levity to the debate." Star columnists David Olive and Vinay Menon will blog throughout the campaign and multimedia editor Chris Carter will be blogging about how the election battle is playing out online, by keeping an eye on election activity on the web, such as You Tube items, popular blogs and candidate's online moves. On the interactive side of things, this will be the first election for which the Star site allows for commenting on all of its stories. It’s also planning more polls and more interactive Flash graphics. The Star used micro-blogging site Twitter during the Olympics as well as the Toronto International Film Festival and plans to continue that throughout the election. "It’s a small audience in terms of people who are actually following us on Twitter.com, but the idea is that it can be almost like a news alert service on the actual page as well," says Nelson. "We’re trying to leverage it a little bit more." She says reporters such as Jim Byers (while in Beijing) and Andrew Chung (at the Democratic National Convention) loved microblogging. "The reporters will be Twittering, and we are pulling an RSS of those Tweets so that just those headlines appear in a neat little box" on the election page, Nelson says. "That way we have three main types of content: we have just the headlines (Twitter), we’re blogging the colour and then we’ve got news in normal articles," says Nelson. "Plus, we’ve got the weighty analysis. We’re starting to use the different forms, which reporters really like." Nelson says she has considered bringing in some user-generated content (UGC), such as a voter blog or other forms of citizen journalism, but nothing is yet in the works. "I would say 80% of our news reporters are going to be on the election, so I’m trying to be very particular in the bloggers that we choose." Over at CTV, however, UGC is a big part of this campaign’s online push." A new feature called My Vote allows users to send in their thoughts in video format to be posted to the 2008 Election main page. As well, Sikstrom says, CTV.ca is blogging in a much bigger way (including big names Robert Fife and Craig Oliver's blog "Craig's List") and providing a more extensive polling tracker (beyond just national polls) and lighter, fun features such as Pick Your Party (a tool that presents a series of unsigned quotes from candidates, asks users to choose which suits their voting preference and then tells that person which party they are most closely aligned with according to their choices). Sikstrom says CTV is using what it learned from past elections to expand its online coverage. "It is now much more of a two-way conversation than a one-way conversation," he says. "That’s certainly not new to this particular election, but we’re just seeing it more and more." And the political parties are catching on as well. Sikstrom says in the last election CTV.ca didn't have any party ads on the web, but this year he is expecting all parties to advertise on CTV.ca (the Conservatives already have). But what does all this do to the journalism that's produced? "I don’t think journalism ever changes," says Sikstrom. "I think the technology changes and the news cycle has shortened over the years, but if you strip away the technology, it’s still just journalism." In fact, UGC and citizen journalism give journalists a chance to show how they can differentiate themselves, says John White, deputy editor online at the Winnipeg Free Press. "We go deeper, tell a deeper story, leverage our contacts," he says. "So I’m not threatened by it and I think it is a good way to round things out." He says that at the community level, UGC is a great resource, but it doesn't "do you any favours if you are looking for deep, meaningful journalism, because again, there’s a reason we are trained." Where it can help, says White, is with hyper-local coverage. The Free Press is really "struggling to cover the micro" because of resources. "If you want to capture the longtail audience you need the longtail coverage and there’s no way we could physically get out to all of these events." The Free Press has brought in a new video player that allows user contributions and White says it will be promoted more heavily during this election, but he does foresee a potential problem with it. "During an election typically you get the kind of polarized submissions of people pushing their own agenda, whereas we are more interested in a more objective discussion," he says. When it comes to coverage of the issues, national elections give local outlets an opportunity to shine, according to Charlie Smith, editor of the Georgia Straight, a Vancouver-based alternative weekly. "We recommend candidates at the end of the campaign," he says. "And I like to cover issues that the mainstream media aren't covering." He says poverty and human rights issues are often left out of mainstream news. Web-only coverage is a tool weeklies and smaller outlets are using in force to keep up with election coverage. Smith says the company has "thrown a lot of resources" at straight.com recently and this shows up in the form of more content and more web-only staff. The site allows for commenting on all stories and has a regular blog covering election issues. The site has not started utilizing social networking tools such as Twitter, but Smith says these developments are in the works. Another local B.C. outlet that is using the web to provide local coverage of the national campaign is The Tyee, which recently launched The Hook, a B.C. focused political blog with multiple contributors. As for national media, the major outlets have rolled out their various election portals. The Globe and Mail launched its politics page the day before the election was called and editor-in-chief Edward Greenspon emphasized interactivity in the first in his series of "Behind the Scenes at the Globe" columns. CBC.ca returns with its special Canada Votes section. It provides, among other things, full commenting capabilities, plenty of audio and video and the "Political Bytes" blog, which it says is "devoted to bringing you more of the colour and insider politics that drive the nation's affairs." As well, the Ormiston Online portal is following the campaign as it unfolds online, and encourages participation: "Send us your videos — why not campaign ads? How about photos from the campaign trail? It's a brave new world of politics on the web," reads the introduction. Newspapers that fall under the Canwest umbrella are utilizing some form of the chain's Decision Canada 2008 platform. The sites use the same template, but populate it with city-appropriate news content. The Saskatoon StarPhoenix has launched, as has the Calgary Herald, but as of this posting, the Vancouver Sun was not using the platform. But for most mid-size Canadian news organizations, the mantra for now is "Web developments are in the pipeline." The Free Press, for one, is in the midst of major system upgrades that will improve the site's ability to provide comment forums for stories, accept UGC of all types and utilize social networking tools. While these improvements will not all be up and running for this election campaign, White says the site currently has a multimedia editor who is working on video elements, including a "door knocking" feature that morphs the standard "reporter at the door with candidate" story into a video that shows "the unfiltered reality of what people are hearing at the door." "What started as 'we should get something on the web',” White says, “has turned into 'the web will drive the coverage.'" Regan Ray is associate editor of J-Source.ca. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Why do mainstream news organization abandon their essential news principles when an election is called?
Where I came from, news was anything that was new, of public interest, of public value, enlightening and, if possible, entertaining. If a reporter submitted a piece of copy that didn't meet all or most of these criteria, it was either spiked or handed back for a rewrite. Sadly, however, much of the "election coverage" as we know it in Canada fails this elementary news test. Every major party leader's speech of the day is news. The airplanes they fly are news. The factory visits and kissed babies are automatic photo ops. Their cooked-up squabbles, and their televised debates, are 20-point headlines, content notwithstanding. Editors struggle to achieve "balanced" coverage for the parties, which means a rough equity in column inches or newscast minutes. Reporters are assigned to campaigns; that's an expensive enterprise, so the expectation is that they file every day. Often, they are reduced to taking dictation: what did Stephen, Stephane and Jack say today, how many were there, and how does it square with what they said yesterday? (Oh, and how are they doing in the polls?)
But who decided that an electoral campaign, often arbitrarily called for reasons of political expediency, is by definition newsworthy? Why is news coverage reflexive? Why don't we evaluate campaigns the way we evaluate every other story we cover? If something "happened" today on the campaign trail, we'll cover it. If nothing of news value happened, let's say so, and move on . . . That's what news, as a filter of history on the run, is supposed to do.
I submit that more rigorous and critical election coverage would have a strong democratizing effect. Instead of being overwhelming with distracting pap that passes for news, we, the consumers of news, would be able to better focus on the things that matter, and they, the politicians would be forced to abandon their tired talking points and age-old "news" strategies, and tell us things (and do things) that really matter. If they don't, we'll just ignore them. What's wrong with that?
For a different perspective on the elections, that is not mediated by the media, go to NetPrimeMinister.ca
This is an online project by the UBC School of Journalism, tracking the social media buzz on the federal elections.
NetPrimeMinister.ca aggregates blog content, YouTube videos, Twitter comments and Flickr photos about the race, offering a different perspective on the race to be Canada's next prime minister.