New for old media…

Quick and short, down and dirty observation from me on the US election coverage as I sit here watching and listening. At time of writing no results are in.

Firstly, hands up. I’m a news junkie and I’ve mentioned before in a previous blog post that The Daily from the New York Times is one of my must listen podcasts. I’ve listened to it from the very start, and Michael Barbaro has developed into a trusted source and host.

They have continued to cover the election in the run up in interesting ways- in the midst of a pandemic and one ravaging the US and breaking records as it does almost daily. The regular episodes of “The Field”, a subset of episodes which first showed up in the US Midterms, has returned and criss-crossed America giving a fascinating background to the story of the campaigns.

Election Day 2020 was interesting from a media perspective. I said in my previous blog on podcasting, that it was RADIO- and the very best podcasts used the skills of the best radio output to produce great podcasts. On Election Day 2020 in the US, the New York Times cemented that thought.

The first LIVE four hour broadcast from “The Daily” team live from New York- not just using the radio skills, but actually doing live radio. I listened and it was very well produced, no gaps, no fluffs, no mistakes. Polished radio output from a newspaper, but admittedly one which has spent a lot of time and money in the recent years building up its audio offering and digital footprint. “The Daily” live was available on the NYT website, and via the app and they were sensible in ensuring that it remains streaming when you leave the app- on my iPhone it did anyway, can’t say for Android. It sounded like radio, looked like radio, worked like radio.

So what of radio?

“You give us 22 minutes we’ll give you the world”

1010WINS New York, who coined that famous phrase back in the day, did radio and their Twitter feed was fairly usual and what you might have expected but with a lot of video which was pretty well done.

Here in the UK LBC, (from my former employer), went full video, live streaming on the app, website, YouTube and Twitter feed. Polished and professional TV stream with flash graphics.

All told- well played from all that I consumed if I’m honest, but I find it interesting that Newspapers did Radio, and Radio did TV.