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What’s worse than being unprepared for The Big Story? Thinking you are prepared — and finding out you were terribly wrong.
Ben Smith recently penned a feature for the New York Times detailing the ways in which the media nationwide is unprepared for the unique challenges of November’s election. Conversations I’ve had with local TV news managers lead me to believe local TV news managers should be just as worried, but aren’t.
Maybe a quick quiz is the best way to assess your newsroom readiness. How many of these elements are staples of your well-worn ‘election playbook’?
Your logistics planning has started, but the key coverage push starts Oct. 1 Your editorial planning focuses on “key races” and “key issues” Logistics — matching reporters to races, figuring out vehicles, live feeds, crew assignments — takes up much of election planning meetings You are planning on and for a single “Election Night” of coverage (versus days or weeks ) You will have a pundit panel of political expertise to add meaning and context Your “results” planning is focused on making sure your data feeds/scraping of local/state sites is working and feeds quickly to the website and on-air You’re feeling confident because you have a team that’s “done this before!”
There’s every reason to believe that NONE of these historic “truths” of the playbook for local broadcast election coverage will be as relevant this year.
For example, with the pandemic-driven shift toward mail-in voting, local newsrooms can’t wait