Mastering Election Coverage: Empowering Journalists with Mobile Reporting Skills

Mastering Election Coverage: Empowering Journalists with Mobile Reporting Skills.

  • 19th March, 2024

With the Local and EU Elections swiftly approaching, Learning Waves has curated a comprehensive training calendar tailored to the needs of radio stations.

Throughout April and May, five workshops on 'European and Local Elections: The Coverage and Count Process' will be delivered by Sarah Kieran, MediaLawyer, alongside Simon Devilly, a Media and Communications Consultant. On April 11th, Joanne Sweeney from Digital Training Institute will present 'A Social Media Strategy for Election Coverage 2024.' In this blog, we'll delve into a course that promises to captivate marketing teams and journalists alike: 'Mobile Reporting during Local and EU Elections 2024,' facilitated by Glen Mulcahy of Titanium Media. This course will run twice, on April 23rd and May 14th, offering valuable insights for stations gearing up for election coverage. 

Mobile Reporting during Local and EU Elections 2024 

This one-day training is designed to equip multimedia journalists with the skills and knowledge needed to effectively cover local elections on social media platforms. This course is aimed at all presenters, researchers, producers, social media editors, and content creators who will be covering EU and Local Elections 2024. 

The surge in smartphone usage has revolutionised the landscape of reporting for radio, creating an era of immediacy and accessibility. With powerful cameras, robust editing apps, and fast connectivity at their fingertips, journalists are no longer bound by traditional equipment or workflows. Instead, they can capture, edit, and distribute news stories in real-time, providing audiences with instant coverage directly from the scene. In the context of local and EU elections, the significance of mobile reporting cannot be overstated. These events demand responsive coverage, capturing communities and political developments as they happen.

This course serves as a resource for multimedia journalists seeking to navigate the fast-paced realm of election coverage on social media platforms. Whether participants are seasoned journalists or newcomers to the field, the curriculum is crafted to accommodate varying skill levels and backgrounds, ensuring that all attendees derive maximum value from the training experience. 

Course Content 

Module A: Essential Mobile Journalism Skills 

  • Smartphone Photography 
  • Shooting Interviews and Vox Pops 
  • Essential Video Editing on Devices

Module B: Content Ideas and Formats 

  • Carousel/Gallery
  • Photo Montage/Highlights
  • Timelapse
  • Branded Quote cards
  • Twitter/X Quad post
  • Travel Boast Maps
  • Split Screen / Montage
  • Animated graphics
  • Alpha channel graphics for video
  • Interviews/VoxPops
  • Turn Video Clip into GIF (LumaFusion)
  • Turn batch of Live Photos into a short Video
  • Rip viral audio from IG and use Mojo templates
  • Memes and Apps to make them
  • Mojo/Unfold/Canva
  • AI Image generation MidJourney
  • Using default duration to build timed slideshows to music

Conclusion and Action Plan

  • Recap of Key Takeaways
  • Developing an Action Plan for Election Coverage
  • Branding and Graphics list
  • Q&A Session

About Glen Mulcahy  

Glen Mulcahy is the Founder of Titanium Media, a media training and consultancy firm that specialises in mobile journalism and social video storytelling. A former Head of Innovation with RTÉ, he has inspired and driven the growth of mobile journalism within RTÉ’s newsroom and across other European broadcasters.  

Glen led RTÉ’s mobile journalism project (‘mojo’), and to date, RTÉ is successfully using mobile devices and apps to create finished news stories for broadcast and online, which can reach the highest possible quality standards. He also founded Mojocon, the first international mobile journalism conference, which was held on an annual basis from 2015 to 2017 and subsequently evolved into an independent event called ‘Mojofest’.  

Glen has trained more than 7,000 journalists in Europe, the US, and the Middle East, across television, radio, print, and online and his specialties are Mobile Journalism, Video Journalism, DSLR Filmmaking and Photography.  

To sign up for the course, click here. 

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