Something new happened at the Navajo County elections office this week, and if you follow the Painted Desert Tribune on Facebook, you saw it as it happened. For the first time in this newspaper’s 116 years, the Tribune covered the counting of an election live. Cameras are not allowed anywhere near the counting itself which meant the coverage looked like this: watch the count, talk to the officials running it, then hustle back outside to go live on Facebook and report what I had just seen, over and over, all night. I was also the only member of the media in the building, which says something about where local news stands these days and it meant the job got bigger than planned. The Arizona Republic in Phoenix relied on me as its contact on the ground and between Facebook reports I was calling my dedicated line to deliver results to their newsroom too.
The video coverage was made possible by a Startup and Innovation Grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation, which was awarded to us recently to aid our expansion into video and livestreaming. This is exactly the kind of thing we would like to use this new equipment for.
And I will be honest with you. It was fun. There is something energizing about all that running back and forth, knowing neighbors across the county are watching and asking questions in the comments. I have only worked at this weekly print newspaper, so seldom do I get to feel like the news we’re reporting is immediate and breaking and that was a good feeling. It felt like I was taking the whole county with me. It mattered this week, too, with more than 900 early ballots returned as undeliverable and state officials still looking into why. Transparency is more important than ever.
Thank you to Navajo County Elections Director Raylene Richards, her staff and the sheriff’s department who answered those questions in-between doing the work and to everyone who watched my sleep-deprived glossy eyes deliver the final report after midnight. If you haven’t seen the livestream of the counting room, I would suggest a quick gander because that team really works like a well-oiled machine. The Tribune plans to do it again in November and I would love to have you watching with me. Follow the Painted Desert Tribune on Facebook so you do not miss it.
