At the NewsLab/Best Practices workshop for assignment editors, "Equipping the Desk for Campaign 2002," KCRA-TV planning editor Frank Wolff shared these tips to help your newsroom get up to speed and stay ahead of the curve on political stories this year.

• Know where you want to go … and work backward. Election night is your Super Bowl. Meet with your managers weeks before the election and decide where you want your crews on election night. Those races should be your priority and the same reporters should cover those races leading up to election day. If you know where you're going to end up, you can plan a good route to get there.
  
  
• Make a master list. Assemble a list of stories at least six weeks before an election. Start by getting all the ballot information. Put all the big races on your list, the obvious ones that you know you'll cover. Include anything interesting that you find. Maybe it's the first woman to run for judge, a high number of unopposed candidates, controversial or interesting local measures. Add some franchises like "follow the money" or "truth tests." Include the obvious stories that you know you'll cover like voter turnout, need for poll workers, third party candidates. You may come up with some different ways to do the same old stories. Start big and pare it down to your best stories.
  
  
• Divide and conquer. No one can do it all on their own. Try a team approach and get more people involved. Splitting your races up by geographic area works well. Put someone in charge of state races, someone else can handle counties, someone else takes local measures, etc.
  
  
• Files … files … files. Make background files for all your big races. Fill them with newspaper articles, press releases, voter guides, candidate statements, bios, arguments in favor / against measures, contacts and phone numbers. Keep them in a central place where reporters, producers, writers and anyone else can access the information.
  
  
• Find some experts. Put together a stable of experts that you can call on. Find some good non-partisan experts, like college professors, who can help you with truth test or ad watch stories. Try advocacy groups like Common Cause, taxpayer groups (they're always opposed to something), party spokespeople, recently retired office holders, a former mayor or state legislator, or a termed-out congressman.
  
  
• Make a political calendar. Your computer is full of stories but you can't keep track of who's doing what and when it's running. Here's a solution: make a calendar on a big dry-erase board. That allows you to see the entire month. Put all your scheduled events on it like debates, candidate forums, and release dates for polls. Then you can fill in holes as needed and keep track of what you have and have not done.
  
  
• Plug in your reporters early. Assign your reporters early and you will greatly increase your chances of getting good stories. Give them some background and some time to think about their story. There's nothing worse than handing someone a political story they know nothing about and telling them it needs to be on the air at 5:00.
  
  
• Set your own agenda. Just because a candidate or "yes on whatever" holds a news conference, it doesn't mean you have to do the story that day. Take the time to do the story right … fight the urge to do it "right now". Find the people who it affects, get into neighborhoods and talk to the people who want to see more parks built, or who are fighting for campaign finance reform. Make the candidates talk about the issues that are important to your viewers, don't let candidates or spokespeople set the agenda.
  
  
• Tracking and banking. Know when candidates will be in your market and plan accordingly. Know how to get in touch with the other side. Bank interviews when you get the opportunity. If "no on whatever" is in town, get them on tape. You may not need that sound today, but chances are you will at some point.
  
  
• HFR tapes. Save tapes and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches. What should you save? When someone announces they're running, someone gets a key endorsement, a big rally, precinct walks, debates, one on one interviews, etc. You never know when you need that one bite, and you can never have too much b-roll.