Posts filed under 'Breaking news'
July 22nd, 2008
Yesterday, we published several updates on two stories: the Winnebago father and son who died in a farm accident and the Joseph Boomer trial coverage. Both were the most-viewed items on our site yesterday. They continue to drive traffic — and community conversation — today.
Both of these stories also are filled with human emotion. We journalists do our best to respect the families and friends affected when we’re covering stories like these.
I read comments on the farm accident story today, and one person thought we shouldn’t have posted any information until we had news.
We first told readers on rrstar.com around 3:30 p.m. when the coroner was on her way to the farm. The 911 call came about two hours earlier. We updated the story as we gathered more information. One of the updates confirmed how the father and son — died. Another update added context on the type of accident. Much later, we told you their names — Michael and Kyle Mitchell.
We try to share information with the public as we have it. That means we check that information and release it as we have it confirmed by sources. It’s not always black and white. This tragedy has affected a tight-knit community.
It was evident in this quote from the Rev. Steve Shullanberger of Winnebago First Presbyterian Church, who served as the family’s spokesman: “I’ve been blessed to know the Mitchell family for about 12 years. They’ve been a part of the church since before I was born, some 60 years. They’ve been dairymen for many, many years. They’re not just respected locally, but regionally. They’d give you the shirt off their backs to help you out.”
Today, we’re talking to community members who will help the Mitchell family run their farm as they cope with their loss.
May 22nd, 2008
OK. I am just going to use a cliche. When it rains, it pours. That is, when news happens, it really happens. I am officially calling today breaking news Thursday. It’s not even 1 p.m. yet and here are the major stories we’re working on today:
- Alan Beaman’s 1993 murder conviction reversed by Illinois Supreme Court today.
- Triplets with rare disease born at Rockford Memorial Hospital.
- Gas tops $4/gallon in Rockford.
Typically, right before Memorial Day, we struggle to fill our Web sites and our newspapers with newsy news. Not today or tomorrow. And the day certainly isn’t over yet.
May 13th, 2008
last night when i was driving home from work, i heard a story by melissa block from npr, who happened to be in china for a series she’s working on for next week.
thanks to a historic, devastating earthquake, she’s covering that instead.
at the site, you can hear the earthquake hitting “live” and people’s panic thereafter.
more moving is her tale of a shattered school, where many children lost their lives. block worked hard to keep her composure, as the scene was so somber. it’s a reminder of the struggle we have as journalists to report the news while showing compassion. and that journalists can be affected by stories. just like the niu student newspaper staffers during this year’s shootings. the dart center for journalism and trauma visited them recently. i know that some of our staffers were shook up from covering the story, too.
February 19th, 2008
I sent this e-mail to newsroom staffers today detailing Web traffic since the NIU shootings:
Breaking news drives traffic. We are nearing 1 million page views in 5.5 days.
Traffic on rrstar.com is at 940,269 page views (tracked from Feb. 14 through 1:55 p.m. today). Impressive.
If you haven’t taken a look at our special report, please do. There’s lots of good content there: Stories, photos, videos, condolences, headlines from around the world on NIU, Our NIU Alumni blog, audio of Blagojevich’s address and AP stuff (interactive timeline, graphic and videos).
Considering we weren’t alone covering this story, the traffic on our site is incredible.
Some highlights for you (bold numbers indicate NIU-specific traffic to the best of my knowledge):
Day 1, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008 (50,000 page views, 9,500 on photo gallery)
Total traffic: 215,102 page views
Previous Thursday traffic: 199,883 page views (we had an attorney gunned down the day before)
Average Thursday traffic: 150,000 page views
Figures: 36 updates from 3:33 p.m. to 10:03 p.m.
Day 2, Friday, Feb. 15, 2008 (100,000 page views, 61,300 on photo gallery)
Total traffic: 243,494 page views
Previous Friday traffic: 160,570 page views
Average Friday traffic: 140,000 page views
Figures: 46 updates from 12:12 a.m. until 9:44 p.m.
Day 3, Saturday, Feb. 16, 2008 (20,708 page views, 10,000 on photo gallery)
Total traffic: 115,626 page views
Previous Saturday traffic: 111,394 page views (high because of attorney shooting)
Average Saturday traffic: 98,000 page views
Figures: 23 updates from 1:22 a.m. until 9:40 p.m.
Day 4, Sunday, Feb. 17, 2008 (14,505 page views, 5,200 on photo gallery)
Total traffic: 116,997 page views
Previous Sunday traffic: 109,888 page views (high because of attorney shooting)
Average Sunday traffic: 95,000 page views
Figures: 8 updates from 8:11 a.m. until 12:06 a.m.
Day 5, Monday, Feb. 18, 2008 (18,889 page views, 6,300 on photo gallery)
Total traffic: 155,892 page views
Previous Monday traffic: 158,220 page views
Average Monday traffic: 150,000 page views
Figures: 16 updates from 12:06 a.m. until 9:22 a.m. Feb. 19
January 28th, 2008
This just might be the best dissection I’ve read on what newsrooms should do with big stories online and in print the next day. Rob Curley, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, writes about how the Las Vegas Sun covered the Monte Carlo fire as the mega casino burned. The Sun posted text, photos, videos, a timeline and much more.
We took a similar approach with the recent Boone County tornado. We did a pretty good job, but we’ll use Curley’s post to challenge us to think of more things we can do next time.
January 8th, 2008
I sent around 10:25 p.m. today the note below to staff who worked to feed rrstar.com today …
I wanted to share with all of you, for sure … if I missed anyone, please pass along …
You all kicked butt today. Thanks for the hard work, especially on the photo galleries and videos. We gave our readers a lot of great stuff today. And as a result of all the hard work today pushing content to the Web, our print readers will get a treat in Wednesday’s paper. Definitely worth more than the 75 cents they’ll pay at the racks.
To get a quick glimpse of all you did, check out the special report page. Of the 506,529 page views so far today, 278,425 were of multimedia. That’s awesome. Our staff photo galleries did extremely well. The day-of gallery generated 100,000 page views today alone. The “aftermath” gallery got 35,000 page views. Our readers’ tornado photo gallery got 88,000, and readers’ orchard photos have gotten 9,000 so far today. That means photos got 232,000 page views today (through 10:20 p.m.).
I can’t remember traffic like this. Well done.
Thanks,
Anna
January 8th, 2008
We now have a special report on the Boone tornado. You’ll find several photo galleries (the most popular content you’ve clicked on in the last two days), videos (I’m even yelling at one staffer) and stories. As of 5:50 p.m. Tuesday, we’ve gotten more than 416,000 pages today alone. That’s incredible. More than half of the page views have been on tornado-related content.
January 8th, 2008
the no-duh headline of the day: people have been turning out in droves to see our tornado coverage.
and i mean see: photo galleries are the top draw, and that’s no surprise. it traditionally is the case in breaking news … or even when it’s just your snow photos. but video is really rating highly, too.
as of 12:30 pm (less than 24 hours since the storm hit), we’ve had 200,000 page views on tornado-related coverage. almost 157,000 of those are on photos. about 20,000 are on videos by rrs and wrex.
we haven’t had much time to break down where all the traffic is coming from, but we do know some of it is national, like from google searches … or former rockford residents (like former sports reporter andre smith, who is now in delaware but told us he’s following what we’re doing).
January 8th, 2008
our poplar grove tornado drew national attention, but we were just part of the story. the storm caused significant damage in missouri and wisconsin as well.
here are links to other coverage.
the chicago tribune was more interested in the damage in kenosha county, wis., so poplar grove is mentioned lower in its story. the sun-times and daily herald had a little less. the northwest herald hit harvard pretty hard.
the milwaukee journal sentinel is playing weather as its no. 2 story online.
kenosha and racine also have stories and photos.
(eddy montville took this photo at the apple orchard for rrstar.com on monday.)
final note: thanks to our media partner, wrex-13. they shared video and photos for our site.
UPDATE: a co-worker saw that “good morning america” was in poplar grove this morning with a mention of the orchard. did you see it?
December 10th, 2007
Tried a different approach when reporting today about the threat at Northern Illinois University which closed the campus. Instead of “writing through” the main story every time we had new information, we instead added information to the top of the original story, changed the headline and updated the time stamp. That way, readers could get every tidbit we posted in reverse chronological order if they wanted. You can see how we did it here. Or click on the thumbnail below to see how the story was played on the rrstar.com front page.
