BBC News to use wikis for online election coverage

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BBC News will allow its audience to edit and rewrite online constituency profiles as part of its bid to open up its election coverage.

Should it come later this year or some time deep into the next, the BBC is looking to increase its interactive coverage of the issues surrounding Gordon Brown's first election as Prime Minister by getting the audience to help tell the story at local level and shape debate.

The move is part of a broader expansion of the Corporation's interactivity department, which will see it take on extra staff and open its user-generated-content hub - used to gather content from the audience - into a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week operation.

"We haven't decided what technology we'll be using for this yet - and there are a number of options including some in-house systems already in operation and some external software systems," Vicky Taylor, head of interactivity at BBC News, told Journalism.co.uk

"But yes, we are planning an audience-edited constituency profile area, which along with other statistical election information about the area, would provide a detailed look at each constituency from a national as well as an 'ultra local' grassroots level."

The Have Your Say section of the BBC News website, she added, would play an integral role in the coverage of the next election.

"People want to talk about and debate the election. Have Your Say is a really good way to do that, and for the BBC News we get all that opinion and comment instantly.

"We will have a whole interactive section for the election…we'll involve the audience a lot more in saying what really matters and what issues we're going to cover.

"Ultra-local news, what really matters in constituencies - through working with BBC Nations and Regions - and using lots of new technology, we want to open the debates up more," she added.