Ben Hammersley’s coverage of the Turkish elections last month was the BBC’s first experiment using a mixture of internet technologies including Twitter and crowd sourcing to cover elections. Hammersley talked about his experience with the UK’s Pressgazette before actually setting out on his 15 day assignment. He said: “I’ve wanted to do this for 10 years or so and now the tools are all in place. I don’t really know whether twittering my way around a two-week assignment is a good idea or not. I think it is. I think it could be quite compelling for people who are into that sort of thing. And it certainly wouldn’t take that much time.” He also said he thought it was likely that it would be a totally different way of working from sticking your head out the window and making sure the camera catches the dishes on the rooftops.
The ‘life reports’ on this life reporting assignment show the ins and outs of it all. Our comment? It’s like learning to cook on a four pit stove when you’ve only had a single pit before. But who are we? Check out the Press Gazette’s article and follow the links on the right to access Hammersley’s Twitter, his Delicious files, his Flickr photos, his blog. Plus the BBC’s guidelines. Woa! Some days you wish you’d woken up even earlier…
(off to see if Benny wants to be a Twitter friend)