From monologue to dialogue: How Sky News is revamping the modern live blog

Jimmy Rice, live blog news editor at Sky News

It has been a hell of a few breaking news days. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump on the weekend, and today, the body of British teenager Jay Slater was found while England football manager Gareth Southgate stepped down. These have all made major headlines and the best way to keep readers up-to-the-minute is through live blogs.

Jimmy Rice, live blog news editor at Sky News, is one of the key figures behind its live coverage, including responding to the Trump shooting by getting a live blog up and running immediately, beating most others to the punch. He spoke to Journalism.co.uk about setting up live blogs at speed and the elements the team brings in to build a picture of the unfolding story.

Q: What was the moment like when the Trump story broke and you had to very quickly cobble the liveblog together - how quickly did you do it and what was the rough workflow?

JR: I had just gone to bed when my phone flashed with the push to our breaking news lead. I did not realise how big it was until we got the bloodied picture of Trump – that was one of the biggest wow moments I have had in 20 years in news.

Like many others, I got in touch with the desk to see what I could do. All the credit for the speed has to go to our online overnight assistant editor Alison Chung and sub editor James Robinson, as well as the foreign desk who give the nod that we go with something across platforms.

By this stage a lot of people across platforms were heading to the office – that is where we work best. But I live an hour away from the newsroom (in Osterley) so for speed I set up a blog from my living room in Enfield. Our live blog partner Norkon is super smooth and integrated into our CMS so it was just a case of writing a hello post outlining the story, filling in three boxes (teaser headline, SEO headline, standfirst), putting on a photo, and pressing publish. Less than five minutes and it was up.

The hello post from Sky News Trump shooting live blog

By this stage Ollie Cooper, one of my live reporters, and Ben Bloch, one of our Politics Hub reporters, had got in. Workflow was one of the guys on breaking news and lines from our US partner network NBC News, and one listening to Sky News and our various feeds for witnesses.

Overnight we had US correspondents Mark Stone and James Matthews prominent in the blog and by morning our international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn had filed on how significant the clenched fist could turn out to be.

US correspondents reporting through the night

Q: How has the Trump shooting liveblog performed and still performing?

JR: I think I am right in saying Sky News was first with the push, including all the US networks. That speed had a big impact on SEO. Within minutes of the push I could see more than 120,000 concurrent visits to the live blog from Google alone, and 100,000 of those were classified as new users – most from the US.

Early indications suggest Sunday (14 July, the day after the Trump shooting) was our best-ever day for search traffic. Focusing on the blog, our analytics changed recently so it is difficult to compare precisely – but uniques were up there with our best-performing blogs ever alongside covid-19 and Ukraine, behind only the Titan Sub.

Top news and in-depth analysis on the Sky News Trump attempted assassination live blog

Q: Breaking news today (16 July 2024) is that Gareth Southgate has resigned as England football manager. The story was sitting top of the website as a live stream and live blog. What is the thinking with the treatment here?

JR: We use this function in those big moments where people just switch on their TV, or want to switch on their TV, to follow live coverage. It partners really well with our live blog – which can turn into a second-screen experience alongside the rolling coverage on the stream. We have noticed really good engagement with the stream.

The best blogs should not just be about what’s happening – but what happens next. This is a perfect example. If we filled the Southgate blog with tributes and reflection, people would switch off quite quickly. That is why the headline, and a lot of the focus, is on who comes next. No one cares what the weather is today – they know that, they want to know what the weather is going to be tomorrow.

Pairing the live stream with the live blog at the top of the Sky News website

Q: The other breaking news story is the confirmed death of British teenager Jay Slater in Tenerife. What are the golden rules to running a live blog at Sky News for stories like these?

JR: Again, we do not want to just focus on what’s happening, but what it means and what the consequences could be. That is what the audience wants and that is where having a TV channel is a big advantage for us with live blogs – we have got correspondents around the world not only feeding in lines and providing expert analysis and context.

One of my aims as live blogs editor is to make the blogs a 'best of Sky News'. So with the Jay Slater live blog, we are getting lines in from Shingi Mararike, our correspondent who has had contact with the family and reported from Tenerife, we are working with our graphics team to get maps, often if TV is not running with a story, we will have a podcast at the top with a call to 'listen while you scroll'.

Correspondent Shingi Mararike reporting from Tenerife

Our OSINT team is absolutely crucial these days in verifying online material – that is probably the biggest change we have seen in the last few years, and we have an incredibly talented data and forensics operation in the newsroom. All of this together, I hope, makes our live blogs among the most engaging and informative out there.

OSINT within the Sky News live blog - click for the full post

Q: How do you decide what information to use, especially from social media?

JR: The information is coming our correspondents and bureaus around the world, our news desks, dozens of live feeds coming into the building, wires, socials – and I think one thing that sets the best blogs apart is when the live reporters are encouraged to find original content themselves. That has been absolutely crucial to the success of our Money blog which launched earlier this year.

The best live blogs are not news aggregators and they are not a dump for anything and everything. Five years ago I would hear things like, 'It's not good enough for a news lead or a package on TV but we'll put it in the blog'. That has changed – as news editor, I am curating content or telling bloggers something does not make the cut. You have to keep a thread of the big picture throughout.

Q: How do you think about text and news copy in a liveblog? What should be the tone or writing style?

JR: Our bloggers are encouraged to adopt an analytical, conversation style without editorialising. It is not easy, but we want to take readers on a journey through a story, through a day. It is subtle things like 'You’ll remember we told you this at 11.05am, well now this has happened'.

Again, you have to keep bringing it back to the big picture – yes, what’s happening, but often more important is what it means and what the consequences could be. This is especially important with something like our Ukraine blog, which has been running almost every day now in the same template since the invasion began.

We start every week with a 'big picture' post, scaling back to give readers an overview of where the war is at.

The Big picture post in the Ukraine blog - click for the full post

We open our question form regularly and get our military analysts and correspondents to answer reader questions. One of our key aims I have set for our blog team in the last year is to turn our live blogs from a monologue to the reader to a dialogue with them. You will see that a lot with our Money blog with regular comments, round-ups, experts answering reader money problems and polls.

I have been quite proud of Your Questions Answered feature in the Ukraine blog – this ran daily through a long period of the war, and now it is weekly. Getting our OSINT team involved has also been a good development from a few years ago – their thoughtful analysis of footage or photos can add a lot of texture to a blog – and help fulfil our analyse and explain mission.

Military analyst responding to reader questions on the Ukraine blog - click for the full response

Q: Do you think about two sets of audiences coming to the liveblog: the ones tuning in as it happens, and those who come later on looking to make sense of what’s happened?

JR: I have never thought of it in this way – but keeping that thread of the big picture is crucial, so anyone can dive in at any time and know what’s happening. There’s loads of people doing great live blogs but I think our key points section, linking cleanly to any individual posts, means ours is one of the easiest for consumers to follow along with – hopefully readers think that.

Key points as Gareth Southgate resigns as England football manager

Q: How are liveblogs different today than what they were in the past? 

JR: That idea that they are a dump for everything is gone. And certainly, our live bloggers are producing original content themselves, which probably was not the case five years ago. Our Money bloggers have done original series on the plight of carers, a set of interviews with inspirational women in business, an in-depth look at manifestation, we have weekly interviews with Michelin chefs picking their favourite cheap eats across the UK.

Blogs can be a home to original content now and I think we, and some of our rivals, are doing really interesting things with the format. News organisations have really started prioritising them since covid-19 and there is some really impressive work happening.

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