2024 Election Coverage in the Newsroom: Getting a head start
Norkon Team 2024 Election Coverage in the Newsroom: Getting a Head Start
As the countdown to the 2024 US Elections begins, newsrooms are grappling with a media landscape in flux. Election coverage is unique as these events bring a particular blend of rules, predictability, and inevitable surprises.
As audiences demand dynamic, immediate, and interactive coverage, static articles and hourly updates for real-time events are no longer sufficient. The challenge for newspapers lies in delivering immediacy and immersive content to readers, with short-form updates as well as in-depth articles – a requirement that static models of journalism struggle to meet.
Here’s how newspapers can deliver both short- and long-form content with various tools and meet all their readers’ expectations.
The Game-Changer: Live blogging updates as they happen
Live reporting is not merely a feature but a necessity for modern newsrooms. With the ability to capture real-time content, live blogging allows for more comprehensive and engaging coverage than ever before, keeping your readers updated with the latest news as it happens.
Updates follow a chronological order and comprise rich story-telling elements such as social media posts, images, interactive features (i.e. Q&As and polls), and most importantly, the option to link to your in-depth gated articles, hence combining short-form updates with investigative journalism.
Platforms like Live Center have a proven track record with European elections — from Amedia’s coverage in Norway to Sky in the UK. Live blogs provide a sense of immediacy and enable real-time reactions and interactive visuals.
The nature of election campaigns implies a mix of regulations, anticipated outcomes, and unforeseen twists, which present an ideal backdrop for combining in-depth reporting with interactive and rich content.
This enables news outlets to deliver a fuller, more immersive story that drives traffic and creates a deeper level of engagement with audiences.
Use case: NZME’s Local and National Election Coverage in New Zealand
NZME covered the 2023 New Zealand elections by having one centralized live blog on the NZ Herald that offered minute-by-minute national updates, enabling local newsrooms to cherry-pick posts from this hub to enrich their coverage and provide context to local elections. The news outlet leveraged publishing tools such as Arc XP’s robust content management system and Live Center’s agile live-blogging tool, enabling journalists to share real-time and interactive experiences, to the satisfaction of journalists and readers alike.
There’s more to it – by integrating both publishing tools, a unique funnel is created that guides readers from freely accessible live blogs to in-depth, paywalled articles. Having integrated live blogs into these larger pieces, newsrooms such as the one from NZME can offer real-time insights as well as more comprehensive and analytical content.
Adding Value by Integrating Technology
Today, it is expected that different pieces of technology can be integrated and synced with the rest of the existing tech ecosystem. As two highly configurable systems, Arc XP and Live Center allow customers to easily connect Live Center’s live-blogging platform with Arc’s suite of content management, storage, and delivery tools, making it easy for journalists to cover time-sensitive events at scale.
The objective is to enable publishers to link high traffic-generating live blogs to in-depth, gated analyses and introduce readers to qualitative content, ultimately monetizing those readers.
This offers readers a layered experience where there’s something for everyone – attracting readers with free live updates, leading them to deeper, more analytical content, thereby introducing a powerful tool to your monetization strategy, regardless of the publisher’s organizational size or focus.
Whether you’re a national giant or a local outlet, the Arc XP and Live Center synergy allows for custom-tailored election coverage, where your centralized teams can manage a national live blog while local teams are able to extract relevant updates, adding their own localized insights.
Conclusion: Setting New Benchmarks in Election Coverage
As we approach the 2024 US Elections, Arc XP and Live Center are not just responding to the demands of modern journalism; the combined strengths of these publishing tools offer newsrooms an unparalleled blend of real-time coverage, high audience engagement, and ingenious monetization strategies.
Providing access to real-time content allows audiences to feel more connected with the events taking place and makes them stay on top of the latest developments.
