How To Supplement Election Coverage? 241
An anonymous reader asks "What information sources and social networking sites will you be using to supplement the election coverage on TV next Tuesday? I am ready with a big HDTV with Comcast, a Mac mini, and and an Xbox 360. I also have two laptops (one good for websites and one for streaming video), an old-school Blackberry, a 'regular' cell phone, a Nokia N810, a Squeezebox, and finally Sirius Satellite Radio. Which websites should I watch for live county results? I already know about the Twitter Vote Report for tracking and reporting voting issues and I already watch 'CNN Reporters' on Friendfeed for the national flair. What other Twitter accounts should I follow? Which urgent ones should I send to my phones? Which YouTube accounts or keywords I should subscribe to in Miro? What are the most popular sites for posting 'on-scene' videos — iReport, Flickr, something else? I know most local Fox affiliates are great about streaming, but is there a page that lists all of the streams, in case I need to quickly focus on one city or area? Basically, how would you configure all those gadgets?" This reader might find some guidance in what to focus on from a video produced by reader (and data modeler) Bruce Nash that lays out a predicted timeline for when the media will call each state, depending on when the polls close and how tight each race is expected to be.
Re:I'll be doing *my own* coverage (Score:5, Interesting)
You might also want to do your own exit polls. As long as you're on public property, no one has the right to keep you from shooting video.
This is very bad advice.
While a school may be public property, if it's being used as a polling place you most certainly do not have the right to shoot video or poll people inside. If you want to do either of these things in or near a polling place, please (please, please, please) check with the poll workers at the polling place first. They will know what rules there are and what limits there are to video and exit polling. (There are procedures for what the media can & can't do in a polling place, but the most important one is: if the chief judge says "no", then you're not filming...and you need to ask first.)
I have volunteered as a poll worker this cycle, and I'm really worried about getting into fights with people about the "Video the Vote" campaign. Video or photography inside the polling place is illegal in my state (I suspect it's illegal in all states, but I only know my state's law for sure). I don't want to get into these fights, but the Video the Vote folks have buried their CYA "please ask the poll workers" stuff in the middle of huge blocks of text that no one's likely to read, so I'm not optimistic.
(By the way, the whole soft-shoeing of the need to check with the election judges by "Video the Vote" really pisses me off...the poll workers are going to have a tough enough time this cycle with the expected huge turnout. The last thing we're going to need is some zealot screaming voter suppression when we try to enforce the "no filming" law in the polling area.)
</rant>
In short, if you want to be the media creator, that's fine...you just need to play by the rules.
Slashdot article mentions current fad!?! Outrage! (Score:1, Interesting)
The twitter advertisements aren't so bad as the more prevalent "blog" advertisements. Nearly every /. article mentions some blog or another. The jerks that own blogs must be running out of cash (hopefully).
Re:I'll be doing *my own* coverage (Score:4, Interesting)
The idea of an "exit poll" is to talk to voters outside the polling place after they've voted, not to intrude on the sanctity of the polling place itself.
In other words, be on the sidewalk or other 100% public property.
My polling place in Bradenton, Florida, is in the rec room of a large mobile home park, which is private property. Many other polling places around here are on property that belongs to various churches.
As long as you stay on true public property -- that is, places to which the public has unimpeded access, you can film.
One way to tell if you're in a legal spot as opposed to intruding on a polling place is to look at the placement of candidates' signs. There is typically a minimum allowable distance from the polling place for them. Use them as your guide to the "safe" distance. Beyond that, as long as you are on public property and not impeding traffic, neither an election judge nor a police officer has the right to stop you from filming.
(I, too, have been an election judge.)
Re:Outcome or Action (Score:1, Interesting)
I want to see voting issues being reported before the major media gets hold of them and spins the hell out of them (hence twittervotereport.com). I want to see "man on the street" pictures from all across the country -- iReport, I guess -- I want to see pictures of voting lines, short video clips posted by people in line to go in or right after they come out of the polling place, so long as the pictures or video are taken from legal locations (50 feet away or something). I want to see people recording themselves on their cellphones talking about their voting experience while its still fresh in their minds, especially if they are first time voters.
I will probably have Miro configured to automatically download new YouTube videos with the keyword "election" or "voting" for the night unless some other keyword can be agreed upon, but I don't know which sites I should be pointing to that publish valid RSS video feeds. I also don't think Miro can scrape iReport yet, as I'm afraid that is becoming quite the popular place to post news-oriented user-generated content. I really just want to watch Election Day unfold for about 8-12 hours, as daylight spreads from east to west.
It may seem like I'm addicted to big media, but I hope its clear that I really want to tap into the raw experience of it all. Not only am I interested in individual stories and experiences, but I also want to see big stories unfold before they hit the national networks. I got pissed off when I saw CNN posting their own voter issue hotline because that makes it very difficult for the rest of us to keep tabs on what they're hearing and looking into.
Hints (Score:3, Interesting)
Once the live coverage starts, look for clues from the "pundits", especially a change in attitude while the polls are open. The newsrooms have access to the incoming exit polls, but they do not share that with the audience while the polls are still open. That's how they can call a state immediately after the polls have closed - they had the info long before but withheld it.
But, the pundits want to look good, so their "predictions" before the polls close will be strongly biased by the incoming exit poll information. That said, exit polls have been wildly inaccurate in the past two national elections and in some of the primaries this year.
Also look at the mood of insiders that have access to the internal polling, such as Karl Rove. They will still be spinning, but they are unlikely to say anything that is directly contradictory to the polling data.
When the race narrows down to a few states, find the web site for the state that posts the raw data. You'll get the counts there minutes before it's updated on the news networks.
Then check in often on new sites like Drudge Report. Drudge as a policy ignores news embargoes, so you can often read a breaking story there first. Forget about the blog sites for fresh information, but they will be the nursery for the conspiracy theories to be launched by the losing side. This year, there's plenty to go around.
In 2004, we didn't vote for Bush gladly... (Score:3, Interesting)
> I don't recall the whacky Right being that smug last election when Bush won somewhat comfortably.
Actually, I was on the other side of the fence in 2004 and there was nothing to cheer about. Nobody was happy about Bush, they were just glad he wasn't Kerry. Though damn, I wish I had that vote back. He was elected to fix his own mess, not make more of them.
Anyhow, with Obama, I'm *glad* to vote for him. I've supported him since the primaries. True, I've gone from thinking that McCain would be an okay president to being eager to campaign against McCain in 2010 (I live in AZ), but that's not why I support Obama.
Look, I voted for Bush. Twice. It was a mistake. But I've never once been so eager to see my own party lose. And I want to see them lose in the worst possible way. So yeah. Maybe I'll watch Fox. Because I know the Republican party is out of control and needs to be put out of its misery.
I may be a Republican, but after what they've done to this country, I'm going to be first in line to dance on the Republican party's grave.