DFM chat: Mobile friendly ideas for Election Day coverage

Decisions (Ariél Zangla photo)

(The text you see above is in this openly editable document, where anyone can collaborate)

How to cover elections in real time

Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat at noon, Eastern Time.

Today's chat tackles Election Day! What are the best practices on using social media to gather and report information in real time for election? What tools can reporters and editors use? Is there anything journalists eat on Election Day that's not pizza? (Spoiler: NO). Bring your insights, links and your #REALTALK.

The feed is posted below. You can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

Election Day links and resources

REPORT PROBLEMS AT THE POLLS:



HUDSON VALLEY
Five state Senate races in region
Gibson, Schreibman square off in new 19th Congressional District
Seven vie for redrawn state Assembly seats
Voters to choose state Supreme Court justices
Ballots in region include local races, Ulster charter
Gillibrand, Long, 3 others vie for U.S. Senate seat
POLLING PLACES in Ulster, Greene and Columbia counties
Tuesday is Election Day. Here’s a look at how various services and offices will be affected:
Coming Election Day 2012: Live discussions with Ann Coulter, Howard Kurtz and more

NATIONAL
 Eight people predicting a Romney win on Election Day
Nine 2012 Electoral College predictions have Obama ahead
Five nightmare scenarios for Election Day
Five things that probably won't change no matter who's president
The 11 goofiest campaign gaffes of the presidential election
Obama: The first meme president
Five reasons why the presidential election is already over
The 2012 presidential campaign in its own words
Same sex marriage on the ballot in four states
'The Simpsons' predicts Electoral College: Obama 290, Romney 248

DFM chat on election coverage

Delicious new politics page is delicious

Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time.

Today we're planning election season coverage. What can we offer, what should we offer, when should we partner with others, and, of course, tools!

The live feed is posted below. But you can also follow the chat here or here or also here. And you can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

Julian Schreibman, Joel Tyner debate highlights

Health care: Fracking: Economy:
About the 19th Congressional District
U.S. role in world affairs: National issues:
On winning the election: Leadership:
Joel Tyner, opening remarks
Julian Schreibman, opening remarks

General Election Write-In candidates

The Ulster County Board of Election released all the Write-In results for all the races in the Nov. 8 elections.
For some reason I'm on its list so I received this from Vic Work, Commissioner of Elections.

See if your name is in it (mine isn't).

DFM Chat on election year initiatives

Hello! Members of the Digital First Media and everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat at noon.

Today we're talking about, well Election-year story initiatives.
The live feed is posted below. But you can also follow the chat here or here or also here. And you can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, just post a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below, or post a comment in the field at the bottom of the chat box.

Election Day planning

I'm using my blog to test a new and faster way to publish election results. Here are some of the things we're planning to do at the Freeman:

We've created (still working on completion, so bear with us if there's stuff missing still) a spreadsheet that will constantly update election results as they come in. Here's a preview, with empty results, obviously.

All you have to do is hit refresh every now and then. But how do you know when results are in, right? For that, we'll have a CoverItLive container, with all the people at the Freeman who are working on Election Day stories, pretty much all of us. The best part is that CoverItLive allows YOU to chime in. I'll be moderating that as well, to include relevant comments and questions.

In addition, we're including a SeeClickFix Election Problems report widget on our site so that you can tell everyone if there is a problem at the polls. We'll be monitoring those as well.

Let me know what you think, what we can do better, or any other ideas you might have. And don't forget to vote on Tuesday.

Otherwise, the terrorists win.

How to make an Election Day problems widget with See Click Fix

Visit http://seeclickfix.com/widget

At bottom, click on “Generate Map Widget Now!”

Add your desired location. (600 for JRC sites or 600 for this blog, for instance). Make sure you select “Report Form” on “Make a primary tab”

Add your contact info.

Click "generate widget", get your code and post in your site.

As I was told by my managing editor, "it's so easy, even an editor can do it." It should look like this:





The best part? You can share it with your blogger networks and everyone else. A true crowdsourced effort. What do you think?

Election planning

This document was updated constantly during yesterday's primary elections

Basically, all you would have had to do to get new result was hit refresh.

The document is an iframe (think of a window) of the Ulster County Board of Elections site.

I don't think you can get live results faster than this.

What do you think about doing something like this for the general election?

Mid-Hudson Valley Election Page

I've been asked many times about having a place with all the contact information from all the candidates for the upcoming election. And although we do have a page in our site dedicated to this year's election, it doesn't contain the basic information from the candidates.

So I decided to create a Facebook page for the candidates in the Mid-Hudson Valley (full disclosure, I stole this idea from the Journal Register Company idealab).

Basically, the page will Like all the candidates pages, as to become a hub for primary sources of information. It is in its early stagesright now and I'd like your help adding your candidate to the roster.

And feel free to add a website or email or phone number for your candidates. This is your page, so do with it what you'd like to do. I'll be adding more pages and sites to the list myself.

What would you ask the Kingston mayoral candidates

The nastiest election: Adams vs. Jefferson

In the very words of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams' supporters:





Via Reason.

It's kind of funny that CNN is one of the mediums saying how nasty this campaign is, because of their 2008 piece, Founding Fathers' dirty campaign:

Things got ugly fast. Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."


In return, Adams' men called Vice President Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father."

As the slurs piled on, Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant, while Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward.

Go read it. Check out what Martha Washington said about Jefferson.

That wasn't the only dirty campaign, as  Joseph Cummins, author of, Anything for a Vote: Dirty Tricks, Cheap Shots, and October Surprises, told The New York Times.

In the election of 1800, one of the dirtiest in American history, the venomous hack writer James CallendarThomas Jefferson) assailed then-President John Adams as a “repulsive pedant” and “a hideous hermaphroditical character,” whatever that means. Later in the 19th century, Martin Van BurenDavy Crockett, no less) and James Buchanan (who had a congenital condition that caused his head to tilt to the left) was accused of have unsuccessfully tried to hang himself. Oh, and Abraham Lincoln reportedly had stinky feet.

The 20th century began this way; at the 1912 Republican National Convention, Teddy Roosevelt, wearing a sombrero and smoking a cigar, cheerfully referred to William Howard Taft, the sitting President and Roosevelt’s former vice president, as “a rat in a corner.” (The rodent motif is popular — FDR liked to call Alf Landon, his 1936 opponent, “the White Mouse who wants to live in the White House.”)