Twitter takes from Jack Bauer (played by our own David Zizzo)
Anyone who knows me knows that really like “24.”
It’s a drama on FOX where Kiefer Sutherland saves the world just about every hour within one specific day. A season of 24 episodes will cover every hour of a day in real time. We can only hypothesize that food and bathroom breaks are taken during the commercials that run in every episode. Either that, or Jack Bauer (played by Keifer Sutherland) has an iron bladder.
Having said all that, I’m also on Twitter. And David Zizzo wrote a great humor column today about what Jack Bauer would be saying if he were using Twitter during his wild terror-fighting days.
For example:
It’s 11 a.m. and I’ve only resorted to enhanced interrogation twice. Must be a holiday.
or
Did you know a soda bottle, some muriatic acid and aluminum foil make a cool bomb? I’d kill for some Cheetos and a Red Bull.
Read the entire column here.
Twitter is a source for many funny bits on the Web these days. It’s a easy target for skeptics. So I see a lot of these kind of quips about the social media platform.
But David’s was one to read, expecially if you’ve ever seen an episode of ‘24.’
It funny to me, because I’ve seen every episode of ‘24.’
Firestorm 2009 – see our ongoing coverage
It’s been a couple weeks since we were all in front of our computers at the end of the work day trying to find out where the fires were going next.
We covered the story frantically with our breaking news team late into that night, using our live chats as the platform to keep you informed.
We launched an ongoing coverage page of the Firestorm: Oklahoma Wildfires 2009 the next day. And we began pulling together all the resources we could to try to tell this story as it continues into the future.
But as life moves on, we often forget about what happened just a few weeks ago. So I’m taking this opportunity to remind our audience that we have a lot of information for our users about this.
- We have a map of the destruction, with points on every home that we could find that were damaged in the wildfires. When you look at the page and see all the points, it really shows how dangerous and damaging that day was.
- We have every story we’ve written about the fires. From the first day until today.
- We have every video we’ve produced. See the breaking news reports from April 9, and see the aftermath coverage in recent weeks.
- And we have tons of photos. The aerials are especially telling, showing a wide path of destruction.
Take time this weekend to go through our coverage and remind yourself of what happened as we move quickly onto the next problem and the next breaking news story.
We’ll be sure to keep covering the stories of the people trying to rebuild and state trying to regroup.
Fashion Matters … even to Digital Managing Editors
OK.
I’ll admit it.
I just spent a few minutes on another Web site looking at before and after photos of celebrities who “may or may not” have had plastic surgery over the years.
Now … I don’t just browse random network morning show Web sites (all right, it was the Today Show site) looking for random information about random celebrities that I “may or may not” have even heard of.
I clicked on that site because Linda Miller posted the link on her blog – Fashion Matters. She said it was an interesting page – she even included the word, “Yikes!” Really … how could I not click on that link.
Linda’s blog is one of our best blogs. She’s an expert – we know that. She’s been telling Oklahomans about fashion for years. She’s helps lead the direction of OKC N Style and her opinions and stories make up the bulk of the NewsOK Fashion and Beauty page.
So I proudly visit her blog for two reasons.
(1) If I’m going to read about fashion and trends, I want to learn from an Oklahoman who knows about Oklahomans. (I don’t want to dress like a Texan.)
(2) And more importantly, it’s always really, really interesting.
Getting my name in a Business story … I have arrived
I made the newspaper this week. I believe it’s the first time I’ve ever been quoted in the Business section of The Oklahoman.
The story is about Twitter and how local companies are using the tool to improve communications with customers and other interested parties. We have some success stories along those line, so that’s why I was used as a source.
“We have found it especially useful as a tool during breaking news events. We are able to deliver information to our readers via Twitter immediately while allowing them to participate in real-time conversations on NewsOK.com.”
I’m no Twitter guru (that’s our multimedia editor Mike Koehler – @mkokc). I simply no how to post some things and follow some people. And I like to use Twitter as proof that I attend events like the Western Heritage Awards at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
If you want to follow more Twitter users at OPUBCO Communications Group, get a full list here. You’ll see more names as we grow.
NewsOK.com honored twice this week
We’ve had two stories this week that can only be described as shameless plugs for what we work hard at trying to do here at OPUBCO Communications Group.
On Monday, we got word that we had won a national awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for our ‘know it’ series and our Your Right to Know page, which has since evolved into a larger Watchdog page.
To quote our story:
The Sigma Delta Chi Awards honor outstanding journalism from across the country. The Oklahoman’s staff was recognized for “Public Service in Online Journalism” for its “know it” and “Your Right to Know” projects.
That was good news. The national SPJ awards are generally considered second only to the Pulitzer in terms of journalistic prestige. It’s also good news, because we were honored for the type of quality journalism and public service that we push ourselves toward every day.
We love weird news, crime news, sports news and breaking news — we do that very well on NewsOK and always see a big spike in traffic when those types of stories take center stage.
But we think there’s a place for in-depth news and information-gathering, as well. And we still think the public has a right to know about records that we are, by law, authorized to see.
Yes … that was good news on Monday. But we got even better news today, when the Webby Award nominations were released. NewsOK.com was officially honored as one of the top 12 newspaper Web sites in the world.
NewsOK was in some elite company:
- New York Daily News
- The USA Today
- The Wall Street Journal
- The Jewish Daily Forward
- The Washington Times
- The Telegraph Media Group
- The New York Observer
- The Times of London
- The Guardian
- New York Times
- The Independent
According to the story on NewsOK:
The New York Times has called the award the “Internet’s highest honor,” and The Wall Street Journal has said the awards “celebrate sites that pave important paths to the Internet’s next phase.”
So yeah … we’re a proud of that.
I won’t apologize for the shameless plugs, but I will thank our growing audience for engaging with us as we’ve tried new things and entered new arenas.
OPUBCO leaders talk about future of company
OPUBCO chairman Christy Everest and OPUBCO Communications Group president David Thompson wrote a letter to our print readers and online visitors this weekend. It was published The Oklahoman and on NewsOK.com on Sunday.
As a result, you could have read it on our Electronic Edition, the Amazon Kindle, our Desktop Reader product, on the iPhone, on your Blackberry and on just about anything.
But I’ll stop taking this opportunity to tell y0u about all the ways to get information from us.
I’ll just let you read what they said about the company I proudly work for.
Oklahoma City RedHawks page ready for new season
.
The Oklahoma City RedHawks season is near.
As in … it begins tomorrow … in Memphis.
That’s why we’ve been beefing up our Oklahoma City RedHawks coverage page in the last week or so.
- We’ve added a blogger, baseball writer and resident expert Matt Patterson, whose “Power Allie” blog has already taken off. He blogs often, about everything baseball as it relates to Oklahoma.
- We’ve added enhanced presentation of the latest RedHawks articles that will appear daily on NewsOK.
- We’ve also added updated links to the RedHawks schedule, standings and statistics.
Look for more, as well, including, more Major League Baseball information — standings, schedules, leaders, etc.
We’re gearing up for the home opener at Bricktown Ballpark next Friday (April 17), when the RedHawks host Memphis. When that day finally arrives, we’ll know that springtime is truly here to stay.
Making news in the Twitterverse
I sat with our Multimedia Editor, Mike Koehler, today and watched a Webinar about entering the Twitterverse, hosted by Steve Buttry of Gazette Communications in Cedar Rapids, IA. It was hosted by the American Society of News Editors.
Buttry knew what he was talking about. I knew he would, because (1) the ASNE doesn’t usually have people talking about something they don’t know much about, and (2) he’s from Iowa – and good things generally come from Iowa.
(Side note: I was born in beautiful Cedar Rapids and cut my first teeth in a tiny village named Van Horne).
Buttry explained a lot of things to his audience – how to log on to Twitter, how to post, how to reply, how to use a hash-tag, how to ReTweet, etc.
Then he went on to showcase how some news organizations have used Twitter to their advantage in delivering information to an audience. NewsOK.com was used as one of the prime examples of media outlets using the tool in a positive way.
He pointed out our coverage of the tornadoes in February, specifically referring to our live chats, which were enhanced by live Twitter feeds from us at NewsOK and you in the …. what’s the word … Twitterverse.
Here’s the bottom line: We’re trying our best to be wherever our audience is. We’re trying our best to reach people in new ways.
And we’re trying our best to include you in the conversation every chance we get.
We’ve found that it’s very successful when our users can be a part of our coverage.
So … thank you.
P.S. – Yes, I’m on Twitter, too. You can follow me.
Funniest Pet Videos contest still going strong on NewsOK
We want to see your funny pet videos.
We launched a contest for Oklahoma’s Funniest Pet Videos a few weeks back in conjunction with the YOU! section of The Oklahoman and the ‘know it’ feature on Pets on NewsOK.com.
Frankly, we didn’t expect a whole lot of entries, but we thought it would be fun and a way to interact with our visitors – something we always are trying to do.
Turns out, there is an interest in funny pet videos. Marcy Williams – contest organizer and NewsOK Web editor – told me this week that she just viewed and uploaded out 10th entry so far. And the deadline for the contest is still 10 days away!
The videos are fun to watch, and they’re all posted on our Pets ‘know it.’ But you probably have a funnier video.
You still have more than a week to share it with us.
Dying Too Young: Why are Oklahoma’s children dying?
We launched a project on Sunday that appears to have made in impact on our community.
And that’s a good thing, because making a difference in our community is something we strive for with our journalistic efforts in the News and Information Center at OPUBCO Communications Group.
We launched “Dying Too Young” on Sunday and have pushed more traffic to it throughout the week. The project documents the more than 2,100 deaths of children in Oklahoma over the past few years – an alarmingly high number for our state.
This project has a little bit of everything:
- It has great reporting, led by our top investigative reporter, Nolan Clay. This project took months to organize and put together. Nolan didn’t write this piece up in an afternoon. To cover something like this with fairness and proper effectiveness, it takes months of behind-the-scenes work.
- It has a deep database, put together painstakingly by our database editor Paul Monies.
- It has a comments board for discussion, reaching more than 125 comments already.
- It has gripping videos from our video team, showcasing some chilling interviews of those affected by some of the deaths.
- It has documentation, with hundred of autopsy reports in PDF formats and bios or almost 100 of the children.
Take the time to see the reports. Then you can join our discussion and share your thoughts.
