{"id":2180,"date":"2015-12-26T14:30:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-26T22:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/newsroom15\/?p=785"},"modified":"2021-06-22T18:37:18","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T22:37:18","slug":"digital-tools-can-make-for-creative-election-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/2015\/12\/26\/digital-tools-can-make-for-creative-election-coverage\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital tools can make for creative election coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Al Gordon didn\u2019t understand how local politics affected his life, so he rarely voted. KPCC Southern California Public Radio wanted to change that.<\/p>\n

Not just for him, but for all the Als of LA.<\/p>\n

KPCC focused on the low voter turnout in Los Angeles County, which has the worst voter turnout in the state.<\/p>\n

So it chose one person, Gordon, who represented non-white registered voters under age 45, and built a campaign trying to make him care about the March 3 primary elections in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody was speaking to the Als of Los Angeles,\u201d said Meghan McCarty, a commuting and mobility reporter at KPCC who started the #MakeAlCare campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

People on social media sent in photos and videos with the campaign\u2019s hashtag<\/a>, trying to persuade Gordon to vote. He had visits from city council candidates at home and his restaurant Community in Los Feliz.<\/p>\n

It worked. Gordon voted.<\/p>\n

\n
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<\/div>\n

Ladies and gentlemen, Al has voted! Hear more at KPCC.org. Did you vote? (Photo by @mayasugarman) #MakeAlCare<\/a><\/p>\n

A photo posted by KPCC (@kpcc) on Mar 3, 2015 at 2:25pm PST<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cDid us making Al care make LA care? We don\u2019t know,\u201d said McCarty, who spoke on a panel at #ONA15. (Click here for tweets from the session.<\/a>) \u201cBut it did prove to be a big engagement moment for LA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsrooms will have more opportunities to duplicate moments like these. As the 2016 presidential race heats up, reporters have more digital and social tools available to better engage with voters as part of their political coverage.<\/p>\n

Maeve Reston, who sat on another panel, noted that whether it\u2019s a presidential election or a state or local election, getting people engaged with politics takes work.<\/p>\n

Back in 2012, news outlets pushed their political reporters to focus on the blog site. Now, they\u2019re juggling Twitter, Vine, Instagram and any other platform they can use to tap into a larger audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2004, you would go in with your angle or your analysis piece you were writing for the weekend, and you just can\u2019t do that anymore,\u201d said Reston, national political reporter at CNN. \u201cIt\u2019s so quick and so driven by how these campaigns use social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finding ways to engage with audiences doesn\u2019t have to be as large as KPCC\u2019s project, said April Bethea, a news producer\/social media manager at The Charlotte Observer.<\/p>\n

Bethea, who spoke on the panel with McCarty, said news outlets must take risks. It can be as simple as experimenting with different platforms and content types, such as video, audio and photos, and seeing how people react.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you’re doing something innovative, you have the chance to expand your audience,\u201d Bethea said.<\/p>\n

Embracing new forms of storytelling isn\u2019t a sacrifice to do good journalism, said Juana Summers, political editor at Mashable. It\u2019s a way to uplift it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mediums and tools change,\u201d she said, \u201cbut the reporting doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Al Gordon didn\u2019t understand how local politics affected his life, so he rarely voted. KPCC Southern California Public Radio wanted to change that. Not just for him, but for all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10573,"featured_media":2097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[480],"tags":[634,668],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"coauthors":[873],"class_list":{"0":"post-2180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conference","8":"tag-featured","9":"tag-ona15"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/09\/Screen-Shot-2015-09-26-at-1.44.42-PM-1.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5Q1c-za","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10573"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2180"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4346,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180\/revisions\/4346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2180"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=2180"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}