Eight ways to improve your online political coverage

(This article originally appeared in the Sept. 5, 2007 edition of the AR&D Media 2.0 Intel newsletter.) Most local media websites have “politics” sections. In these sections, we find whatever stories the TV station/newspaper has run related to politics. But this doesn’t begin to harness the real power of the Web – and it doesn’t reflect the shift that’s happening in the way the Web is changing elections. The electorate is talking politics online. They are debating issues. They are talking, shouting, fighting and arguing. It’s messy and it’s wonderful. For the most part, this is happening on national news sites and blogs. It’s not seen that much in local and state elections. This is a shame – our passions are just as strong, if not stronger, when it comes to whether that lot down the street is going to be zoned commercial. We can do better.

It’s not enough to have a politics section on a brand extension site. You need a politics site. (Maybe even more than one – a site for the statewide election and then one dedicated to local elections would truly capture the spirit of local politics.)

“But Steve… we don’t have the staff to run those sites!”

Sure you do. Once set up, the sites run themselves.

Once you enable the electorate to start sharing their ideas, they populate the site. Here are eight ideas:

Use publicly available information about polling places, each referendum, and other data

Have forums for debate

Have places where people can share pictures from political rallies

Take a lesson from YouTube – people want to create their own homebrewed political ads

Invite voters to send in videos of themselves asking politicians questions. When you interview the politicians – include these in the questions.

“Guides to the politicians’ stances on the issues” are good – but old school. Turn them interactive by allowing people to comment on each candidate’s response.

Find the local blogs that are already writing about the political issues in their towns and bring in their RSS feeds

Have a daily newsletter that tells subscribers what you’re up to with your political coverage. Invite comment on the site – you’ll find out what interests your audience (and what doesn’t).

Put your heads together and you’ll come up with a bunch of ways you can build a local politics site that is an attractive proposition all its own. We got into journalism to tell great local stories – and there’s no better story than this.

(Please add your own thoughts and ideas for great local political online coverage in the comments section.)