For the 2002 New Zealand general election, the team at nzherald.co.nz created a special feature called Election 2002 (nzherald.co.nz/election) which was launched on January 5, 2002.
We sought to fully utilise the power of the web and the resources of the country's largest news department to provide readers in New Zealand and around the world with the best possible:
1. Information about the electoral process,
2. Coverage of the election campaign, including extensive resources on issues and candidates, promoting public participation in the electoral process,
3. "Virtually live" coverage of election results,
4. Analysis of results and continuing coverage in the days and weeks following the election.
The
Election 2002
feature grew to accommodate more than
plus
(candidate lists, electorate profiles, etc.).
Because nzherald.co.nz provides full and free access to its story archive, all of our election coverage remains permanently accessible via
.
Some components of our coverage, however, appear much less prominent now than they did at the time they were published. They have simply been overtaken by later events as
continued to evolve.
Election 2002
(
) gives readers vital information about the electoral process in two main ways:
* News stories about the electoral process:
Sample 1:
Sample 2:
Sample 3:
Sample 4:
* A comprehensive Election Information resource page.
The Election Information page includes
containing information about the electoral process at elections.org.nz and other Government websites:
Readers can easily navigate to the Election Information page in two main ways:
a. Every page in
contains an
Election 2002
button in its right-hand column. Clicking on the button takes readers to the
Election Information
page.
b. Most news stories published during the election campaign carry a
at the end of the story:
Campaign coverage of
Election 2002
includes more than 600 news stories from the Herald's Parliamentary
,
and
- plus commentaries by
and
.
As well, the
Election Information
page gives readers access to a number of campaign resources:
* Links to the official
registered for the 2002 election and
compiled by nzherald.co.nz staff (double-checked with the chief electoral officer when we discovered inconsistencies and errors in lists provided by some of the parties):
* Links to pages containing complete
throughout New Zealand.
.
* Links to pages containing
.
.
* Links to pages containing
.
.
* Links to other nzherald.co.nz
dealing with issues of concern to voters:
* Links to the series
by Simon Collins who travelled the country talking to voters.
.
* As well, most news stories published during the campaign included an invitation to readers to email us with a question to be put to each of the parties.
On election night, the entire staff of nzherald.co.nz were on hand to ensure that we were able to report the results as quickly as possible. Since there would be no Herald newspaper the following day (Sunday) many of our print edition colleagues also joined us in the Herald newsroom as subeditors and analysts.
We were well aware of the many thousands of New Zealanders abroad who would not be able to tune into radio and television election coverage and our goal was to show that a "newspaper" could rise to the challenge of covering a big, breaking, news story.
Our web publishing system was specially tweaked for the evening to ensure that stories would appear on the website instantly, and our technical team was on-site to monitor the servers under the anticipated heavy load (the equipment performed perfectly).
Our coverage comprised:
*
describing the overall voting trend (updated every few minutes):
* Reports on
,
and
(Herald reporters were with most of the party leaders and filed by telephone to our news room team)
* A
of the party vote progress, prominent on our homepage was updated as often as every minute at the peak of vote counting. The bar graph was driven automatically by the vote percentages as they were input.
* A
(party vote, electorate seats, party seats, total seats) was continually updated throughout the evening.
* A
(leading candidate, 2nd place, margin) was continually updated throughout the evening.
* A
showing Detailed Results was updated throughout the evening. Sample:
* The Herald even published its first
comment on the election result, via nzherald.co.nz within a few minutes of the result being known.
The day following the election, Sunday July 28, was a non-publishing day for the print edition of the New Zealand Herald. As a seven-day-a-week operation, however, nzherald.co.nz continued its coverage of the election with updates, reaction and two guest commentaries.
In the immediate post-election period, our readers had another opportunity to learn more about politics MMP-style. The election night results fluctuated slightly and parties disputed over who would site where continued, while nzherald.co.nz kept updating the
.
Our
continued to grow and develop as Herald reporters and commentators chronicled the birth of a new Labour-led Government, analysed the success of United Future, and pondered the fate of the National Party.
And after a rest break of 3-4 years, the team at nzherald.co.nz, will be more than ready to do it all again!
Neil Sanderson, Editor, nzherald.co.nz