Election Day Game Plan on Social Media: Share Carefully

In an edited interview, they talked about their plans for Election Day.

Before we dive into Election Day, what does a typical day look like for you?

JAKE GROVUM Since we’re a global, 24-hour team, the day starts in Seoul, South Korea, with our editor there, Eleanor Dunn. She and Lara Takenaga, a senior audience editor in London, oversee the social presence overnight and work closely with our international bureaus to share stories relevant to those parts of the world in those hours, as well as setting up the U.S. day: flagging early trends and stories to cover, sharing the best of our new stories that publish overnight as America wakes up, and of course, covering breaking news whenever and wherever it happens.

ANNA DUBENKO Every morning, before the 9 a.m. news meeting, a group of Audience editors puts together an overview of how we performed the day before — what the top stories were that resonated with our readers. We also look at search and social trends to try to prepare editors for where the news might go that day. Then, the social team divides the day by story line and sets out to create a social report, which consists of the stories we share over the course of the day, postings by our journalists and other content.

These days, we typically have a social editor devoted to elections, one to virus news, and then others to culture, lifestyle and enterprise, original stories not generated from news events.

Now take us to Nov. 3.

GROVUM Generally, not much happens during the day, which is a weird feeling. But as soon as poll closings approach, it can be a sprint to the finish line. But this year will be different. We’ll have twice as many people on for election night as we normally would, and we’ve increased staffing around the clock for the rest of the week.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/insider/election-social-media-coverage.html