One of those items didn’t surprise me. The other floored me.

Sportswriter of the year

First, I learned that Berry was named Oklahoma Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. That news did not surprise me. It’s the fourth time Berry has won the honor from the group.

There are a lot of really talented reporters and writers covering sports in Oklahoma — all around the state for a variety of news sources — but they’re all playing for second place when it comes to this award. It would be pretty easy for him to be named the winner of this award every year.

A playoff proponent

Second, I learned that Berry supports an 11-team college football playoff system that would only include the conference champions. His point is that making only conferece champions eligible would take all the guesswork out of the system. I was very surprised by this opinion, but pleased nonetheless.

I have vivid memories of working in The Oklahoman sports department in 1999, when Berry served as  assistant sports editor, and discussing the college football playoff possibilities. I supported a 16-team playoff, using 11 conference champions and five at-large bids. I remember arguing over a lot of the system with Berry, but my memory was that he believed it was far too bloated. In the end, I worked with Jenni Carlson on a piece she wrote on Dec. 28, 1999 supporting a 16-team playoff. We even designed a full page showcasing the system we came up with.

I confronted Berry about my memory, and he still says 16 is too bloated because it still includes five at large bids. I see his point and will wholly support the 11-team system with the same logic I had in 1999 — the regular season would remain critical and that teams might even schedule better non-conference games, because the conference championship (not an undefeated season) will get them into the playoff.

But my point is this …  in 12 years, Berry moved his opinion from a two-team playoff system all the way to an 11-team system (the way I remember it). And I only moved my opinion from a16-team system to an 11-team system.

After 12-plus years, I claim victory.

Gene Triplett and Kristin Chenoweth join hands as two of the newest inductees of the 2011 Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame. Photo by Jay Spear

Our own Gene Triplett was honored Thursday night with his induction in to the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.

Portraits of the 2011 Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame inductees painted by Roger Davis. Davis is the official portrait artist for the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame. Photo by Jay Spear

He joined other Oklahoma greats like Wayman Tisdale, Nokie Edwards, Bob Bogle, Jesse Ed Davis, Ralph Blane, Cheevers Toppah and Kristin Chenoweth.

Yeah, we ran a story that led with the world-famous Chenoweth’s induction at the ceremony. Kristin is great representative of Oklahoma and supremely talented. But in this blog post, I’ll headline with Gene Triplett, because he has devoted his career to journalism — and that’s something worthy of honor in my book.

And anyone who knows Gene understands that it was likely difficult for him to be in the spotlight like he was on Thursday. So we get quite a chuckle from his on-stage appearance holding hands with Chenoweth and singing “Oklahoma.” That means we can collect on our pre-event wager that he would indeed be singing show tunes on stage with the great Kristin Chenoweth.

And we’re also somewhat surprised that he wore the same outfit he wears to the office every day. Gene is always dapper in his black-on-black tuxedo look at the Monday morning entertainment staff meeting.

But in all seriousness, it’s a great honor for Gene. The Digital Desk congratulates him.

To see a full photo gallery of the event, see Jay Spear’s collection of photos.

NewsOK was named the “Best Website” in its category by the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association.

I don’t blame you for overlooking this news on NewsOK. After all, it’s routine information — what with all the awards we’ve received in recent years. Plus, it’s the second consecutive year NewsOK was given this particular honor.

Here’s a note from one of the judges:

NewsOK ‘really stood out — due to the great thought and effort to present a good user experience. Articles had tons of links, photos and a lot had videos. The design is well-thought out and intuitive. This is a site that readers will love to visit.’

NewsOK and The Oklahoman were also honored in three other categories for the SNPA contest:

• Print Quality — placing second.
• Best Use of Multimedia for Static — placing third.
• Best Use of Multimedia for Places — honorable mention.

NewsOK is a finalist in the 2011 Online Journalism Awards, the annual awards from the Online News Association.

We’ve been honored for our overall site in the General Excellence in Online Journalism category. The other finalists are CBC News (Canadian radio), the Las Vegas Sun (as in, Las Vegas, Nevada) and The Globe and Mail (Toronto).

I don’t know if we will win. We’ve been a finalist with the ONA before — just check out our awards page. It’s always an honor and validation of our efforts to be nominated.

We’ll start working on the speech this weekend.

Surviving the Dust Bowl

I just want it to rain. I’m tired of drought conditions that are threatening Oklahomans’ livelihoods.  I’m tired of wildfires that are threatening Oklahomans’ homes, livelihoods and lives. I just want one of those three-day showers that we traditionally tend to get in the Oklahoma’s Aprils. We had a story this week about the drought conditions being the worst we’ve had since the Dust Bowl. It gave our NewsOK editors a nice opportunity to link up one of our best nDepth: Stories of the Ages packages we’ve built on “Surviving the Dust Bowl.” As you’re praying for rain this weekend, check out “Surviving the Dust Bowl.” You might need the tips.

OKC Thunder bandwagon

In a tradition we started last year, we launched our end-of-season Thunder Bandwagon page to detail the building of a contender in the NBA Playoffs. The page is sponsored by OKC Thunder Cycles, and it features a fun StoryWall from the 2010-11 season, a Loud and Proud Fan Photo contest, and photo gallery with the best photos from the season and some of our best feature stories about the players. The page is great for all Thunder fans.

Home & Garden sponsor

The NewsOK Home & Garden page has a new sponsor as of this week. Appropriately, it’s sponsored by Marcum’s Nursery. The Home & Garden page now features a new enhanced look and feel, plus tips from Marcum’s and videos from a series of producers, including The Associated Press and CBS News.

Blake Griffin: To boo or not to boo

Blake Griffin made some news this week. All he did was play winning basketball against the Oklahoma City Thunder, but the Thunder fans’ reaction to his play sparked a nice debate for sports fans in Oklahoma (and within our own newsroom). Darnell Mayberry noted the fans’ boos on one of his Twitter updates during Wednesday’s game. Then, he shared his opinion again on his blog after the game. Sports editor Mike Sherman wrote a blog post Thursday afternoon that sparked even more debate after we featured that post at the top of NewsOK’s home page. Berry Tramel followed all that up with his column that was released on NewsOK on Thursday night. To recap, Darnell didn’t like the boos, Mike hated the boos and Berry didn’t mind the boos. That sports department … they are never short on opinions.

Blake Griffin and Kevin Durant: Know It

With all the booing going on, it’s a good thing we launched our Know It page on Blake Griffin last week. And it’s a good thing we enhanced that page (and the page we have on the Thunder’s own Kevin Durant) with featured presentations of their blogs. So, follow our Know It pages on Blake Griffin and Kevin Durant, and follow their blogs on our pages.

Telling important stories

Our site is full of information that people just need to know about. That occurs to me every week, and I often write about that thought, but it just occurred to me again on Wednesday afternoon. The trial in the drowning death of 2-year-old Allie Croom began this week. The story, like so many we tell on NewsOK, is important for us to follow. We’ll follow them. We’ll cover this trial and tell you if a jury sees it as a tragic accident or murder. I think it’s important that we do that. I hope you think so, as well.

Anthony Shadid in the house

Speaking of telling important stories that need to be told … Oklahoma City native Anthony Shadid stopped by our newsroom on Friday to talk about his recent near-death experience in Libya and his thoughts on covering the Arab world throughout his Pulitzer-Prize winning career. Shadid is a great story-teller, which is part what makes him a great journalist. Shadid can honestly say that he survives his craft. That’s not something every journalist has to say. It’s honorable to be so passionate and continually risk your life to tell people’s stories. If you want to really understand what he and his colleagues went through in Libya while in captivity, you must read their piece in the New York Times after they returned.

NewsOK & The Oklahoman win awards

Shadid does great work in the Middle East. And the New York Times does great work in New York. And so does NewsOK.com and The Oklahoman. Want proof? Check out our awards at last weekend’s Associated Press/Oklahoma News Executives competition. The Oklahoman and NewsOK.com won 21 individual first-place honors and 48 individual awards. My boss, Kelly Dyer Fry, said this: “Being recognized by our industry peers is a proud moment for all of us. We work every day to bring quality news to our readers. These awards tell us job well done.”

Most-viewed article

Berry Tramel’s column about new men’s basketball coach Lon Kruger’s salary let the way this week for article traffic on NewsOK. I find it extremely interesting that this makes the third consecutive week that an article about the OU men’s basketball coaching job has led the way for articles on NewsOK. Berry’s take? “OU paying Lon Kruger $2.2 million is cents-less.”

Most-viewed blog post

More OU basketball. This story keeps getting traffic. This week, the most-viewed blog post is the Tuesday post about former OU coach Jeff Capel being hired as an assistant coach on the Missouri staff.

Most-viewed video

Strange. The most-viewed video this week was a video from last week. It was a video of Bob Stoops talking about building depth on his football team this spring. Watch it below:

Darnell just a little off his prediction

Thunder beat writer Darnell Mayberry held his weekly live chat on NewsOK on Monday. Shortly after the chat, we posted an article with the highlights from the chat. The headline? Darnell Mayberry: 99.9 percent chance Kendrick Perkins signs long term with OKC Thunder. It became the most-viewed article on the site that afternoon. Then, take a guess what happened the next day? This headline happened: Thunder signs Kendrick Perkins to extension. Yep. Darnell missed it. We had an uncomfortable meeting with him late Tuesday afternoon. He needs to be more accurate. Obviously, he should have said it was a 100-percent chance. (That’s a joke.) But here’s the take-away. Darnell knows what he’s talking about. Here’s the other take-away. Participate in Darnell’s live chat every Monday to find out what will happen on Tuesday.

Ed Godfrey joins our personalities

We added another personality to our list this week. Welcome outdoors expert Ed Godfrey to our family of personality pages on NewsOK.com. You can find his blog posts, his columns, his articles, his Twitter posts and even like him on Facebook. And check him out each month (the first Friday of each month) for a live chat that he does on NewsOK, hosted by and sponsored by H&H Gun Range.

Another complaint about comments

I received a message this week from a user who was not happy about our commenting policy on NewsOK. “What’s with all the commenting disabled crap? No wonder you people are going out of business.” I explained it to him (but I did not address the false claim that a changing business model is the same as ‘going out of business’) … “We routinely disable comments on articles about fatalities and on local crime stories. That’s a decision we made years ago in an effort to maintain a constructive and civil dialogue. And we’ve disabled comments on articles where the discourse has become increasingly destructive. We are unable to moderate every comments on every article, so we rely on user moderation. At times, even that becomes unmanageable. Is there a particular article you were referring to?” This did not please him, and he brought up another news outlet in our state (one that we share content with, but not every business decision with) : “Then why does Tulsa World not have this problem. I have noticed it on more than just fatality stories. Just forget it. I see why newspapers are going under.” I share this interchange just to prove that I can’t please every unhappy customer. If you want to see what I’ve written about our comments in the past, just go here.

OKC Skyline cam angle

We received a couple of messages from customers on our site that want to see a better view from our camera that keeps an eye on the Devon tower. One didn’t like the view we showed of the sky or the one that pointed down. Another didn’t like the view of the completed middle section. Frankly, that tower keeps growing on us, and moving the camera to get a perfect angle is difficult. We rotate among several angles, and depending on when you are looking and what they’ve completed, the view you see might not be your favorite. All that said, we will work to improve that experience.

Best OK Tweeter!

I was forwarded this link this week: Political analyst Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post apparently named our own NewsOK Politics twitter feed as the best political tweeter in Oklahoma. My response? Actually, I’m quite happy that we’re providing good analysis for those around the country. My other response? When I graduated from journalism school in 1997, I never expected that 14 years later I would be honored to receive an email with the subject line, “best ok tweeter.”

Bombing site worth another look

We had a story this week about former President George W. Bush being honored with the 2011 Reflections of Hope Award by the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum. That gave us an opportunity to drive readers to our Oklahoma City Bombing archive website, something we probably don’t do enough of. I don’t really know what to say about this site, other than that I recommend everyone visiting it. I’m humbled to have been able to work on that site a few years back. It’s a site I expect we will always have room for on our servers.

Live-blogging the Oscars

Brandy McDonnell and George Lang covered the Academy Awards last Sunday night about as well as any duo of entertainment experts in Oklahoma can cover it. Their blogs were entertaining and informative. And the best thing about them? If you didn’t get a chance to follow them on Sunday night, they still make a good read a week later. Check out Brandy’s here. See George’s here.

New sponsor for BAM

We’d like to welcome the Oklahoma City Museum of Art as a presenting sponsor of Brandy McDonnell’s blog. The OKCMOA picked a good one … Brandy’s BAM blog has been the most-popular blog on NewsOK for about three years now. You can also find the museum’s sponsorship on Brandy’s columns in the Weekend Look every Friday.

Shooting video

We had a tough judgment call this week when we received the dash-cam video of the police officers in Perry shooting a motorist who exited his car and moved toward the officers in a threatening manner. We had the article on the site, but the video really told the story. It showed the man acting as if he was holding a gun and acting as though he was about to fire. The video also shows the man going down after officers opened fire. We chose the show the entire  video because it documents the chase, the man’s actions and the speed with which the entire event went down. Showing the entire video allows the user to see and evaluate everything about the public servants’ actions. It shows our users Exactly how quickly officers have to make a decision. It also shows how deadly those split-second decisions are. We received a few complaints that I’m aware of. That’s understandable. These kinds of decisions are always hard to make.

Something extra for iPad readers

We offered our iPad edition subscribers something a little extra this week — downloadable PDF documents of the state basketball tournament brackets. It was a test as we enter basketball tournament season for both college and high school basketball. You can expect more documents like that in the future. And you can expect that experience to improve. But the bottom line is that we aim to continue to improve the experience for our iPad edition subscribers.

Election night in OKC

Tuesday night was a big night for followers of local politics. The Oklahoma City Council members were chosen, as well as many other important decisions around the metro area. All the results can be found on our NewsOK Politics election results page. That’s a good thing. What was even better is that these results could be found on NewsOK on Tuesday night shortly after the polls closed. As soon as we knew the results, so did our readers. No one covers elections and local politics like we do. Just look at our NewsOK Politics page. We think it’s important.

Most-viewed article

The most-viewed article this week was a little different that what we normally expect, but that’s a very good thing. We had a story about holiday offers at Walmart that were excluded in Oklahoma. Reporter Jennifer Palmer did a nice job explaining the issue. Yahoo! picked up the story and linked to it from their home page, which gave Jennifer’s report a nice lift and pushed it to be our move-viewed article on NewsOK this week.

Most-viewed video

The most-viewed video this week was a sports video. The new players for the Oklahoma City Thunder were interviewed on Saturday morning about their feelings about their trade. It was our first introduction to Kendrick Perkins, Nate Robinson and Nazr Mohammed. Thunder fans were interested.

Most-viewed blog post

Darnell’s post about Kendrick Perkins signing a new deal with the Thunder came close this week, but it was no match for Brandy McDonnell’s post about Mila Kunis and Amy Adams. I don’t really know much about Mila Kunis and Amy Adams, but they are both prettier than Kendrick Perkins. Maybe next week, Kendrick.

Enjoy.

• Our sports section received high praise over the holidays. NewsOK’s sports coverage was ranked among the 10 best in the nation. It’s the second straight year for this honor. Want to know how great this honor is? We’re in the same company as The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Boston Globe. Said sports editor Mike Sherman: “Whether it’s a story in The Oklahoman or a blog or video on NewsOK, we know we’re serving one of the nation’s most energized sports audiences. We’re honored that the APSE judges have liked what we’ve done for two straight years.”



• Bryan Painter has been all over the weather this week. Of course, he’s always all over the weather. His blog — aptly titled the “Oklahoma Weather Blog” — always ranks among our most popular blogs. He was the first to tell me this week that I better get my kids bundled up for the bus stop next week. Or maybe I’ll just drive them to the bus stop? We’ll see how it goes. But I’ll rely on Bryan’s blog to keep me up-to-date. Bryan blogs this stuff all while keeping up with all his other assignments. He’s a busy guy. We’re not sure when Bryan sleeps, but we’re smart enough not to ask.
• I was on the NewsOK Travel page earlier in the week. Yes, we have lots of great stories. But the blogs we keep on that page are really good. That’s why I re-built the page to showcase our two most worldly bloggers and give their content better treatment. Steve Barrymore writes “The Wanderer” blog. Steve used to work as an advertising manager at OPUBCO Communications Group. Now he seems to spend most of his time in various spots in Central and South America. Katya Kruglak writes “The Dusty Globe” blog. Their visits around the world are amazing. I don’t travel a whole lot and don’t really feel a great pull to travel a whole lot. But I’m certainly impressed by those who do.
• Steve Lackmeyer had an entertaining OKC Central blog post about Effie, The Skirvin and ESPN’s Bill Simmons. It’s worth a read, especially since Steve calls out Bill and openly questions his report. Said Steve: “Mr. Simmons, I’m calling you out. You’re dabbling in fiction writing with your latest BS report.”
• The political corruption story of the year got more interesting this week when Randy Terrill and Debbe Leftwich turned themselves in and appeared in court. It was all reported by Nolan Clay, who is great at covering these things — asking the right questions and getting the answers you want to know. The good news is that NewsOK has an ongoing coverage page that details this entire story. It’s a fascinating tale, and it will be even more interesting as it goes to trial. You just can’t make this stuff up.
• We’ve really improved our e-mail newsletters, and we’re adding some new ones very soon. If you organize your life with e-mail, I suggest signing up for our e-mail newsletters. We send out general news e-mails twice every day, but we also send e-mails for sports, business, entertainment and more. We’ll soon be adding daily obituary e-mails and weekly MOOD e-mails. Check out the options on our settings page — but remember you have to be logged in to sign up for these e-mails.  And your registration e-mail address is the address these e-mails will go to.



• One hidden gem on NewsOK this week was Carrie Coppernoll’s column about her experience of being scammed in a store parking lot around the holidays. She asks: “How can we be compassionate to those who need help while stopping those who take advantage of kindness?” But she doesn’t just ask. She answers: “By asking the experts.” You might ask why you didn’t see this column on the home page. Well … it’s admittedly one of our biggest challenges with our website. We have so much great content that it’s hard to play everything up at the top of the home page. In our defense however, it’s only been a problem for about 15 years for about every news website that’s ever been invented.
• I read a great blog by Jenni Carlson on Thursday. It was a tale about Nebraska coach Bo Pelini and his recent public relations fiasco. I love the insight of our bloggers. The content on our sports blogs continues to impress me as a digital managing editor. But that’s nothing, really. The thing that’s really awesome is that it informs and entertains me as a sports news consumer.
• On Thursday and early Friday, we were playing up another odd turn in the Pharmacy Shooting ongoing coverage. The latest story from Nolan Clay expands on the claims that the judge on the case has made numerous disparaging and racist remarks about Hispanics. Should he be removed from the case? The defense thinks so. The judge doesn’t think so. Of course, the defense attorney’s wife is one of those who has testified against the judge. That’s an interesting twist. But the judge even admits to having said some things he shouldn’t have said. It’s like I said earlier — you just can’t make this stuff up.
• Our entertainment staff put together their annual top 10 movies of the year this week. They have a wide variety of opinions, so it’s always fun to see how each of them rank the movies. Gene Triplett, Brandy McDonnell, Matt Price, George Lang and Dennis King all pick a top 10 of the year. None of them had “True Grit” as No. 1. I would have. But I pretty much only saw three movies this year (that’s why I didn’t have a top 10 list). I can say this: When I do have a chance to go see a movie, I make sure to read our reviews of the films. I’m not going to waste my rare movie-going opportunities on something the experts don’t like.
• Here is George’s video with NewsOK TV’s Angi Bruss. It’s good stuff:

• Yes — I would, if given the chance, go see “Country Strong,” even though Brandy obviously doesn’t recommend it. It’s a shame. But I’ll give Gwyneth Paltrow the benefit of the doubt. After all, she did a duet with the great Huey Lewis that put him back in the spotlight for a month or so a few years back. That was awesome. (You read that right … I wrote the “great” Huey Lewis.)

Until next week, enjoy browsing NewsOK.com.

She was presenting to the group of newspaper executives, explaining how we organized ourselves over the past few years in building two fully functional video studios and trained our journalists to be multimedia pioneers in feeding our extensive video operation.

It’s one of the things that makes NewsOK (and our publishing company) truly unique.

Another thing that set us apart? The honors and awards that we often receive.

While she was there, she picked up a handful of awards from the SNPA contest.

• Best Website: First (50,000 and over circulation), NewsOK.com.
• Videos: Second, for “Stories of the Ages: Depression Era Gangsters.” And honorable mention, for the sports special: “OU Football Preview: It’s better to receive.”
• Best Use of Multimedia: honorable mention, for “Stories of the Ages: Depression Era Gangsters.”
• Best Local Story: Third, for the series about Oklahoma politicians who tried to keep secret the birth dates of public employees.
• Feature Photography, honorable mention, for Sarah Phipps’ photo of a prayer service at a correctional center.
• Print Quality, (Over 100,000 circulation category), Second. The Oklahoman.

And here’s something of note: In judging the “Best Website” category, the SNPA made a point to focus on the site organization and the journalism involved.

Judges didn’t consider how many hits a website attracts. Instead, they looked at the overall Internet experience that a reader coming to the page should expect to have. Honors were awarded based on ease of navigation, search capabilities, attractive design, a promotional avenue for the print product, plus any extras offered by the site.

The competition includes a large number of newspapers, ranging from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to The Oregonian to The Tennessean to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

It was another good showing in another prestigious competition.

As I’ve said before, we don’t do our work for the awards and accolades. But it is good to know that we rank highly among our peers in the industry.

It was a nice drive, a nice dinner and some nice conversations with colleagues.

I even sat at the table with Ken 2.0 (and, yes, he was still eating reasonable portions).

But the honors made the night truly memorable.

• NewsOK.com won for Best Web Site.
• The Oklahoman won for best newspaper.
• Reporter Nolan Clay won the sweepstakes award, given for the best entry of ALL the award-winning entries for writing. He won for his role in the Dying Too Young series.
• Photojournalist John Clanton won the sweepstakes awards for the best entry of ALL the award-winning entries for photography.

It was a good night for NewsOK and The Oklahoman; we won 40 individual awards.

It was a good night for a dedicated group of journalists who truly aim to deliver quality products to our audience.

And if you want proof of that final statement (the one about truly aiming to deliver for our audience), try this:

Nolan was driving along I-44 on his way to Tulsa for the banquet, when he was diverted to cover the breaking news of the shooting at the mall in Muskogee. He had a choice: Receive a great honor in front of hundreds of colleagues … or cover a gang-shooting.

He chose our audience.

I think he made that choice based on his dedication to his craft. But perhaps the idea spending a night with a roomful of journalists sent him yearning for a gang-shooting. We’re still not sure.

Regardless, Nolan’s updates to the breaking news story appeared on NewsOK before I finished dessert.

And no, Ken 2.0 did not partake in dessert.

Kelly Fry, vice president of news and information at OPUBCO Communications Group, presents NewsOK's video operation at the APME convention in St. Louis on Oct. 30. See more photos on Flickr: APME 2009

We were a finalist in the prestigious category of “Innovator of the Year.”

As our awards czar (unofficial title) Joe Hight pointed out before and after the award was given – the APME innovator award is one of the most prestigious awards in journalism and probably the most difficult to win. As he says, the hardest part is convincing a room full of top-notch journalists that you deserve the award.

Joe should know. We’ve won quite a few awards in the past year. I’ve blogged about them before. It’s fun to win. It validates the hard work.

I was lucky enough to attend the APME conference in St. Louis last week. The key person from our operation that wasn’t able to attend is our video superhero (unofficial title) David Morris.

The Innovator award goes back almost three years. It began with a vision from OPUBCO Communications Group leadership. It went through phases of implementation, training, construction and trial and error. It culminated with the execution of a plan to change the culture of our news and information operation and grow our audience.

It was good for the newsroom to win the Innovator.

Now – back to work.

Kelly Fry, vice president of news and information at OPUBCO Communications Group, accepts the award. That's me (Alan Herzberger) in the background.

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