Posts filed under 'NIU campus killings'
February 13th, 2009
A year ago tomorrow, I got a call from my assistant Jeniece Smith. She told me she was going to be late for work. I would occasionally get calls like this from Jeniece because she would sometimes get tied up at Northern Illinois University, where she is studying to be a journalist. I didn’t think much of the call until she told me to wait. She then said there had been a shooting on campus and she was locked in a classroom. Jeniece would feed us information throughout the rest of the day.
Saturday is the one-year anniversary of that tragic day. We offer today online this package that looks at how the school community is coping. Jeniece, too, now a senior shares her thoughts one year later.
March 26th, 2008
here’s some light fare for spring break week:
the rockford register star gives out monthly awards to recognize employees. the names and descriptions (below) come from the jim collins book “good to great.”
Brutal Facts - Awarded to person that looked at a system or procedure, faced the brutal fact that it was holding back the department, and suggested changes that are implemented.
Hedgehog – Awarded to an individual that best keeps to our hedgehog concept.
Flywheel – Awarded to an individual that shows improvement over the longest time.
for february, the newsroom won the award for its coverage of the niu campus shootings. this is the first time an award has gone to an entire department. assistant metro editor bob schaper is pictured above with the oversized hedgehog that sits in the newsroom. he’s always wanted the little hedgehogs that come with the usual award.
of course, we don’t cover news for the awards. but we’ll take ‘em when we get ‘em.
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
February 15th, 2008
Space shuttle. Columbine. World Trade Center Towers. War in Iraq — one and two. Virginia Tech. Today, NIU. Countless horrors small and large between each staggering headline. Almost 40 years of human catastrophe define my newspaper career. I remember where I was with each. I remember how each newsroom smelled and where the broken chairs were. I remember the journalists with whom I shared the days and nights that stretched to weeks of tackling the next piece of news and wrestling it into something that made sense. They never did, of course; there’s no sense-making of the events that drive those iconic headlines. We simply kept going, doing what we do: gathering, sorting, selecting and sharing information. The media we use has changed. It’s not about the daily newspaper today. It’s the Web, and television, and video, and photo galleries, blogs and forums. Today it’s instant; forty years ago it was tomorrow’s newspaper and maybe an “extra” edition. These are immutable: Journalists push aside their hearts, their families, their lives and we work. Around the clock to do what we do. There is nothing but this: the story. And, this refrain: No. Not Here.
February 15th, 2008
sadly, you can’t turn on the radio, tv or computer without knowing that our area is the center of the world with the top story of the niu shootings.
at the newseum, you can see how front pages around the country and around the world played the story.
February 14th, 2008
At last count, we had posted 38 photos in our gallery, seven videos and dozens of news updates. That’s how we start telling stories these days: Web first. It would be easy if that’s all we did, but we have tomorrow’s newspaper as well. So as reporters, photographers and videographers are filing from the NIU campus, writers, editors and producers in the News Tower are taking that information and turning it around for posting to the Web and tomorrow’s newspaper. What used to be a simple, straight “assembly line” has morphed into a “Slinky,” where news goes on the first available “platform.” Tonight that was the Web. We’ll recraft the Web for print tomorrow, and push the print back to the Web and keep going.
Some folks think that approach is new. For those of us who have been in the business three or four decades, we know differently. We used to publish two editions a day, sometimes multiple ones, write for radio and television, and send updates to AP and UPI all day. It’s only been in the past 20 years or so that we limited ourselves to one newspaper each morning. I’m glad we can tell stories this way. We’re learning a lot.
P.S. Thanks to those who are reading online tonight. It’s nice to know you’re out there — even the unhappy ones. Godspeed and good night.
February 14th, 2008
It’s 7:06 p.m. and I am sitting at my desk listening to the journalists in the News Tower cover the shooting at Northern Illinois University. Is it one dead, or four? Eighteen injured or 17? The challenge is nailing down facts and resisting the temptation to repeat what we just heard from a caller, an e-mailer or another news outlet. In the rush to push information to the Web, to parents, students and people around the world, it would be so easy just to “go with it.” We can’t. That’s simply not what we do. We gather the information, sort it and stake our credibility on what we post and what we print. There’s lots of information out there. Our job is to sort the facts from the speculations.
Over the next several days, this is what you can expect from the Rockford Register Star and rrstar.com: full, 24-7 coverage on the Web. We have reassigned our journalists to ensure they are in DeKalb fulltime, reporting and posting photos and videos around the clock. No matter what time you come to rrstar.com, you should expect to find updated information. In the daily newspaper, we will cover the news, provide more context and help readers understand what happened. In Sunday’s newspaper, we will recap the three days on campus with a multi-page special section.
Rrstar.com will break the news, provide the links and ensure deeper, broader coverage as fast we we can and with our commitment to credible, important, factual information. In print, we will add the context to help us all understand what cannot be understood.
This is our job.
