Follow up on our election night webcast

Cory Bergman November 9th, 2006

I promised a report back on our live webcast we produced on KING5.com on election night. Again, the idea was to not just graft TV on the web, but to produce an election webcast that was informal, unscripted and interactive — a live feed that would complement the robust results coverage on the site (in fact, we built a custom embedded player with links to the results around it.) Carolyn Douglas, one of our anchors who boldly took part in the experiment, introduced live speeches as they occurred, both nationally and locally. In between, she interviewed folks in the newsroom — including news director Pat Costello — about the process behind our coverage and read comments from the blog. Carolyn hosted it from a desk we set up in the web area of the newsroom, and I sat behind her punching up various feeds as they came in. Decidedly low tech (I had flashbacks to my small-market days), yet we did our best to play off it as part of the experience. When the TV folks were off the air, we would occasionally toss to the main anchor team for a “whip-around” with reporters in the field, produced out of the control room. Those moments were a little too TVish for my taste, but they delivered good information and analysis that wasn’t available on air. And that was the goal. So all in all, a success, notwithstanding some technical issues with the streaming that was out of our control. One big lesson learned: we’re going to find a way to Chyron live feeds so people know what they’re watching when they join in progress.

Carolyn Douglas at the desk with two laptops, one for results and AP, the other for the blog. That’s Dave Wike on camera and me in the back.

I’m desperately searching for a new feed to go to. The router is to my right, where I’m “directing” the webcast. I’m on headset with the control room to coordinate an upcoming studio update.

I started the night with a whiteboard to cue her where we were going next, but as time progressed she would just turn around and ask me, “Hey Cory, what’s next?”