Archive for October, 2007
October 30th, 2007
I fly to Boston tomorrow to talk with fellow GateHouse journalists about Web-first publishing. Web first is journalism jargon for putting news when we know it online and then taking those stories and publishing them in the newspaper the next day.
I sometimes — OK, probably often — drive my colleagues crazy with questions like …
When can we get that story online?
Do we have more on this overnight crime?
That press conference ended an hour ago. Where’s the story?
Getting stories online timely and with accuracy is important to us at the News Tower. We use the Web because it’s the best platform to deliver news immediately to our readers. With the Web, we continue to be the primary source of news, information and advertising. And as my co-workers know, this is a topic I am passionate about. So, I am excited to head out to Boston, my first trip to the East coast.
I am not as excited about the traveling part. I dread is getting on that plane. I’m a lot like B.A. Baracus, the character played by Mr. T on the ’80s show “The A-Team.” B.A.’s buddies gave him tranquilizers each time they had to get him on a plane. Wish I had some of those suckers.
October 30th, 2007
talk about convergence:
doug goodman, our motor sports writer, appeared on the cw news at 9 each monday through the racing season.
byron dragway embedded one of those appearances on its site (we give you the “code” on our video player, though i find it doesn’t work on blogger).
so a newspaper writer went on wrex’s sister station and the video went on rrstar and another web site. viral.
October 30th, 2007
last night, in my personal time, i saw “fresh air” host terry gross, an award-winning interviewer from npr, in rockford at a fund-raiser for wnij.
her personal appearance was just as entertaining and insightful as her show, which airs at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. weekdays on 89.5 FM.
she shared clips from her interviews with peter o’boyle, bill o’reilly, george clooney, monica lewinsky, larry flynt and lynne cheney to show the challenges of asking people personal questions from afar (she works in philadelphia): guests get defensive or walk right out.
but there are rewards, she says. you find out what makes people who they are (often, their faults, like a priest fighting for death row inmates who feels he doesn’t pray enough). and you learn more about yourself.
at the register star, we don’t often appear on the radio. aside from will pfeifer’s weekly gig on friday mornings on wzok, it’s more of an occasional thing. but radio remains a powerful medium, as evidenced by the hundreds of people who turned out to see gross.
October 29th, 2007
on friday, our fifth issue of rockford woman came out — at 80 pages, much bigger than the 48 we started with.
one of our features, by georgette braun, explored the glory of the little black dress as a necessity for the holiday party season, and our models took their photos at the coronado.
this weekend, i talked to julie schaper from the rockford symphony orchestra, who wore her “LBD” to saturday night’s performance, and someone remarked that she was “a rockford woman.” indeed, so many of us are.
October 26th, 2007
Feel free to check out businessrockford.com, our new biz Web site. It officially debuts Monday, so bear with us if something’s not working right. Feel free to drop me a line at avoelker@rrstar.com if you have any feedback.
October 23rd, 2007
I am still busy getting businessrockford.com ready to launch Monday, so I haven’t been the best blogger. So, I’ll take a little time to encourage you to submit your Halloween photos. We’re looking for just about anything Halloween related. We’ll even take pictures of your pets in costume. We’ve started an online gallery.
I’ll share a picture of my boys, Luke and Abraham. We carved pumpkins Sunday. It’s the first time we used patterns and actual carving tools. Yeah, I’ve used a knife the last several years, and the pumpkins haven’t looked so great. That’s why I now am a proud supporter of any tools that will help me get through those suckers with ease.
Luke, 5, chose the cat design. Abe, 4, wanted the ghost. Luke stayed with me through the whole thing, though he found other things to do to stay busy. Sticking his hand inside the pumpkin wasn’t all he thought it would. Abe, on the other hand, watched the Bears pull off a miracle win. Both boys though hugged those pumpkins as if they sweated over ‘em.
Luke and Abe with their pumpkins
October 18th, 2007
say what you will about newspapers, but they remain a powerful tool: journalists still right wrongs, educate their communities and hold public officials accountable.
they also enlighten and entertain, as evidenced by friday’s feature about a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. done as part of our weekly dining review, it was the no. 2 story on our web site.
nate legue’s video caused a frenzy at the breeze, which makes the 1-pounder nate ate. the restaurant says it sold 220 pounds of pork friday through sunday. i’d say holy cow, but that’s not quite right.
we learn more about the power of video and its storytelling every day.
October 17th, 2007
We’ll debut BusinessRockford.com officially on Oct. 29. To refresh your memory on this product, I am reposting what we had in September on the new product.
We plan to introduce three new business products in October. There’ll be a Web site, a weekly magazine and two pages devoted to business news in the daily Rockford Register Star.
Huh, you say?
We’ll launch RockfordBusiness.com, an online business-to-business Web site with a companion weekly print publication that serves key business segments in the Rock River Valley. The Web site and the print publication will be specifically tailored to the needs of the local business community and be substantially different from the daily coverage of business in the Register Star. We’ll brand all three — the Web site, the weekly mag and the daily newspaper page — BusinessRockford.com.
From our outreach efforts, discussions with business people and our roundtable discussions in the first half of 2007, it’s clear that members of the business community are both busy and savvy. Busy business people need information that is easy to digest, affects them directly and gives them tools to get through their workday.
Our professionals are wired and want information when they want it and don’t want to wait for a weekly publication. The 24-7 availability of the Web suits their busy schedules.
Because of this, we’ve adopted a Web first, weekly publication second philosophy. Simply put, this means we will focus on the needs of the Web site, how it will be developed, populated and enhanced – and repurpose the Web content to the weekly print product.
It’s an approach we’re using on rrstar.com, but we still craft our content based on the needs of the daily newspaper. This would totally reverse that thinking. Content would be planned for the Web first and then repurposed for the two print products.
October 17th, 2007
Well, we’re working to get all of our blogs back on rrstar.com. We’ve got three up. The others are coming soon.
We had some technical problems when we switched over to WordPress as our host. We think we’ve got the issues resolved.
October 15th, 2007
on saturday, i was among the 3,000 walkers at the making strides against breast cancer walk in martin park (the pics by susan moran also show my mom, who looks like me, and my new boss, lil swanson, the managing editor of the register star, who doesn’t look like me).
i also was overwhelmed by the 500 or so people who attended rockford woman’s victory lap brunch after the walk at cliffbreakers.
it was a wonderful event: classy, casual and full of many great gift giveaways. the magazine raised at least $4,000 for the american cancer society in what undoubtedly will become an annual event.
thank you to all of our sponsors and attendees.
personally, i want to thank judy emerson for coming to me with this idea … and then making it happen. she had help from bea ricotta at the register star, plus mary brady, dorothy cieskus, kathy erickson, judy kudlicki, deb landmeier, becki harder lindvall, debi deMars ragsdale and barbara stieglitz.
i also want to thank my boss, linda grist cunningham, for a great speech about her mom’s own story. both of our mothers are survivors.
