Print picks up online's time stamp
Andy Bechtel noticed the "time stamp" on the elections results on the front page of the paper today. (We published mug shots of the second, third and fourth place finishers with their percentages of the vote totals. Above that the hed says, "Other top finishers, as of 11:53 p.m."
I asked Melissa Umbarger, who designed the front page, about it. She said, "We went with a time stamp because trying to get both the percentage of GOP and Dems precincts reporting was messy and could have been confusing (without a longer explanation) with everything else that was out there. I think it's also because we are reporting, in effect, partial scores, something that sports doesn't do."
In fact, it allows us to tell readers precisely what we knew when we knew it. Because the newspaper slaps onto driveways five or six hours later, it signals to readers that it's possible that the percentages could have changed overnight. (Wish we had done it back on election night in 2000.)
Almost immediate update: Andy writes back: I haven't seen a paper do that before. On the one hand, it's honest, detailed and straightforward, and it /looks/ cool. On the other hand, it exposes how much lag there is between the final touches in the newsroom and delivery to the reader.
I'm guessing most readers understand that.