Going into this week it was clear that the Arizona and Michigan primaries were going to be a close contest between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. In the days leading up to the primaries Santorum made strong efforts to boost support in Michigan even attempting to convince Democrats to cast their vote against Romney. Interestingly, Santorum’s efforts seemed to pay off as Romney only narrowly won his home state of Michigan.
These last couple days the Chicago Tribune had strong coverage of the primary results. Where as in previous primaries there were only about six different stories offered by the Tribune, these past couple days there were many more stories before, during and after the primary votes were being cast.
Prior to the voting results, the stories focused on the opinions of the different candidates (mainly Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum). There were a couple stories related to Santorum’s “robocalls” and how each of the candidates felt going into the primaries. There were stories related to the feelings of people on. Two stories gave graphics about whether or not people were giving positive or negative feedback about the primaries on Twitter.
When Tuesday passed and Wednesday morning came story content began to shift to candidate response and how these primaries would affect the momentum leading up to Super Tuesday.
In relation to social media, the Chicago Tribune did very little tweeting about the event. There were a couple of tweets that said Romney won and tweets providing links to the stories they had about the race but they also had quite a few tweets related to other things (such as the Midwest hurricanes).
Although the Tribune had strong coverage of the primaries it is obvious that its political focus is shifting to local elections. The elections page now has a section entitled Illinois congressional races. However, I think this has only made their political coverage stronger because it shows that the Tribune is able to balance national and local political coverage.
These last couple days the Chicago Tribune had strong coverage of the primary results. Where as in previous primaries there were only about six different stories offered by the Tribune, these past couple days there were many more stories before, during and after the primary votes were being cast.
Prior to the voting results, the stories focused on the opinions of the different candidates (mainly Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum). There were a couple stories related to Santorum’s “robocalls” and how each of the candidates felt going into the primaries. There were stories related to the feelings of people on. Two stories gave graphics about whether or not people were giving positive or negative feedback about the primaries on Twitter.
When Tuesday passed and Wednesday morning came story content began to shift to candidate response and how these primaries would affect the momentum leading up to Super Tuesday.
In relation to social media, the Chicago Tribune did very little tweeting about the event. There were a couple of tweets that said Romney won and tweets providing links to the stories they had about the race but they also had quite a few tweets related to other things (such as the Midwest hurricanes).
Although the Tribune had strong coverage of the primaries it is obvious that its political focus is shifting to local elections. The elections page now has a section entitled Illinois congressional races. However, I think this has only made their political coverage stronger because it shows that the Tribune is able to balance national and local political coverage.
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