Tuesday’s midterm elections will determine which party controls of the U.S. Senate. There are also 36 gubernatorial races, and the biennial U.S. House elections. Here’s how some news organizations plan digital coverage of the races. (This is by no means comprehensive; please email me your plans.)
ABC News will feature a live stream on its site, on its mobile app and on Apple TV. It plans some killer mobile alerts: One every time it calls one of the 507 races it’s covering Tuesday. Don’t worry, you won’t get 507 alerts: You can tell your app what your interest is overall (low, medium, or high), or pick individual races, or let it know your location and it will tell you the winners and losers near you. You’ll also be able to watch live video via iPhone and iPad apps.
The Associated Press says it “has reporters working in every statehouse throughout the year, and more than 5,000 stringers will be deployed across the country on election night to help AP Election Services gather local vote counts.” Its mobile app will feature coverage from member newspapers in hot-race states as well as “a dynamic feed of race calls, photos and videos.” Here’s a Twitter list of AP reporters on election duty.
The Boston Globe plans a “A homepage takeover with results for key races” as well as “A second-screen experience where reporters will file dispatches from the field on election night,” BostonGlobe.com Editor Jason Tuohey tells Poynter. Plus, of course, stories, results, analysis.
CBS News will offer a livestream of network coverage and “will provide a variety of tools to help users navigate the voting results, including interactive maps and exit poll data as it becomes available,” it says in a press release. CBS News’ site will also “feature original reports from CBS News correspondents in the field.”
The Center for Public Integrity will have a scoreboard that tracks election spending in 72 races. That page will also deliver live results and analysis.
CNN plans a live “Hambycast,” which will start streaming at 8 p.m. on CNN.com. The site will also feature a “digital version of John King’s infamous Magic Wall, where users can drill into the districts and data for themselves,” CNN says in a release. Plus: Short animated videos, like this one, that CNN has been posting on Facebook, and an experiment with the gaming platform Pivit, where you can play games like “Will Florida Governor Scott (R) win re-election?” PLUS: A chat on Facebook at 1 p.m. with Peter Hamby, Chris Moody and Stephen Collinson.
The Denver Post will feature live video from its video initiative DPTV, Post news director Kevin Dale said. New anchor Molly Hughes will speak with Post reporters through the night. The Post will replace its homepage “with a larger Elections presentation that will help us highlight our video, stories and results,” Dale said.
Visitors to Fox News‘ site can look at a dashboard that shows balance of power graphics, links to predictions and news stories. Fox News’ coverage will be available to people using the Fox News app as well. Fox News will stream two video entities online from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET: FOX News Latino, and a revival of its old online show “The Strategy Room.”
The Huffington Post‘s politics crew will run a live blog, and HuffPost Live will “stream special coverage of midterm election night 2014, hosted by Marc Lamont Hill, Alyona Minkovski and Howard Fineman” from 6 p.m. until midnight Tuesday, HuffPost spokesperson Sujata Mitra said.
The Los Angeles Times‘ homepage will link to a “one-stop blog for local, state and national election news,” a Tribune Publishing spokesperson tells Poynter. The homepage will also feature track key races and feature poll results.
Hotline’s Race tracker will power National Journal‘s election-night dashboard. NationalJournal.com will also feature a live blog featuring “instant updates, reporting, video, photos, and commentary on the races as they are called,” the publication says in a press release.
NBC News will roll out a new look for online and on-screen graphics, NBCNews.com’s product and operations director, Rachel Rique, said. “We designed it for mobile so it’s a lighter weight and a lighter feel,” she said. Visitors to NBC’s homepage will see a status bar that shows balance of power in the Senate and House, and prominent links to a redesigned elections page, which will host live video coverage, stories and links to “cards” for individual races. When NBC’s decision desk makes a call, the anchors will announce the result, and a new API will push a green check mark next to the winner’s name on a card. Those cards can easily be shared on social media.
The New York Times will have correspondents on the ground in 10 states with competitive races, and it will feature “Real-time election results across all of our platforms and devices, including our web site, mobile web site and phone and tablet apps,” Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades-Ha said in an email. Times data-y vertical The Upshot “will be applying its usual analytical, graphic-heavy methods to Election Night, on nytimes.com, Twitter and elsewhere.” Plus interactive maps, detailed results pages and photo essays “that tell the story of the election in a way that only the Times’s photojournalists can.”
NPR is throwing an “election party,” and guess what: You’re invited! (Sorry, getting a little punchy here.) NPR.org will stream the news org’s live coverage, from 8 p.m. ET to 1 a.m., and the NPR politics desk’s Tumblr will feature “live blogging, photos and more,” according to a release. There will also be an “expanded version [of NPR’s coverage] built for television and optimized for Google Chromecast.” Also I’d like to salute NPR’s PR squad for including the sentence “Party on, Melissa. Party on, Robert” in a press release.
The Orlando Sentinel plans to live-stream video from its newsroom and will offer interactive results on its homepage and elsewhere. It also plans a live blog, and a “special elections barker.”
Christina Bellantoni and Shira T. Center will anchor a live stream on Roll Call‘s site from 6 p.m. Reporters and editors will check in. Roll Call will follow races and offer photos and video interviews with candidates. Its election contest runs until 6 p.m. Tuesday — pick winners and see how you do. Roll Call also offers a $1.99 iPhone app that’s a guide to midterms.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel plans live results on its homepage, plus a live blog featuring reporters and columnists. Also photos and lots of video, including stuff from its newsroom studio and standups from partner WPEC.
USA Today will livestream “segments from the USA TODAY newsroom featuring political pundits and USA TODAY experts,” Gannett spokesperson Steve Kidera said. “In partnership with Gannett’s Video Production Center and Gannett Broadcasting, all the key races across the country will be covered, including live reports from many Gannett Broadcasting stations and campaign headquarters. Beginning at 8 p.m. (ET) and running throughout the night, coverage will be viewable across mobile, tablet and desktop devices on USATODAY.com, all Gannett Broadcasting websites and many of Gannett’s USCP sites.” USA Today’s elections forecast tool “will turn into a results page” on election night.
The Wall Street Journal will launch “a special election hub that will track the key races in real-time with live headline feeds and data galore,” U.S. news editor Glenn Hall said. “A key feature of the data hub will be a comprehensive map that allows users to drill down into voting results in each Congressional district of every state.” The Journal’s homepage will have “a live election scorecard, an interactive map, streaming video analysis, a live blog, real-time headlines and scores of analytical articles updated throughout the night.” Its relaunched politics section, Capital Journal, “will serve as the content hub for our election news and analysis.”
The Washington Post plans a “takeover display” of its Election Live Stream — maps, graphics, stories, etc. on its homepage. “Users will also have an option to switch to the original homepage to access a variety of non-election stories,” the company says, and the stream will work on mobile. Post reporters will be covering hot races on the ground in 10 states beyond the three in the Washington, D.C., metro area.
Pregame coverage:
CNN plans a Twitter chat with Jake Tapper Friday and a Facebook chat with SE Cupp Monday.
The New York Times‘ Upshot Senate model “is being updated at least twice a day as new polls come in to help readers assess the state of the most competitive races,” Rhoades-Ha said. The Times also plans a readers’ guide to important races, a “voters’ voices video with a distinctly 2014 midterm feel that focuses on the national mood” and state pages that “give a closer look at the most interesting races and ballot initiatives in all 50 states.”
Twitter‘s election dashboard lets you drill down to individual states or look at national trends and issues being discussed.
USA Today and Twitter have partnered on a political issues list that breaks down tweeters on various issues by their age, gender and state. The index “makes no attempt to analyze the sentiment expressed in tweets — only the subject area,” Paul Singer writes. USA Today has also decided “not to compare tweet volume around various candidate names, because in the last days of the campaign swing so much of the Twitter traffic around candidates is driven by campaigns, consultants and other professional partisans.” USA Today also has an iOS app that tracks political ads.
Correction: This post originally misspelled Capital Journal as Capitol Journal.
