Smart Decision 08 Watch Party
Webcast experiment turns election coverage into a collaborative, multimedia, participatory and live web-streaming community event
By Reuben Stern, RJI print & graphics editor
and Mike McKean, RJI Futures Lab director
Alternative Newsrooms
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The SmartDecision08 webcast successfully combined the resources of three different news media, plus the Reynolds Journalism Institute, to create a new kind of content the newsrooms would not have produced separately. It also provided an example of how independent newspaper and broadcast outlets might partner in the future to provide cross-media coverage of a live news event.
The corresponding watch party event hosted in the RJI building also demonstrated how the public might be included and/or better engaged as news consumers, as members of the community being covered, and as participants in the coverage itself.
The project, funded by the Reynolds Journalism Institute and supported by the institute’s Futures Lab, involved KOMU-TV/Channel 8 (NBC affiliate), KBIA/91.3 FM (NPR radio affiliate) and the Columbia Missourian (morning newspaper and online news operation) in Columbia, Mo.
The four-hour webcast, produced largely in the RJI studios, gave all three newsrooms a separate channel of live video coverage that streamed simultaneously on all their web site home pages from 8 p.m. to midnight on election day. This was particularly important for the newspaper and radio partners, who normally would not be able to offer a constant video stream during an ongoing news event. For the TV station, it made the web site a secondary source of constant content that could encourage additional engagement among the growing audience segment that watches traditional television while simultaneously going online with a laptop computer (i.e., the “second-screen” experience).
Candidates Speak
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Along those lines, the election night webcast provided a model for how news coverage might be coordinated to work across platforms and media approaches to serve multiple audience segments. For example, visitors to the newspaper and radio station web sites were able for the first time to watch the full acceptance and concession speeches of candidates in real time — without sending multiple camera crews to the scene — thanks to the TV station’s partnership in the project. Visitors to the television station’s web site watched segments that harnessed a much larger reporting staff that included radio and print journalists.
Newsrooms Collaborate
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Meanwhile, the public RJI event provided a new kind of opportunity for people to get involved in a historic news event. For one thing, citizens said they appreciated the opportunity to watch breaking news coverage in a group setting, similar to the way many prefer to watch a football game with others rather than watching at home alone. The implication here is that simply offering a public gathering surrounding live news coverage might help increase audience engagement with and interest in the news.
The approximately 200 citizens who attended the RJI watch party weren’t just there to socialize, though. While television coverage from national and local broadcast outlets was on display, guests also could peek behind the scenes to see how the live webcast was coming together. This ability for individuals in a community to witness the production of live news coverage might also provide a more personal, and thus stronger, connection to the events being covered.
Citizens Speak Up at RJI
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Additionally, citizens played a role in the news content itself via their participation in live, town-hall style discussions throughout the night. The discussions, included as part of the webcast, enabled members of the public to lend their own expertise, for example sharing their thoughts on how the media coverage did or did not help them as they decided how to cast their votes. This kind of public discussion could be a productive way for local news organizations to reconnect with the needs of their audiences while giving their readers/viewers both a positive impression of the news outlet and a deeper connection to the news itself.