This week, we look at innovative election-night ideas from NPR and USA Today, and we see how social media tools have reshaped breaking news coverage at Mashable and The Weather Channel.
PART 1: Election night ideas
On the night of the last election, many news outlets tried new approaches to delivering results and keeping audiences engaged. We hear details about two such experiments: USA Today’s use of the messaging app Yo, and NPR’s 2014 Election Party.
Reporting by Allison Prang.
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The overall idea behind NPR’s experiment was to centralize its coverage “in an expanded version built for television and optimized for Google Chromecast,” as explained in this press release.
PART 2: Social tools in breaking news
Social media offer newsrooms a way to share and to obtain news — and also to keep it organized. Brian Ries of Mashable and Renee Desjardins of The Weather Channel explain how their organizations use social media to stay on top of events coverage in interesting ways.
Reporting by Katy Mersmann, Reuben Stern and Rachel Wise.
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Reuben Stern is the deputy director of the Futures Lab at the Reynolds Journalism Institute and host and co-producer of the weekly Futures Lab video update.
The Reynolds Journalism Institute’s Futures Lab video update features a roundup of fresh ideas, techniques and developments to help spark innovation and change in newsrooms across all media platforms. Visit the RJI website for the full archive of Futures Lab videos, or download the iPad app to watch the show wherever you go. You can also sign up to receive email notification of each new episode.
