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Dec. 3, 2004

Dear AP Sounding Board members,

There were seven responses to our ambitious survey about the speed and comprehensiveness of AP election day coverage in words, photos and graphics.

The nine questions — combining suggestions from Rick Everett of the Newark Star-Ledger and the AP — also ranged over use of exit poll information from the AP and two other polling groups, and reactions to AP's redesigned 50-state election glance (four of seven used it).

Replies gave AP spot coverage generally high marks across the board. Sum up comments included "pretty thorough," "outstanding job," "no problems or deficiencies," "everything we needed," "good roundups."

There were also suggestions for future national election coverage — cite the popular vote total in main wrap-ups; keep copy on secondary state races updated; stronger early analysis; and, because of the volume, consider transmitting stories and agate on separate circuits.

Our thanks for taking time to participate. Your comments are valuable for the AP and of interest across the Sounding Board.

Your full responses follow:

1. Did the AP election story lineup suit your needs? Were there stories you had to have staff-written or cull from supplemental services because they were missing from the AP lineup?

— Everything was fine from AP. (John Bartosek, managing editor, Palm Beach Post)

— The AP election stories basically met our needs. (Rick Hall, managing editor, Deseret News, Salt Lake City)

— AP lineup met our needs for most part. Supplemental wire used to round out post-election analysis. (Reed Eckhardt, managing editor, Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Cheyenne)

— Story lineup was fine. We used staff for some local and state races. (Richard Quist, executive news editor, Los Angeles Daily News)

— I think AP did a good job of providing us with national and Ohio stories that supplemented our local budget. There were good roundups and, as always, AP sent updated version of stories throughout the night. (Steve Roberts, news editor, Dayton Daily News)

— In general, AP did a good job in covering the areas we were interested in. The stories were updated in timely fashion and we relied on AP to keep us informed of the election count. (Bill Betterton, copy chief, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson)

— Yes, you guys gave us everything we needed. We used your coverage plans as the base of our non-staff coverage. (Daryl Kannberg, national editor, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)

2. Did the AP keep you well apprised of events all through the night with advisories and other alerts?

— Yes, advisories were good, no problems. (Bartosek)

— Yes. (Hall)

— For the most part, yes. Would like to have better idea of when new leads, write-throughs were coming. (Eckhardt)

— Yes. (Quist)

— Advisories moved quickly. We had virtually no questions on when or what stories were coming. (Roberts)

— Yes. (Betterton)

— I think so. We worked off your original plan, and everything appeared to stay on schedule. (Kannberg)

3. If you did an extra edition, did AP provide timely information on early morning developments?

— Didn't do one. (Bartosek)

— Didn't do one. (Eckhardt)

— No extra. (Quist)

— No extra edition. (Roberts)

— We didn't have an extra edition. (Betterton)

— Nope, no extra. (Kannberg)

4. Pre-election advisories promised that chart data would move at specific times each hour. Did it? Was it updated enough to meet your needs?

— Chart data was on time, updated regularly. We used a lot of it. (Bartosek)

— We used our own graphics. (Hall)

— Not an issue. (Eckhardt)

— Charts seemed to move regularly. (Quist)

— We kept track of events from your bulletins and updated the graphics to meet our needs. (Betterton)

— Our graphics dept. handled this but it seems to me that it provided them with information on time for our needs. (Roberts)

— Seemed to, at least the ones we used. Certainly nothing to complain about. (Kannberg)

5. Did AP's photo coverage provide what you were looking for?

— Ran staff photos on front, but all the photos on cover of special section are AP's. (Bartosek)

— Because of lack of exposure by the presidential candidates, particularly Senator Kerry, we didn't have as many choices as we would have liked. (Hall)

— Yes. (Eckhardt)

— We relied very little on AP photos because of unpredictability of candidate appearances. (Quist)

— We had a good selection of photos move throughout the night. Absolutely sufficient for our needs. (Roberts)

— Of the election, the coverage was solid. However, the rest of the nation for non-election photos was not there. (Betterton)

— We used local staff photos heavily, but we got what we needed from you guys for the stories that needed AP photos. (Kannberg)

6. How well did AP serve your Web site?

— Fine, regular updates. We worked thru corporate office to get 50-state results on all papers' web sites. (Bartosek)

— Fine. (Eckhardt)

— No complaints. (Quist)

— Coxnet handled our relations with AP for the election, so we on the Web team didn't need to. However, that said, from what I could tell AP did an excellent job of planning and communicating that plan for the Web. (James Lloyd, multimedia editor, Dayton Daily News)

— Seemingly well. I saw ongoing updates. (Kannberg)

7. How valuable did you find the exit poll information offered by AP? If you subscribed directly to the Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International polling, how well did they perform in your view?

— Some folks obviously spun the exit data into a win for the Dems. But we didn't subscribe directly to the service. (Bartosek)

— We didn't use it. (Hall)

— Worked OK. (Eckhardt)

— NA. (Quist)

— We found the exit poll information generally helpful in getting an understanding of why people voted the way they did. They were not of much value in helping us predict the outcome of things in Ohio. (Steve Sidlo, managing editor, Dayton Daily News)

— Exit polls were interesting, but there were questions about how accurate they were. (Betterton)

— We subscribed directly. Despite the warnings, we planned one of our stories around the mid-afternoon results … and, of course, that later proved wrong. They are what they are. Polls are sometimes a little off. We got what we paid for. (Kannberg)

8. Did you make use of some or all of the AP's newly formatted 50-state glance? Any comments on its quality and timeliness?

— We didn't use AP's format. (Bartosek)

— We didn't use it. (Hall)

— No. (Eckhardt)

— We devoted a full page to the state glance but had to trim portions from each state even with reduced type. (Quist)

— I found the 50-state glance really useful. It was updated, I believe, three times during the night. It added a very nice piece for our election package. I would very much like to see this during the next election. (Roberts)

— We used the 50-state glance to provide readers with a quick look at what happened in each state. However, dividing the states into regions was unhelpful. We felt our readers would look for states alphabetically. (Betterton)

— We sort of used a portion of it for the day-after coverage. It worked well. With our, ahem, older system, we didn't fell we could use it live effectively. (Kannberg)

9. Any other observations about AP's election night coverage, on such matters as quality of writing, length, specific stories you liked or didn't?

— Again, no problems or deficiencies with any of AP coverage. (Bartosek)

— We were disappointed that in the main presidential election story late Tuesday night, the popular vote total was not mentioned. (Hall)

— Biggest problem was trying to track new leads, writethroughs amidst all of the copy that was sent on national political wire. Might need to consider separating agate information from national political, similar to what is done with sports. (Eckhardt)

— We tend not to rely on AP for California election night stories for secondary races as updates seem spotty and we can be left dangling on deadline. We used AP for the state proposition roundup but not for Legislative races. (Quist)

— Personally I believe AP does an outstanding job during election night. (Roberts)

— Analysis was a little weak to start with but developed into something better as we had a better idea of which way the election was headed. (Betterton)

— I thought the coverage was pretty thorough. Lengths were pretty reasonable. (Kannberg)

Have a question the board should pose to AP? Send it to AP National Desk Editor David Minthorn at dminthorn@ap.org, who is coordinating the Sounding Board.

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