Good ideas that work for covering elections

Covering campaigns and elections is a lot of work. To do it right, you need to be smart about how you use your time and the resources at your disposal. Keep the following tips in mind to make the most of your political coverage:

Grids and bio boxes - compare contrast candidates backgrounds and positions – in print and online.

Run criminal background checks on all candidates - run personal and general background checks through Lexis/Nexis, Google, and people finder search engines.

"Fact-check " boxes – can be used on everything from issues and pronouncements to print and broadcast advertising.

Infographics and "how tos " on the processes — absentee ballots; touchscreen voting; registration; background checks; making a campaign donation; doing original research.

Q&As – long ones on issues; short ones as parts of bio boxes and layers in ongoing coverage.

Voter panels to shape coverage all year and to serve as "instant " voices on breaking stories. Create several: Boomers, Xers, Millennials, and make sure you've got age, gender, race, educational, political, and economic diversity.

"Campaign Capsules " – briefs on all the campaign and election "stuff, " including endorsements, schedules of forums and appearances, routine announcements. Package it all together and run once a week or daily.

Campaign Calendar – a master calendar for print readers and a searchable one for online ones that includes forums, press conferences, guest appearances, speeches, deadlines for registration, filing, polling times. Maintain online always; publish master in print, then breakouts for the week or day.

Stockpile photographs during the campaigning seasons for use during the week before/after the election.

Invite a reporter to the editorial board appearances.

Use the editorial board as a candidates' forum, instead of interviewing each candidate separately. Works great to see and hear them side-by-side.

Format news conference coverage as grid or capsules; run a weekly roundup of the two or three headlines from each one. Skip the blah-blah-blah actual coverage.

Put campaign letters to the editor online instead of in print – run a sampling in print and push readers to Web site. Suggest to advertising that they sell a special letters section and have candidates pay for it. Should we charge letter writers?

Identify the critical issues (one editor calls it the Five Forces) and use them to guide all coverage and shape all questioning. Write enterprise on the issues and use candidates' positions as sidebars or layers.

Interactive map online that shows users where to vote, who's running and where. Link to full coverage, profiles, letters, campaign sites and position comparisons – local, state, national

Convergence projects with other newspapers/magazines, online and broadcast – forums, interviews, commentary, reporting, analysis, columns, enterprise, photographs and graphics.

Endorsements by the editorial board. Also consider a forum in online editorial for endorsements by users/readers and others of particular candidates. Use voter panels and have them do their own endorsements to run with editorial board.

Ask the offbeat questions: "For whom would you vote outside your own party and why? "

"Daily Debate ": brief position statements from primary contenders each day on a single issue. Works better in general election when fewer candidates.

Chart the results and ditch most "day-after " stories. Do strong narratives/ enterprise stories only on the highprofile races.

Mandate story lengths and stick them. Pre-write election night stories and edit them and plan visuals — leaving only the tops for results and color. Do same with page layouts.

Put one person in charge on election night.

Don't duplicate the wire.

Buy something other than pizza for election night, please!