What can we learn from large media corporations when publishing live content?

With all that buzz about live video, we could be tempted to think of it as if it was a new thing, but it’s not, of course. Big media has been doing this for decades and have made it a form of art.

It’s during those large, live events that you can really admire what live content creation involves.

Last week, a lot of us watched the first live presidential debate in the United States, and it’s always a rendez-vous for fact-checkers and researchers to work on what each candidate says.

I found the methodology used by NPR for validating and fact checking very interesting. Live (or with a couple minutes’ delay at the most), they were able to publish a verbatim of the debate, complete with annotations and journalistic verifications.

How did they do it? You can discover the magic behind this in a Nieman Journalism Lab article:

  • They used the live closed-captioning feed;
  • They had about 50 reporters, research specialists, visual editors, copyeditors, etc.;
  • One Google Docs file.

Of course not all live content creation or video feed your brand puts out needs such a rigorous process, but it can be interesting to see how a large media group used the tools at their disposal (tools you also have access to) to generate live content, as fast as possible, but also as true as possible.