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What is the best way to gather information from the audience when news breaks?

Daniela Gerson, community engagement editor at the Los Angeles Times, has written on Poynter about the four core lessons her team learned while covering the reaction to a bomb scare that caused the closure of the second largest school district in America.

When the outlet's journalists asked how the public was dealing with this move that would affect more than one million Los Angeles residents, they found that by posing questions to readers via digital platforms, the reach and depth of coverage was extended far beyond what they could have gathered out in the field.

Gerson mentioned that networks should be built prior to a news story breaking, and that it is important to acknowledge the audience's participation and explain how their responses have been used to inform the news organisation's coverage.

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