Your One-Stop Guide to Following the Royal Birth Online!

This is one of those quick little posts that you can quickly scan and file away until you need it. It’s a briefer on what to expect, what to look for and who to follow online (now and later) for your best coverage of the upcoming royal birth.

UPDATED MAY 2, 2am: Follow all of the events on our live blog here.

Fast Facts:

• You may recall that when George was born Kate and William were seen by photographer Jesal Parshotam as they arrived at the hospital (he elected not to take photographs of the couple arriving). It is likely the news will break on Twitter with this baby as well. (We have a handy list of accounts to follow down below.)
• Kate was in labor with George approximately 10-1/2 hours.
• Should the baby be born after 10pm (5pm EDT, 2pm PDT) ) there won’t be any official Palace announcement until 8am (3am EDT, Midnight PDT) the next morning. That is because the Queen will be sleeping and won’t be notified during those hours.
• However, that 10pm – 8am blackout period doesn’t mean there won’t be any news generated, far from it; the live shots and online coverage will continue apace.
• The birth and gender will be announced on social media by Kensington Palace on Twitter, on Facebook and on Instagram.
• In addition to the online announcement the standard written announcement will be driven to Buckingham Palace and displayed on the traditional easel.

Once we have the news we will do a brief post (much like this one) alerting everyone that Kate has been admitted to the hospital. And then, when conditions warrant, we will switch to live blogging of the event, just as we did in 2013. Here’s what that actually looked like on the site.

What Kate Wore July 22, 2013

As family members and others arrive we will share those images, like this one of Kate’s parents, Carole and Mike Middleton, arriving at the hospital in July 2013.

Georgina Brewer, ITV (@GeorginaITV)

Of course we were live when Kate and William presented Prince George to the world, and we continually posted links on Facebook for watching live coverage online and on TV. We also continually tweeted those links.

Georgina Brewer, ITV

WHAT TO EXPECT AFTER THE BIRTH::

• we can expect Carole and Michael Middleton to visit the Lindo Wing, as well as Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
• look for Kate’s personal assistant Rebecca Deacon, along with assistant Natasha Archer, to arrive at St. Mary’s before Kate is discharged; in 2013 they were seen arriving with clothing, hair tools and cosmetics
• once Kate leaves the hospital the Cambridges will head to their London home, Apartment 1A Kensington Palace, for a night or two; expect HM to pay a visit to meet her newest great-grandchild
• following the brief stay at KP the family will then move to Anmer Hall for the foreseeable future
• we can expect an announcement on the baby’s name within 48 – 72 hours
• when Prince George was born William and Kate asked anyone thinking about sending a gift to instead make a donation to the Imperial College Healthcare Charity. (The organization raises funds to improve care and services at five hospitals, including St. Mary’s.) We have no idea if the couple will repeat this sort of gesture or not, but it would certainly be in keeping with similar requests made by the couple.

That is the game plan for coverage here at WKW. But we recognize many readers want to stay on top of things via additional/other sources, so we’ve compiled these lists for you to refer to as desired.

We begin with official media sites for the Palace. While we won’t see minute-by-minute tweets and posts on these accounts, it is where official announcements will be made and photos released.

• Kensington Palace Twitter (official account for Kate, William, Harry)
• Kensington Palace Instagram (official photos related to the Duke and Duchess and Prince Harry)
• British Monarchy Twitter (umbrella account for the Monarchy)
• British Monarchy Instagram (official photos related to the Royal Family)
• British Monarchy Storify (used for coverage of a collection of tweets, Instagram photos, and other media)
• British Monarchy Facebook page
• The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge official website (the news will be released here as well)

The best place for the very latest information and ongoing live coverage will be Twitter. Below, a list with some of the royal reporting corps you may want to follow (in no particular order).

• Richard Palmer, The Express
• Rebecca English, The Daily Mail
• Victoria Murphy, The Mirror
• Max Foster, CNN
• David Wilkinson, CNN
• Simon Perry, People magazine chief foreign corresponent
• Simon Vigar, Channel 5 News
• Emily Andrews, The Sun
• Emily Nash, The Sun
• Gordon Rayner, The Daily Telegraph
• Camilla Tominey, The Sunday Express
• Victoria Arbiter, CNN, CTV
• Valentine Low, The Times
• Peter Hunt, the BBC
• Rhiannon Mills, Sky News
• Omid Mio Scobie, Us Weekly
• British Royals
• Carolyn Durand, ABC News
• Kelly Lynch of The Duchess Diary
• Royal Central
• Tom Sykes, The Daily Beast ‘The Royalist’
• Carly at Kate Middleton Style
• Anna of My Small Obsessions
• Susan at What Kate Wore

Royal photographers:

• Mark Stewart – Regal Eyes
• James Whatling – JWhatling
• Tim Rooke – RoyalFocus1
• Mark Cuthbert – Mark A. Cuthbert
• Andrew Parsons & Stephen Lock – i-Images
• Jesal Parshotam – TheRealJesal
• Chris Jackson, Getty – ChrisJack_Getty
• Samir Hussein – SamHussein

Also on Twitter:

• ITV News in the UK is here
• Sky News regular is here
• Sky breaking news is here
• BBC Breaking News is here
• Channel 5 News is here

LIVE BLOGS: Media live-blogging updates from the Lindo Wing

• The Mirror’s live blog is here
• The Telegraph’s live blog is here
• People magazine’s live blog is here
• The Sun’s live blog is here
• WKW‘s live blog is here

LIVE FEEDS: As with George’s birth, there will be live video feeds; following are some options. (NOTE: I will be updating this constantly, adding URLs we don’t yet have for The Sun, as well as more sites sure to be added.)

• The Huffington Post UK live stream will be here
• The Daily Mirror’s live feed will be here
• The Sun will have a live feed
• Hello! magazine’s live feed will be here
• The Telegraph’s live feed will be here
• the Associated Press will probably have a live feed, especially when William and Kate present their new baby on the steps of the Lindo Wing; this is where you are likely to find it
• Reuters News site for live coverage is here, you may need to sign in via your Facebook or Twitter account to access the feed (only active during breaking news coverage, expect them to also have live coverage)

Special pages that have been created for the event:

• The Mirror’s Royal Baby page is here
• The Telegraph’s Royal Baby coverage is located here
• Huffington Post UK has its Royal Baby page here
• People magazine’s landing page for Royal Baby coverage is here
• Hello! magazine’s page is here
• Us Weekly’s royals landing page is here
• The Monarchist League of Canada’s page is here

INSTAGRAM ACCOUNTS:

• Simon Perry of People magazine’s Instagram is here
• The Kensington Palace Instagram page is here
• Hello Canada’s Instagram is here

Again, we will continue to update things as appropriate, but wanted to get this initial post to you so have resources available should you want to follow things online.