#HappyPope and Other Hashtags
When news breaks, web journalism proves its worth.
The election of Pope Francis Wednesday was not just an exercise in web and social media reporting, it was a real-time, real-life experience that I will remember as one of my favorite breaking news days at ATVN.
Earlier that morning, we expected to report on the mid-day papal conclave vote, but definitely did not expect for a pope to be selected so soon.
When white smoke appeared out of the Sistine Chapel chimney shortly after 7 p.m. Rome time, the entire newsroom erupted in cheers and went straight to work.
Lead producer Lillian shouted as loud as she could to rally up the newsroom troops. We had to think on our feet, plan out the coverage and reroute our reporters and multimedia journalists who were all across town covering other stories when the news broke.
"Straight to the Cathedral!"
"Straight to the USC Catholic Center!"
As the web producer, I jumped on Twitter and Facebook right away to deliver the news. Since we did not have a correspondent in or a live video feed out of Rome, the most immediate way for us to relay information to our audience is through social media.
An hour later, when Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina was announced as the new Pope Francis, our lead producer and executive producer directed people "Straight to the Jesuit community!" and "Straight to wherever Argentinians may be in Los Angeles!"
Concurrently, I diligently live tweeted and wrote Facebook statuses about new developments from the Vatican. Live tweeting and real-time Facebook updates are my favorite parts of breaking news, because they are testaments to the lively and changing nature of the 21st century journalism.
As these online networks lit up with news and comments from across the globe, we were able to join in on the conversation. We announced that a pope had been selected, explained who he was, previewed his speech and reported what he said in real-time. We delivered a lot of information very quickly to a large audience of people.
In particular, I really appreciate hashtags, because they connect our coverage with global tweeting about this historic event. I may have gotten a little hashtag happy though...at one point, I posted "#new #pope" as part of a tweet and also tagged a tweet about Pope Francis smiling during his speech with the hashtag "#HappyPope". :)
The good thing is, I didn't forget to ask people to use the hashtag #ATVNyourview, our new social media citizen journalism campaign.
Web journalism is more than just Twitter and Facebook though, so we also had to create web articles with multimedia elements, like photos and video.
I was the only person working the web team at the time, so it was a challenge to manage the website, Twitter, Facebook and watch the television feeds simultaneously. Web advisor Bianca quickly stepped in to help. As I live tweeted, Bianca gathered screengrabs from the CNN feed (to which we are subscribed) to add visuals to our web coverage, helped to change the Trending Topics link from "Papal Conclave" to "Pope Francis," embedded the Vatican Youtube feed onto our page and created photo slideshows with updated images of the new pope.
We did a good job of publishing web articles of substance, despite our limited staffing. Between the white smoke appearing and the announcement of the new pope, I quickly wrote an article: "White Smoke Appears at Vatican; New Pope Has Been Chosen."
As video producer Josh waited for video to come in from Rome, he rapidly drafted and posted a second article: "Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio Elected Pope."
Without both Josh and Bianca's help, our coverage would have been much more limited, so we all owe them a big thank you.
Another exciting moment was reading the first post-election tweet from the pope's official Twitter account, @Pontifex, posted just moments after Pope Francis gave his speech from the balcony.
HABEMUS PAPAM FRANCISCUM
— Pontifex (@Pontifex) March 13, 2013
It was so cool to witness Twitter and Latin, modernity and history meld together in one message, one moment.
Overall, breaking news days are incredibly stressful, but they are also very fun and memorable. I couldn't have asked for a better day to work as the web producer. Our lead producer and executive producer did a fantastic job of filling our newscast with comprehensive coverage from many different angles, so I was proud to work with Bianca and Josh to bolster their hard work with our real-time, web coverage throughout the day.
For a look at our Twitter and Facebook coverage throughout the day, check out the Storify below!
