Check out <em>Tennessean</em> Election Day Web coverage to see Lipscomb students at work
Janel Shoun |
10 a.m.
Lipscomb student Andrew Glass has already made his report to The Tennessean, reporting on the mood of voters at Curb Center and Belle Meade City Hall. To see Andrew's report click here.
(Content at this link will likely change during the day.)
Click here to see details of Pizza & Politics: Election Edition!
Tuesday, Nov. 4 at 10 p.m.
And The Tennessean, Nashville’s largest newspaper, will draft 20 communications students from Lipscomb University to help them carry it off.
Using Twitter and Flip Cam cameras, Lipscomb’s students will head out to polling places throughout Middle Tennessee and send back messages and videos for The Tennessean to post on their Website throughout the day, said Jimmy McCollum, chair of the communication department and instructor of the communication research class.
Lipscomb student reports, if found newsworthy, can be found in the Tennessee election coverage section. All Twitter comments can be seen continuously displayed in the "Overheard" section on the Website. The newspaper has also set up an Action Line for voters to call with questions, found under "Voter Info."
“The primary mission is to interview voters,” said McCollum. “The newspaper has given out questions to the students, and they are asked to come up with five 30-second videos (at each polling place).”
The Tennessean isn’t the only one employing the latest technology to bring the average person’s election experience into their coverage. National Public Radio has announcements running asking voters to text (using text messaging) , tweet (using Twitter, an online message service for one-line reports on your daily activities) or call in news of any problems, long lines, disruptions etc. during Election Day. The news station will plug results into an online interactive map full of voting problems from across the nation. CNN has a "Share Your Story" on its iReport Webpage inviting regular joes to submit their election day experiences, photos and videos.
Technology has had a major influence on the presidential campaigns so far and promises to continue changing the shape of election coverage on Tuesday.
The 2008 campaign has seen more use of online social networking than any campaign before, with candidates posting their own Facebook, MySpace, Gather, Linked In and Twitter sites. Throughout the past months, do-it-yourself campaign ads, satire videos and campaign commercials have proliferated on You Tube and other online video sites.
Already in 2004, media experts were commenting on the influence early coverage on the East Coast may have had on voters on the West Coast who could see how things were shaping up in states in earlier time zones. Imagine how much more that influence technology could have on voters as they check out 24-hour coverage on Websites across the nation throughout the day.
For good or ill, Lipscomb students will be a part of making mass media election coverage history on Tuesday.
Lipscomb students will be divided into 10 pairs and sent out to specific polling places in Davidson, Wilson, Williamson, Rutherford and Sumner counties throughout the day from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at night. Their assignment is to tweet a message every 20 minutes on what’s going on at that polling site: long lines, disruptions, local color, etc.
In addition, each team will use the Flip Cam (a small video recorder that can plug directly into a computer), to interview five voters on camera and send the videos in immediately to The Tennessean at the end of their shift, McCollum said.
“(The Election Day assignment) illustrates the trend that is called backpack journalism – that journalists need to have a virtual backpack of skills, from writing to video production,” he said. “Even newspaper reporters these days are being trained in video. This project will give students a front-line experience in convergence. It will introduce them to the immediacy of news coverage in that their content will be available to news consumers within minutes not just in the next day’s printed newspaper.”
Click here to see a round-up of election-related news from Lipscomb University