Wordblog

Earlier this month I described the web coverage of the the Scottish, Welsh and local elections as “dismal“. If I dreamed of what Spanish newspapers would do for their provincial and municipal elections on May 27 I would have been much harsher.

For a lesson in how to cover elections on newspaper websites go to El Pais and El Mundo. They have combined text, multimedia, graphics, blogs and reader participation is a stunning demonstration of how it can be done. (Thanks to Mindy McAdams for pointing me to this and Guillermo López for his comparison in Spanish.)

El Pais is also including citizen journalist stories and pictures in a section of the printed paper called “Yo, Periodista” and on the web there is a section called “If I was the mayor”.

El Mundo includes a video report and a gallery on the politician who has gone into Second Life Second Life to give a speech. There is a sense of vibrancy in this coverage.

There are considerable differences in the approaches of the two newspapers so it is worth looking at both. Spanish national newspapers, competing with strong provincial papers, have much stronger local coverage than the British nationals would would have great difficulty in mounting such comprehensive coverage.

But the overwhelming impression is that while British papers complain about low turn-outs and voter apathy, the Spanish papers are taking their democracy seriously and doing all they can to inform and involve their readers in the campaign.