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KBIA Politics Final Presentation

KBIA Politics Final Presentation. Juana Summers Friday, December 18, 2009. Project Summary.

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KBIA Politics Final Presentation

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  1. KBIA PoliticsFinal Presentation Juana Summers Friday, December 18, 2009

  2. Project Summary We pitched a project to KBIA to turn the “Talking Politics” show page into a regularly updated hub for political news in Mid-Missouri and across the state. The project also included launching a daily politics blog and a weekly Web-only show profiling prominent politicos in the area.

  3. Initial Project Overview Work with KBIA team to re-design the Talking Politics page as a subject page. Collaborate with Talking Politics host (Sara) to tease online content on the air Complete independent reporting for KBIA’s political content (features and dayturn) Establish a workflow that can be repeated for future topic pages.

  4. My Expectations Fully-formed relationship with KBIA Regular feedback from the KBIA staff about political coverage, content Relationships with KBIA reporters covering political stories A unique, fun experience with political content

  5. Reality A different level of partnership than Convergence/KBIA has had in the past Very little reporting done by KBIA staff reporters, no mechanism to contact them A unique, fun experience with political content

  6. KBIA Expectations Reporting: 5 features and significant work on the “Five Minutes With” show Blogging: Daily blog posts Producing: Send in information to be added to the politics page on set days.

  7. Reality Reporting: Reported multiple features and “Five Minutes With” pieces for KBIA. Produced all “Five Minutes With” pieces. Blogging: Blog was updated most days, but cultivating a voice and finding a niche was difficult. Producing: Updating the site was “clunky” because the current KBIA Web site lacks a content management system. Project was not a high priority in the daily workflow.

  8. Initial Plan • Communicate regularly with KBIA staff (Sara) about expectations and benchmarks • Turn the KBIA politics project into a sustainable capstone project • Make politics a priority for an audience that seems to be interested in it • Take an active role in reporter participation • Seek out reporters to produce political content • Encourage multimedia, blogging by other parties

  9. Timeline • Upcoming KBIA redesign meant we would have to wait to finalize future plans • This project was largely self-defined • Re-design: Early September • Worked with KBIA staff (John Bailey) to dictate the new look of the site • Launch Oct. 1: • Launch date was not realistic, given key individuals were out of town on that date. • Launch was pushed back a week for logistical concerns

  10. Website Redesign • Collaborated with John Bailey to make the politics page less show-oriented, more content-driven. • Live link here

  11. Redesign Goals • Create a home for all reported political content • Make a place that could be updated daily with political news, even if it was not broadcast on the Talking Politics Show • Carve out a niche for new, Web only features that could encourage more audience engagement.

  12. Concerns • Lack of reporter participation made it tough to populate the site with Web-only content on a daily basis • Reporters seemed unwilling to participate, even though it could count for their assigned stories • A number of reporters frequently dropped stories or missed deadlines

  13. Notes About “Five Minutes With” • Inconsistent posting schedule • Lack of reporters dedicated to the project meant we missed a few weeks • Noticeable fluctuations in quality • Audio quality • Conversational • Most reporters did not shoot headshots, as they were asked to do.

  14. Student Work KBIA’s Steve Weinman sat down with Gerald Ulrich, former Bunceton mayor. Ulrich was the first openly gay mayor in the United States. Listen here:

  15. My Work Local groups and legislators are already speaking their mind about the vote, which passed by a narrow margin. KBIA’s Juana Summers took a wild ride in a classic car that’s at the center of the healthcare reform debate. Listen here:

  16. Initial Research Strategy Design: Redesign the “Talking Politics” page to be content-oriented instead of show-focused Content: What can we uniquely offer in terms of political content on the Web? Audience: Who is our audience? What makes them visit KBIA.org?

  17. Preliminary Research • Design needs, based off of NPR.org redesign: • Improved navigation/usability • Enhanced visual design • Make a product that is normally exclusively audible visible • Editorial efficiency • Discussions with prominent political bloggers about priorities in online political content • Interactivity • Consistent content • Voice

  18. Revised Research Strategy • Hold a focus group of KBIA donors who specifically donated online – a way to ensure that they’ve used our Web site • Focus group targeted three areas of interest • General engagement with the KBIA Web site • Design/Orientation of the Politics Page • “Five Minutes With”/Features

  19. Focus Group Findings • General Comments: • Listened to KBIA on the radio frequently • Less likely to look at content online • Found site difficult to navigate, even if they heard something that interested them

  20. Focus Group Findings (2) • Politics Site Design/Orientation: • Preferred subject-oriented pages • Liked choosing from multiple headlines • Disliked not having the option to read stories instead of hearing them. • Wanted an easily accessible archive page.

  21. Focus Group Findings (3) • Five Minutes With/Features: • Preferred more conversational pieces • Liked feeling like they were part of the conversation • Wanted more probing questions • Enjoyed sample feature reporting about politics

  22. Research Problems Out of 56 online donors, only three participated in focus group. (Five had confirmed with us) Casting a broader net would have given us more significant results.

  23. Missouri Method 2.0 • What can we offer students? • Specialization in an area with lots of opportunity for innovation. Just take a look at all of the investigative-based Capitol startups. • Opportunity for non-convergence students to curate content for the Web in a meaningful way.

  24. Barriers Additional workload for professor Small pool of politically savvy students to pull from No political journalism classes exist (aside from Missouri Digital News)

  25. Solutions Themed Independent Studies/Advanced Reporting classes for radio students Convergence students should be assigned to a specific “beat,” similar to Missourian shifts and should be required to blog, produce other new media content. Use the new Web site/CMS to our advantage to make the project less time-intensive.

  26. Future Projects for Next Semester Carry this idea over to develop other topics pages • Health/Science • Business • Education • Arts Bill Tracker • Focus groups show that many people don’t understand the route a bill takes to become law • Track bills we report on frequently

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