Next week, The Post will be publishing its print edition for Wednesday morning rather than Thursday. I suppose we hardly have to explain our reasoning, but I thought I might anyway: elections.
Election night in Athens — and this will be my fourth, but indeed the wildest — are slightly different from the typical ballot-counting activities in a small town. There are several excuses as to why (Athens is a typically liberal college town in a majority conservative county; our Board of Elections has a furry, adorable mascot), but to The Post, perhaps the most noticeable reason is the town is absolutely flooded with journalists — particularly of the student variety. That is a wonderful occurrence.
Still, even with all that coverage from several outlets on campus and Uptown, our staff members would like to know how readers of The Post want their coverage on Nov. 8.
We will have the print edition, of course, and our reporters will be updating our website all night long. They will be live-tweeting, too, and consistently updating social media with the most recent news. But what else could we do to best serve the reader? Is it through more intense social media coverage, through mediums like Facebook Live, Snapchat or Periscope? Do you want reporters stationed with your watch party or organization? Would you like more county coverage, rather than having our feet more firmly planted in the city? After the ballots are counted and we know who will become the next president of the United States, what questions do you have about what happens next for Athens? These are the sorts of questions The Post would love our readers to answer, if they would be so inclined, so our reporters can turn around and provide quality coverage. It is important to our staff that we learn from this experience, and continue to provide the immersive election night coverage The Post has been known to give in the past.
If you have any suggestions for our coverage that evening, do not hesitate to reach out and tell us. We would love to hear from you.
Emma Ockerman is a senior studying journalism and editor-in-chief of The Post. Want to talk to her? Email her at eo300813@ohio.edu or tweet her @eockerman.
