Teamwork drove election-night coverage
Covering an election is a massive undertaking for media organizations, involving reporters, columnists, photographers, editors, data analysts, designers and managers from across departments working together under tight deadlines.
Ontario election night on Thursday saw the Toronto Star newsroom in full throttle as staff worked to keep readers up-to-date on the latest numub
ers from the polls preparing articles for thestar.com and two print editions for the next day.
“We wanted to make sure that, digitally on the night and in print the next day, our audience could find the answers to all the questions they were asking — who was winning at the riding and provincial levels and the implications for constituents and for the province,” said the Star’s politics editor Jordan Himelfarb, who oversaw the co-ordination of election night coverage.
“It required finding a compelling way to present the results as they came in, highlighting the most interesting and consequential races, drawing out the storylines that defined the night and that gave final shape to the campaign, and providing analysis and commentary that put the flood of information in context.”
Reporters were dispatched to be with the leaders of the four main political parties: Queen’s Park reporters Rob Ferguson and Kristin Rushowy were with PC Leader Doug Ford in Etobicoke and the NDP’s Andrea Horwath in Hamilton, respectively. On loan to the Queen’s Park team were Wendy Gillis, who was with the Liberals’ Kathleen Wynne in North York, and Tess Kalinowski, who was dispatched to Guelph to cover Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner.
At the same time, Queen’s Park Bureau Chief Robert Benzie held down the fort at the Star’s office at the provincial legislature putting everything together for the main news story about the night’s results. Ontario politics columnist Martin Regg Cohn wrote from home. That was in addition to more than 40 other reporters assigned to cover results in ridings across the GTA, some covering two ridings at the same time.
“What I was looking for was not only the facts, but also context and colour. Elections are obviously profoundly important democratic moments, with far-reaching consequences, but they are also, for both voters and political players, emotional, human things,” said Himelfarb.
For thestar.com, the main feature of the night was a seat counter and a colour-coded map of the province showing which party had taken each riding in real time, fed by data from The Canadian Press.
To keep stories as timely as possible, reporters were asked to file as soon as definitive results for their ridings were available. A team of editors then quickly polished the copy, wrote headlines, added photos, published the stories online and prepared them for print.
In total, more than 50 ridings were covered by the Star and Metroland publications, resulting in 63 articles, including individual riding stories, columns, editorials and a cartoon.
Thursday was Himelfarb’s first election night as politics editor and he admits that the logistical challenges were daunting. But he said his life was made easier by the huge team effort put forward by Star staff.
“Once the polls close and we’re inundated with results, you don’t have time to be daunted. The adrenalin carries you through.”
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