On the ground floor of 121 Bloor Street East, Dawna Friesen and Tom Clark are hosting a live panel: big screens with “Decision Canada” and “Global News” behind them, three cameras in front of them. Down the hall in a back room, 20 or so analysts are calmly watching over computers as polling data and election results are updated every couple of minutes. A couple of floors up, social media — Twitter, to be exact – is having a party.

This year, Global News and Twitter Canada partnered exclusively to bring real-time, in-depth coverage of Canada’s election night for online and broadcast audiences.  This partnership was unique for two reasons. First, there was an in-house team from Twitter Canada using data visualization technology to analyze live social media reactions.

This allowed on-site journalists like Global News’ Nicole Bogart to turn to the Twitter guys in the room and tell them that the hashtag #RockTheIndigenousVote was increasingly appearing on her Twitter feed because the minister of agriculture lost his seat and she needed data on it. The in-house Twitter team can then produce a cool chart for her to use in her online story.

Second, there was a Twitter-centric party, which is like every other party, except live-tweeting is encouraged.

The idea was to combine the election experience of Global News journalists with the immediacy of Twitter. Considering that over 6 million election-related Tweets were sent out over the past two-and-a-half months, it seemed reasonable to find the online conversation trends and chatter and put it into the context of the election to create what I’ve dubbed the “virtual streetcar” effect.

There were more than 4x as many Tweets sent about #elxn42 in 2015 than there were about #elxn41 in 2011 #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/2nnebN9npL

— Twitter Canada (@TwitterCanada) October 20, 2015

News organizations are capable of doing all of this on their own, according to Steve Ladurantaye, former journalist and current head of Canadian news and government partnerships for Twitter Canada. Wanting more of the best on-screen visualizations for the widest possible audience in the face of an under-staffed and under-resourced newsroom leads to partnerships like this one.

None of this is new information. Global News was merely practicing more closely what everyone knew about the importance of social media. The average person’s reactions as well as the pundit’s and the expert’s commentary didn’t have to be sought on the streets when they could be found at the fingertips.

However, the usefulness of the inclusion of social media in election coverage remains in doubt, as will be evident by the many articles on the subject today, including this one. When Global News’ decision desk declared a Liberal majority government around 9:40 p.m.,  everyone at the party tweeted out their Justin Trudeau graphic and then cheered, and Bogart quickly posted how social media reacted soon after.

On one hand, the inclusion of tweets from online platforms in newspapers and broadcasts has meant that the virtual streetcar effect is working. Yet is this is at the risk of too much chatter? At one point in the night, I watched Mike Armstrong’s TweetDeck column for #elxn42 updating every second, so fast that the tweets were illegible, making it a literal “stream” of information. “It’s just noise at this point,” said Armstrong, the anchor-host of the Global News #elxn42party. Except that for the in-house Twitter guys, it was data to collect.

Election coverage is layered, nuanced and complex, but it’s also calm — or at least it seems so on the surface (unless something unpredictable happens). Social media is the opposite of that: it’s fast and it’s wild. How do you find the voice of the crowd among the millions of voices in the crowd?

Perhaps figuring that out was why Global News formed a partnership with Twitter Canada for #elxn42.

Election day is finally, finally upon us, but the longest campaign in Canadian history since 1872 didn’t end quietly for the country’s print newspapers. If anything, it ended nonsensically.

Questions of who controls newspapers’ editorial voice haunted the final week of #elxn42 as print media outlets published their editorial board’s federal election choices. Some internet media, including the RRJ, questioned whether such endorsements are a practice worth keeping.

“For us, it seems a bit outdated,” said BuzzFeed Canada’s Emma Loop, while speaking to The Current on October 9. Although BuzzFeed does weigh in on particular issues, Loop said, the organization will “stay away from the partisan element” of politics by not endorsing a candidate.

Kathy English, public editor of the Toronto Star, was on The Current with Loop. She maintained that newspaper endorsements still have a place. “The Star is an institution that dates back over three centuries. Every day, it takes stands on issues that matter to the community,” said English. “It would be a cop-out not to do so in an election campaign.”

That morning, the Star published an editorial endorsing the Liberal Party of Canada. Two other Torstar papers, the Hamilton Spectator and the Waterloo Region Record, also endorsed the Liberals on October 15 and 17 respectively.

But it was the Postmedia endorsements on October 16 that made noise on Twitter as paper after paper in the national chain published an editorial endorsing the Conservative Party of Canada. The endorsement wasn’t by the editorial staff, however, as Edmonton Journal writer Paula Simons said in a tweet:

And yes. Before you ask, this was a decision made by the owners of the paper. As is their traditional prerogative.

— Paula Simons (@Paulatics) October 16, 2015

On Saturday, the National Post itself followed suit. Its editorial board’s pronouncement was also at odds with the opinions of columnists at the Post and other Postmedia holdings whose columns appeared on Friday and Saturday. Even Conrad Black himself weighed in, favouring a Liberal minority and referring to Stephen Harper as a “sadistic Victorian schoolmaster” who doesn’t know when to leave office. And one column was notable in its absence from the Saturday edition: that of Andrew Coyne, head of the Post’s editorial board.

According to Canadaland, Coyne’s column would have endorsed somebody other than the Conservatives, unlike the editorial endorsement he signed off on for the Post.  He has not spoken out on why his column did not appear, and his usually voluble Twitter feed has fallen silent — though Ricochet’s Ethan Cox noted that Coyne has disappeared in similar circumstances before.

UPDATE: Coyne has resigned from his post as editor

So anyway… I have resigned as editor of Editorials and Comment for the National Post, effective immediately. I will remain a columnist.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

2. Postmedia executives and I had a professional disagreement. Their view was that the publication of a column by the editorial page editor…

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

3. … dissenting from the Post’s endorsement of the Conservatives would have confused readers and embarrassed the paper.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

4. My view was that that was what I was paid to do as a columnist: give my honest opinion on issues of public interest.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

5. I don’t see public disagreement as confusing. I see it as honest. Readers, in my view, are adults & understand that adults can disagree.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

Numerous Postmedia properties were also notable for their front pages in the last days of the election campaign: full-page, bright yellow wrap ads from the Conservatives bashing the competition. The ads appeared on the covers of the Penticton Herald, Vancouver Sun, Calgary Sun, The Province, The London Free Press, Ottawa Citizen, and 24 Hours Toronto. Most were aimed at the Liberals, but the Penticton Herald ad targeted both the Liberals and NDP. Curiously, the Friday edition of 24 Hours Vancouver, also a Postmedia property, featured an NDP wrap ad. While it isn’t a new practice, one reporter noted that these ads were a step up from the norm.

@belindaalzner Never seen one in such big papers, either, but correct me if I'm wrong

— Selena Ross (@seleross) October 17, 2015

Meanwhile, back at The Globe and Mail‘s offices, editor David Walmsley spent an hour fielding questions on Facebook about the paper’s unconventional endorsement of the Conservatives without endorsing party leader Stephen Harper. 

“The half-heartedness is a sign of the weakness of the political candidates,” Walmsley said in response to one questioner. “It would be great to find a clear, obvious winner the country could unite behind, but we don’t have that at the moment.”

In response to the Globe’s ambivalence, some Twitter users channeled their inner political humourist with the hashtag #MoreGlobeEndorsements.

Globe endorses BLT: hold the bacon, hold the lettuce, hold the tomato. #MoreGlobeEndorsements #elxn42

— Jeff Meldrum (@jeffmeldrum) October 16, 2015

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, without the rights and freedoms. #MoreGlobeEndorsements

— Justin Mathews (@JustMath19) October 16, 2015

The Walking Dead. But no zombies. We have enough of them on our editorial board. #MoreGlobeEndorsements

— Erynn Watson (@erynnwatson) October 16, 2015

Here at the RRJ, we endorse newspapers, but we’re on the fence about newspaper endorsements.