Live from Iowa, It’s The UpTake

Four Minneapolis-based citizen videobloggers from The UpTake are heading to Iowa today to join three reporters already on the ground to cover the presidential caucuses. They’ve got an ambitious news plan — from reporting on get-out-the-vote efforts and updates from headquarters of key candidate to victory parties and views from greater Iowa — but here’s what’s innovative: they’ll be doing live streaming reports on the UpTake “channel” on January 3 and 4. (The channel will toggle between live reports and produced pieces throughout the event.) The site also offers real-time chat on these streams as well as a poll where visitors can vote on what stories The UpTake should cover. The UpTake’s Noah Kunin says the site has always been driven by the passions of its bloggers, and therefore the community, but these new technical features offer more immediate ways to interact. “It’s definitely an experiment,” he says. “Whether or not that works for a planned enterprise project like this, we definitely want to find out.”

The team will also include reports from rural Iowans, who’ll be recording their entire caucus experience, start to finish, for  pieces to be aired on the channel. 

The group will be doing independent coverage as well as coordinating efforts with MinMon’s sister site, Iowa Independent.