Online Journalism News

US elections: BBC News online gears up for live coverage

New page formats and a multi-platform approach will be central to coverage of the US election results on BBC News online, according to the site's editor.

A specially designed 'live page', which was trialled during the Beijing Olympics and went live at 10:30am (GMT) today, will be crucial to the online coverage of this 'need to know' story, Steve Herrmann told Journalism.co.uk.

Used to report on voting and results as they happen, the page will feature near real-time and automatically updated text commentary, excerpts from correspondents' blogs, and comments from users via Have Your Say and Twitter.

A live video stream of the BBC's broadcast coverage of the results will also be hosted on this page, which could become a regular feature for big news events.

To complement the 'live page' coverage a ticker of results, which can be manually overridden to highlight breaking news, and a dynamic, colour-coded US map plotting the results as they come in from 12:00am (GMT) will be present across all areas of the BBC News site.

Results will also be available on mobile, which will be featured more prominently during the course of the voting, as part of a special US election section created on BBC News' mobile site.

A wider front page for its US election campaign coverage has already been introduced to display more pictures, including a changing cycle of images.  Relevant content will be higher up the page, Herrmann added.

The importance of BBC News online has grown since the last US election and continues to expand with every big media event covered, explained Herrmann.

'The fact that the data is so crucial to the story' and and that the BBC is 'the main platform for displaying and publishing the data', means that this time the corporation 'is going to be playing a central role,' he said.

"The fact that BBC news has changed so much over last year to get the newsgathering and correspondents, who actually do the reporting, more focused on the on-demand platforms means that our demands, our requirements and the needs of the online audience have been factored into the planning to a much greater degree than would have been the case four years ago.

"That's a sign of the times and a sign of the changes we've gone through in the news operation."

The BBC's coverage on all outlets will be led by a centralised results desk based in Washington, which will make all of its data and information visible across the corporation's bureaux for broadcast, mobile and online platforms.

This set-up will allow the BBC to gain a range of worldwide perspectives for its 'morning after' coverage, when Herrmann said traffic to the site is expected to be higher, as users seek out analysis of the results.

The site is also planning to create a map plotting users' reactions to the results, whether these be in text or through video clips.

As part of wider plans to expand interactivity on the site, the BBC's Have Your Say section has linked up with third-party video sites Seesmic, Qik, Phreadz and 12seconds, asking for users' video reactions to the elections, which may be used online or as part of a broadcast:

BBC Have Your Say - US ElectionCome and Have Your say about the US election. We'd love to hear your point of view about your voting experience and also the end results. Your videos may be used on the BBC television news or BBC Online.

Catering for an international audience online involves finding the 'commonality' between audiences and then following up particular angles for UK reports, added Herrmann.

"in terms of the core coverage and reporting the story, we haven't found a big divergence in the way we want to report a story when we're thinking about an international audience versus a UK audience, " he said.

"What we need to be doing is giving a sense of what's happening on the ground, reporting the results reliably and quickly as they come through, giving informed insight from people close to the story and telling a coherent and engaging story right the way through. Election night, in that way, is the same for all audiences."

Tags (click tag to find related articles; click icon for feed):
bbc | usa | video | politics | steve herrmann |

Sign up here for our free, daily email newsletter to get all the latest stories, jobs, tips and more.

Got a story? Email our news team: Laura Oliver; Judith Townend or telephone +44 (0)1273 384290. You can also follow us on Twitter: @journalismnews / @LauraOliver / @JTownend.