Peter Wallenberg Learning Theater
Stanford University
The Stanford Journalism Department created a working newsroom in the Peter Wallenberg Learning Theater on November 6, 2012, concentrating on covering local ballot issues for communities around Stanford as well as state-wide ballot initiatives via their website Peninsula Press.


    Professor Ann Grimes briefs a visitor on the evening's activities outside the Learning Theater.



      Students worked together with senior journalists (faculty, professional colleagues and Knight Fellows) to cover their assigned stories, with the flat floor and flexible furniture providing the simple collection of these work groups.  

      The display wall provided national and local televised news context for the entire newsroom staff, as well as working space for the teams managing outreach via the web and authoring multimedia material.


          Instructor R. B. Brenner reviews assignments with visiting alum.

            Ann Grimes leads her Proposition 30 and 38 news team.


              A group of visitors hosted by the State Department view the busy newsroom from  the windows above.


                Thomas Hayden confers with his team covering Proposition 37.


                  The multimedia team do a last review before posting their piece on voting.


                  Overall, the multimedia team delivered five advance pieces (on Measure C, Death Penalty, Young Voters, Ballot Count, Prop. 30), posted photos, graphics and videos all night to the live blog, and initiated the group's first Instagram feed.

                    A member of the web team works his social contacts abroad in front of a display of the Google Analytics page for Peninsula Press.  In all, the site had more than 30,000 visits in the 24 hours starting from noon on Election Day; this compares to their usual traffic rate of 5,000–7,000 visits per week.

                    The team covered more than 10 stories on deadline, conducted a live blog, tweets, multimedia and conventional text stories, some of which were picked up by their partners at KQED and the San Francisco Chronicle.