Last week saw my first ever live-blogging attempt, a Halloween live-blog for Islington Now. It was an opportunity to cover something which was hyper-local, with lots of events to report, but also light-hearted and fun, so any mistakes wouldn’t matter as much.
I used a live-blogging plugin for WordPress, which I understand was possible because Interhacktives is self-hosted. The plugin enabled a particular type of post, updating repeatedly while I manually inserted time-tags. Essentially, this was ‘amateur’ live-blogging. There are other, professional live-blogging platforms such as CoverItLive, ScribbleLive and WordFaire, where users can embed Tweets and incorporate other social media and content. I posted reverse-chronologically to emulate live-blogs I’d seen, such as The Guardian’s Middle East Live, where as soon as you click on the page you are in the middle the most recent events, adding to the excitement.
I tried to emulate aspects I’d observed on other live event coverages: that a live-blog is simultaneously an event, a place and a voice. An event because it documents what is happening in real time, a place because it’s a forum where people have their say and send in information, and a voice because there is a reporter behind it, adding to the sense that it is ultimately a human contribution and output.
My newsgathering strategy involved social media, research and colleagues. I sent out a group email to my journalism peers in Islington, appealing for leads on any Halloween-related events. I also created a Tweetdeck column, displaying tweets containing keywords ‘Halloween’ and ‘Islington’, which proved useful as I could grab any relevant tweets and post them, including any pictures the user posted.
I went out to cover events in person but quickly realised it isn’t really what live-blogging is about. It took an hour to travel to the first event and I then got lost looking for the bus to take me to the next one. I soon realised that my time was best spent as a hub, processing, collating and publishing information in real time. Where would the BBC live stream be if the web anchor kept nipping out to try and report the events themselves?!
The day started slowly but picked up as I received more event information (the entire live-blog would not have been possible without my Islington contributors sending in information and reports). I posted on Facebook and Twitter throughout to generate attention for Islington Now. I reflected the nature of the event by writing in a way that was colloquial, personable and funny – “spooktacular” or “ghoulish” – clichés, but suited to the occasion. I wrote posts as questions to draw people into interacting, also writing in the first and third-person to sustain the human ‘voice’ as well as the location or ‘place’ where the event is situated.
Though I was only processing information about pumpkin carvings and children’s paintings, it was exciting because the information was coming in real time, and processing it as such really built momentum. Halloween in Islington was a great way to practice live-blogging. I’d like to build on what I’ve learned and live-blog a real news event. If I did cover a serious event I’d definitely take a laptop or netbook because my iPhone couldn’t seem to handle quick picture uploads and internet connectivity was unreliable – as was the notorious iPhone battery.