A week on NewsOK: Charles Barkley, Wanda Jackson, Martin Luther King Day … and more
It was a busy week on NewsOK. We covered a lot of stories that are just bad news, but we also told a lot of uplifting tales, shared some great stuff from the past and talked to some of our best customers.
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Maisy Root - photo by Jim Beckel
Sonya Colberg has been quite the star reporter this week. She kicked off last weekend with a terrific feature on a 2-year-old adopted girl who has gone through reconstructive facial surgery at The Children’s Hospital at OU Medical Center. The story brought out the best in our commenters. Said Jimmy of Oklahoma City: “The doctors at Children’s Hospital are awesome!!! Blessings to Maisy, family and caregivers!” Said Robert of Oklahoma City: “Parents, surgeons, enablers, you will be blessed by the Great Physician.” It was a great read. It had great photos. And it had a great video component. It told a great story. That’s the kind of story we like in our News and Information Center.
- But Sonya wasn’t done last week. She also told the story of Scott Badgett, an associate pastor at Chisholm Heights Baptist Church in Mustang, who saved a woman’s life with CPR at a church luncheon. Again, this story is told very well with her writing, but it we are helped in understanding the significance with a video component as well. And the comments? Well here’s one from Angela in OKC: “AWESOME!!! As a nurse and CPR instructor I feel it is very important for EVERYONE to learn CPR. One day it could be a loved one or your child, you don’t want to look back and say what if I could have done something to help?“
I wrote last week about our new Personality pages. We added another one this week. You can now follow Carla Hinton, who covers the religion community in Oklahoma better than anyone else. Follow her on Facebook, on Twitter, on her blog — or just follow her new page on NewsOK that has everything. We welcome Carla to the personality list.- Martin Luther King, Jr., Day was Monday. We did a video in 2010 that was so much fun that we brought it back into the spotlight this week. It is fun … just watch it below.
- In the “you can’t make this stuff up” category, I bring you our most popular story on the site this week: Nurse loses license for 20 years over sex with hospice patient. We featured this story on the website for most of the day on Sunday. It received a lot of traffic then, but it continued to grow all week after being featured and shared on Fark.com and then being linked to from the Drudge Report website.
- Our most-viewed video this week has been the police report about Oklahoma City police Sgt. Maurice Anthony Martinez. He was arrested Wednesday on complaints of lewd acts with a child under 16 and forcible sodomy. That was a popular article, as well. You can read more here.
- Charles Barkley spoke directly to Jenni Carlson on Tuesday night. Jenni was openly asking when Charles would make good on his old promise to visit Oklahoma City. Barkley answered her on Wednesdy night, as Darnell Mayberry detailed in his blog post. Said Charles: “Well, you know what? Jenni, you are a hundred percent correct. Now that you’ve got my good friend Scott Brooks there, and the great Maurice Cheeks, who I played with in Philly, I’ve got to come to Oklahoma City?” Jenni blogged about it as well, promising to serve as a tour guide for Barkley. It’s good stuff.
Entertainment writer Brandy McDonnell has the most-trafficked blog on NewsOK. She has for years now. Sunday night was a good example of why her blog is so popular. Brandy blogged the Golden Globe Awards live, providing instant insight and analysis of the big show. But just a day later, Brandy posted some colorful reviews of the concert she covered at Oklahoma City Arena. The posts were full of photos and links, plus her thoughts about George Strait, Reba McEntire and Lee Ann Womack. I’ll admit it. I’m a country music fan. And I appreciate Brandy’s posts and updates and photos on the concerts that come through town.- James Lankford is going to Washington … so based on our Washington Bureau reporter Chris Casteel’s recommendation, we enhanced our James Lankford topics page to showcase all the articles, videos and blogs we’ve produced about Lankford’s rise from relative obscurity to real-life Congressman.
- Wanda Jackson was in the news quite a bit this week, with planned appearances on David Letterman’s and Conan O’Brien’s shows. That made me remember the nDepth: Stories of the Ages piece we produced on her in 2009. That story was significant for me because — and perhaps I shouldn’t admit this — I had no idea who Wanda Jackson was before we produced story. Reporter Robert Medley put together the nDepth piece. I learned a lot, and that’s a good quality about those stories. She is, after all, the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
- I spent some quality time at the original O’Connell’s during my time at the University of Oklahoma. I even visited the locale with an old friend in December because we had heard the rumor that it was closing. (It was the oldest rumor in the history of rumors, but we believed it this time.) It turns out … it was true. I learned on NewsOK this week that there will be an auction of all the memorabilia that lines the walls at the establishment. My friend wanted a photo that he’s in (don’t get too worked up; it was the back of his head). All I need are memories. They’re much cheaper.
- I talked to a subscriber of The Oklahoman this week. She wanted to know one simple question about our new TV Weekly magazine that we are offering for those who want it. It’s replacing the TV book we’ve had in the Sunday newspaper for years. Some people aren’t happy about this change, but they usually understand the results of supply and demand. The caller’s question … will we have a TV grid in the newspaper each day (it’s in the Life section)? The answer … Yes. We certainly will.
- I talked to another NewsOK user that wanted to see older listings of our death listings. I pointed the person to our database display of all death listings, but that wasn’t satisfactory. Why? Because it couldn’t be printed out. Interesting point. We didn’t think of that. Well … we still have both options right now. You can browse our death listings in a sortable database (preferable, I hope, for most online users) or you can view the daily articles we produce.
- Weather blogger Bryan Painter was spot on with his predictions of the big weather event this week. He, of course, commends the National Weather Service folks in Norman. Bryan told me on Wednesday (through his blog) to expect a thin sheet of ice on the roads on Thursday morning, but that it would be safe driving by late morning. He was on the job with live weather updates on NewsOK by 5 a.m. Thursday, and he logged off at about 10 a.m. What did we have? A thin sheet of ice on Thursday morning, but it was safe on the roads by late morning. Thanks for the updates, Bryan.
Look for another series of updates on the site next week. But don’t let these blog posts discourage you from browsing NewsOK every day. It’s worth it.
Column written for a chuckle leads to perplexing responses
Carrie Coppernoll
I ran across Carrie Coppernoll’s blog post today.
(I found it via my Facebook feed, since I follow her content stream from my Facebook profile).
Her post provided excellent insight into the world of a news columnist. She was talking about the response she has gotten fron readers of her Saturday column, “Las Vegas, Oklahoma City are often confused.”
It was a tongue-in-cheek take on the flap last week created after Edmond’s former mayor was quoted as saying she hoped her suburban town wouldn’t allow digital billboards like they’ve done in Oklahoma City. The city of Las Vegas was mentioned in the former mayor’s quote, which led to Carrie’s sarcastic column.
Las Vegas and Oklahoma City marketing experts both said, “What happens here, stays here!” at the same time, but the Las Vegas people were the first to say “jinx.” Now they have the slogan, and we owe them a Coke.
I read her column Saturday morning while browsing NewsOK. I chuckled.
Then I read some of the comments. I chuckled some more.
It was pretty clear to me that Carrie was not reporting that Oklahoma City actually owes Las Vegas a Coke, but it wasn’t clear to all readers.
But I am glad to learn through Carrie’s latest post that she chuckled a little bit, as well.
(And if you want to know how to follow Carrie on Facebook, just visit her NewsOK page, devoted solely to articles and blogs that Carrie produces.)
Giving a voice back to a blacklisted user
I spoke with a NewsOK user today who wondered why he could no longer leave comments on NewsOK.
We had blacklisted him.
He wasn’t sure why he was blacklisted, but he was hoping I would change his fate.
I’m a reasonable man, so I made the change. He was able to post comments on NewsOK again.
We actually haven’t blacklisted many users on NewsOK. It’s not something we want to do. Generally, the decision is made because the user’s comments have gotten so out of hand and are rarely, if ever, contribute to constructive dialogue.
In the case of the user I spoke with today, I felt he should be allowed to comment. I had failed to conclude why we made the decision to blacklist him in the first place. So after a short discussion, he was back in business.
It’s just another story in the long list of discussion about comments on NewsOK. But it was another small step in improving the comments in the future on NewsOK.
Another commenting discussion — a NewsOK reader weighs in
I spoke with a NewsOK user yesterday.
He called to express his concern about an article we had on the site the day before. He questioned our decision to allow comments on this story:
Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper wrecks motorcycle on I-40, flown to hospital
He knew our site well. He knew our commenting and posting policy, which states:
It is our intention to facilitate a conversation around news and information on NewsOK.com. It is not our intent to offer comments on local crime stories, local fatality stories or Letters to the Editor.
He felt that the story in question shouldn’t have had comments. He took offense to some of the comments our users had posted about the actions of the officer in his accident. And, he’s right — some of the comments were not really germane to the story and could have been flagged as inappropriate, mostly because they weren’t adding to a productive dialogue.
The caller was irritated at some of those commenting, but he generally seemed to be in favor of our approach in our policy.
After looking at the story, I wouldn’t have made any other decision. I would have let comments remain on the article. I wish we can properly watch every comment on every article, but it’s really impossible. So we rely on our users to help watch for inappropriate comments.
It’s a fine line that we’re always walking. But I love to discuss it with our NewsOK readers.
Getting to know those that make comments on news websites
Last week, Boston.com ran a story that many of us in the news industry found fascinating.
It was about those who spend a lot of their free time participating in comments on news websites like Boston.com (or NewsOK.com)
I think many news consumers would find it equally fascinating, since those are the individuals that become the audience for the comments — good and bad comments; offensive and innocuous comments.
The reporter in this story, Neil Swidey, reached out to many of Boston.com’s heavy commenters. I love his analysis of those that were interested in discussing their involvement.
Those willing to talk included people on the left and the right, males and females, people passionate about sports and people passionate about politics and people passionate about passion (the Love Letters crowd). Somewhat surprisingly, many had no problem with my using their real names in the article, though a few offered some understandable reasons why they didn’t want to be identified.
But here are the people I didn’t hear back from: the screamers, troublemakers, and trolls (Internet slang for people behind inflammatory posts). Not a single one. The loudest, most aggressive voices grew mum when asked to explain themselves, to engage in an actual discussion. The trolls appear to prize their anonymity more than anyone else.
Fascinating, but not surprising.
But the best information came in the final lines of the article, when Swidey points out that three simple data points can erase most anonymous identities — zip code, gender and date of birth.
87 percent of Americans can now be identified with just these three data points.
Maybe the best approach to getting people to behave better online is just reminding them how easy it is to figure out who they really are.
A comment about our comments
I received this piece of feedback from a NewsOK user in the state of Washington.
Thanks to whoever is responsible for deciding to disable comments on stories such as crimes and deaths. We don’t need to read the hateful comments, speculation, personal agendas, etc that people put out on other newspapers’ sites.
Cindy
Port Ludlow, WashingtonWe moved from OKC five years ago, after 60 years in Oklahoma and Arkansas. We take USA Today and two local papers here but I still read the Oklahoman online every day.
Ultimately, Kelly Fry, our vice president of news and information, is responsible for that decision years ago.
Disabling the comments on articles involving crimes or fatalities is something we think is important for civil dialogue and general fairness. We’ve taken some criticism for it, but we still feel it’s important for our product.
We’ve been talking about our comments quite a bit internally — how we improve them … how we should treat them …. how we should display them. We’ve made some recent changes and are still evaluating the results.
I’ll write about the subject more in the future, but I love hearing feedback from our users. Keep it coming.
Covering the immigration issue on NewsOK
We added another key piece of coverage on NewsOK this weekend.
Reporters Ron Jackson and Vallery Brown covered the immigration story as it relates to Oklahoma.
Ron’s story focused on a family that had been in Oklahoma City for years before the oldest son was deported. The family is separated and desperate.
“For all those people who don’t want us in America, I just wish for one day they could walk in our shoes — just for a day,” Gabriel Jr. said. “Then they might understand better. Then they would know what it felt like to be on the other side.”
Ron’s story sparked quite a series of comments from people who wanted a voice on that story. Here are a couple of examples:
I’m really sorry the pain is heavy for families, but why the complete disregard for ownership in the personal decisions made by Gabriel? He made the risk/reward decision to slip here illegally. He can not complain that he is a victim or his family’s treatment was unfair, because he made the decision. At some point, he knew there could be penalties for the decision, and made the decision anyway.
or this one:
Excuse me. Why would a law-breaker put his wife and son at risk? That is similar to a bank-robber bringing his wife and son during the crime. I don’t feel any sympathy for this man. Instead of breaking in, why couldn’t they go the to front door and knock? America accepts legal immigrants every day.
Our package this weekend included a national view of the issue with an ongoing coverage page, plus an interactive graphic that shows how other states are dealing with the issue.
It also includes Vallery’s article, detailing how HB 1804 came to pass in Oklahoma.
Spend some time this week seeing the work from Ron, Vallery and more. Then look to our immigration page as we continue to cover this issue in the future.
Responding to a reader about our comments on NewsOK
I wrote a post last week that pointed out some changes to the way we display comments on NewsOK.
I was pointing out that the tone of the public conversation on NewsOK has grown more and more hateful and destructive. My post garnered this response from a reader:
Yes I’ve been noticing how ya wont let me write down certain things for a comment and what i have wrote down hasnt been out of taste or ordinary, but that seems like y’all are going against what y’all live by? Your so called motto “freedom of speech” But your paper? so do what u want, but you let the comments that people want to here like obama haters, mexican haters, just haters period !! I from what I read its about 99% pure white people. Is that the intention is to get the white people all riled up? heck I got enough racism coming my way everyday just to let you know and I aint even mexican. Why dont u rename the paper The Oklahoma White News !!! For the paper motto you can say [White news is always the right news] being native american well thats what they want to call us now well I guess thats a big step from blanket a.. or wagon burner and my best one just plain ol’ chief anyhow I’am just one voice of many that probably feels the same way about what you let get commented so just letting u know how the small guy feels.
I responded to some of the reader’s point, and I thought it would be useful to post our conversation as a brand new post.
My response:
We do have a word filter and don’t allow comments containing certain characters.
As for the comments we take action on … our online editors on duty evaluate every comment that is flagged as inappropriate by our users. We decide at that time whether or not to remove the comment. Our intention is to maintain productive dialogue along with our articles.
And finally, we do believe in freedom of speech. However, NewsOK.com is not required under the first amendment to offer a platform for all language and all points of view. We definitely want a wide variety of voices. But we also want a civil, productive and on-topic discussion, so sometimes we are forced to remove comments as they are brought to our attention.
A small change to our comments on NewsOK
Comments on NewsOK are something I often hear about.
- I hear about how people love to read our comments.
- I hear about how people wish the comments on NewsOK were more – how can I say this? – intelligent? constructive? on topic?
- I hear about how we are sometimes inconsistent with allowing comments on some stories and not others.
- I hear about how our comments can be embarrassing when users share the article with friends in other areas of the country.
I’ve thought a lot about comments in the past year, but we haven’t changed our philosophy. We haven’t made any major changes to our comments.
But the internal discussion about comments has become more intense. And so today, we have a small change to the way we display comments on NewsOK.
Today, comments are not visible to users just by scrolling to the bottom of the article on NewsOK. A user must now choose to click a button at the bottom of the story to view the comments. Below is what it looks like on a story right now:
We think this helps users who are sometimes dismayed by the dialogue that happens at the bottom of our articles. But it also allows us to keep a live conversation open to users who either want to participate or want to read.
We are continuing to think about comments on NewsOK, and we might have more changes in the future. In the meantime, we are committed to offering an open dialogue among readers of NewsOK.
We will continue to follow our guidelines as we decide which articles to enable the commenting functionality. And we will continue to evaluate each article and each comment as we become aware of the tone of the conversation.
Reader requests more responsible commenting on articles
I’ve posted recently about comments on our site. I was talking about how other news organizations are looking at their comments and trying to find ways to improve the the level of dialogue for their audience.
Then, the very same day, I received this bit of feedback from one of our visitors through our feedback form at the bottom of the site.
I read your articles on the net, and sometimes respond. And I read what others say, especially those written to/about Berry Tramel. There are a couple of people who are regular ‘responders’ there who are nothing less than vicious, and should be screened from. They seem to have a vendetta against the Oklahoman and Trammel, and anyone who writes in his defense gets mauled. They attack the writer and not the substance. One writer (writing about the article concerning the cell phone usage at the OU libarary) threatened a person who dis- agreed with him a civil law suit in federal court. This is not acceptable. People should be reminded to keep their remarks germane and civil, or warned that what they write will be expunged. …. I am willing to help in any way you might deem appropriate.
Excellent. There’s one person on the team.
We’ll come up with something. Stay tuned.
