Des Moines Register ready for political spotlight

By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor

As Iowa ramps up the pressure on New Hampshire to become the site of the nation’s first presidential election battleground, the Hawkeye State’s largest daily newspaper is also beefing up its political coverage.

The Des Moines Register (daily, 146,050; Sunday, 233,229) is literally crammed with features and projects profiling the presidential candidates as the state gears up for the Jan. 3 caucus, said Michael Corey, digital projects editor at DesMoinesRegister.com.

Among the features is “Insight into the Candidates,” which gives presidential aspirants the ability to talk about their campaigns and their personalities.

“We asked candidates some questions that are not necessarily issues-focused,” Corey said about the project. “We are trying to get out their personalities a little bit” in order to let consumers understand who the candidates are when “they’re not scripted and not on talking points.”

The videos are arranged so that users can view them by specific question or by specific candidate. The paper filmed the candidates as they traveled to Des Moines to meet with The Register’s editorial board.

“Getting 10 minutes with each candidate is not an easy thing to do so we’ve been very happy to have done that,” Corey said. s

The politics section of the site has been running a number of different features since May to inform the readers of the presidential candidates’ comings and goings in the state.

Early planning

Getting started early was critical, Corey said.

“If you get started early it’s a lot easier to maintain your coverage. You’re not having to build it when things get really crazy. When we first set up the site we were setting up a lot of the features way in advance before most people became really engaged.”

Among the features: Google Maps, to allow users to track candidates’ visits.

“We also allow people to comment on all of the stories and we have blogs where people can leave comments,” he said. “A lot of our centerpiece work has been getting people information about the issues.”

The site also features a database that lets users measure candidates on their positions on various issues.

“You can pick as many or as few issues as you want and see them head-to-head,” he said.

Corey said the site is much more automated than it was during the last presidential election.

“A lot of the features today take more work to set up, but once they are up and running they are a lot more automatic to maintain,” he said.

The political coverage is part of a redesigned DesMoinesRegister.com site that was beefed up with the addition of Pluck Corp.’s SiteLife app to handle forums.

Politics at a glance

Listed below are the various features offered by DesMoinesRegister.com’s political page in its coverage of next month’s Iowa presidential caucus.

Content

• Iowa campaign events
• Search events by party, candidate, city, date
• About the Iowa caucus
• Insights into the candidates
• 5 Ways to learn about candidates
• Latest headlines
• October Iowa Poll results
• USA Today campaign headlines
• Iowa campaign donations (FEC.gov)
• Register opinion and analysis
• Analysis from The Politico
• Editorial board visits: Candidate impressions
• Carve a candidate
• Track Iowa visits
• Photos
• Video
• Blogs
• Voters’ Voice forum

Notable political sites

Listed below are honorable mentions from this year’s Knight-Batten awards for innovations in journalism in the political and elections category. The J-Lab Institute of Interactive Journalism at the University of Maryland administers the awards.

The Next Mayor:
WHYY and the Philadelphia Daily News

A classic civic journalism initiative by WHYY public television, the Philadelphia Daily News and the Committee of 70 to focus on voter issues in electing the city’s next mayor. Included were blogs, videos submitted by organizers of more than 100 candidate forums, 1,260 videos submitted on YouTube, neighborhood reporting of citizen issues, and a news archive of all candidate coverage.

2008 Campaign Tracker:
washingtonpost.com

Washingtonpost.com created this database driven tracker and Google Map mash-up to provide users up to date information about each of the presidential candidates’ travels, fundraising, comparisons with other candidates and other campaign-related information. Intended for use not just by readers, but also by other journalists and organizations.

Election Coverage 2006-2007:
Mediaphormedia (Lawrence, Kan.)

Online coverage of local and state elections using the best benefits of news on the Web. Each candidate had a page with multiple forms of media covering all aspects of the campaign and election-night happenings.

Charleston Voters’ Guide 2007:
Charleston (W. Va.) Gazette

The Charleston Gazette created a Google Map mash-up that allows users to localize the ward-level candidate and election information for the 2007 city council election. The Gazette created this feature in preparation for the upcoming 2008 elections.