By nature, I am a very upbeat, positive person.  But during my news director days I always had a downbeat personality as election night drew near.

My reasoning is this: It is very difficult – if not impossible – to win the coverage war on election night.  Everyone pretty much gets the same numbers at the same time, and it all becomes a blur for the viewers.  However – it is very possible to lose the coverage war on election night.  All it takes is a gaff or two by anchors who didn't do their homework, a computer glitch, a missed live shot of a concession or victory speech and it is game over.

So here are some quick tips on how not to lose on election night:

• Prepare an election booklet for your anchors that outlines each race, includes background information on the candidates, and has some other info so they can add some “spice” to their ad-libbing during the long night.
• Schedule a sit down meeting with the anchors for this coming Monday – to test their knowledge on the information in the booklet.  Grill them a little bit until you are comfortable that they will be prepared – and seem very informed – on Tuesday.
• Schedule all potential live shot locations – including possible polling places where there could be problems with ballots etc. on election night.   Take your live trucks to each of those locations, set up a live shot to be assured there are not going to be problems on Tuesday.  Write in your live shot book exactly where the truck is parked for the best connection with the live towers and share it with everyone.
• Hold a pre-election meeting on Monday afternoon with everyone involved – make this a rally (get your troops pumped up) and also a time for everyone to hear the entire coverage plan so they all know how their roles fit in the big picture.
• Assign someone (as news director I always played this role) to be the “viewer's advocate”  during your election coverage.  The role involves a call to the producer to tell them an interview has dragged on too long; or to ask them to clarify some confusing aspect of your coverage etc.

These ideas served my newsrooms well during elections over a couple of decades, and I believe they will help assure that you don't lost the election on Tuesday night.

Good luck!

Jim

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Willi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.