KBIA PoliticsFinal Presentation

Juana SummersFriday, December 18, 2009

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Website Redesign

Collaborated with John Bailey to make the politics page less show-oriented, more content-driven.

Live link here

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.

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

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.

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:

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:

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Barriers

Additional workload for professor Small pool of politically savvy students to pull

from No political journalism classes exist (aside

from Missouri Digital News)

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.

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