A detailed picture of DOC and prison escapees
Last week, we launched a pretty cool project that paints a detailed picture of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and prison escapees from Oklahoma.
Reporters Tiffany Gibson and Matt Patterson worked closely with web editor Nick Tankersley and Art Director Todd Pendleton to create an online presentation that has the combination of content depth and digestible presentation.
There are a lot of stories, a handful of videos, photo galleries and an interactive informational graphic that provide the overview of the coverage.
But it goes much deeper than that. The Oklahomans at Large page shows profiles of 96 inmates who remain at large. It even displays the eight that are the considered the most wanted.
The Prisons page maps and profile the medium- and maximum-security prisons, including my favorite part of the series — three panoramic views of a death-row cell, a maximum-security rotunda and the death chamber.
It’s chilling. It’s informational. It’s interactive.
The Department of Corrections online presentation is just good journalism.
Supreme Court ruling on public records not good news for journalists
The Oklahoma Supreme Court issued a ruling on June 28 that wasn’t what journalists in Oklahoma were hoping to here. Database Editor Paul Monies did a great job with his story in explaining the issue and offering some of the key background information.
The issue at hand is whether or not the dates of birth of state employees should be a matter of public record and subject to the Open Records Act.
At issue were requests under the Open Records Act by The Oklahoman — and later the Tulsa World — for state employee information. Among the records requested were birth dates, employee identification numbers, salary, tenure and job title.
The Oklahoman is in favor of open records and open government. Speak with any reporter in our newsroom, and they’ll share a story or two of the hoops they’ve had to jump through throughout their careers to get public information from government agencies. That public information, by the way, is the same information that should be available to all citizens.
Those reporters and editors feel they are standing up for all citizens in seeking government records that, by law, are available for all citizens to see. That information ranges from email records to travel expenses of public officials to government contracts to jail records to court records to a wide variety of information on ways the government is spending taxpayer money. In this case, dates of birth of state employees became a hot topic.
Here is Kelly Dyer Fry’s quote about the issue. Fry is the Editor of The Oklahoman and the Vice President of News for OPUBCO Communications Group. She also happens to be my boss.
It’s not just a question of using dates of birth for identification, but also for misidentification. If average citizens run their names through the sex offender registry, they might be surprised to find someone on the list with the same name. Birth dates can quickly sort out who’s who. I respectfully disagree with the court’s decision.
And here was Mark Thomas’ quote on the issue. Thomas is the executive vice president of the Oklahoma Press Association.
It’s ironic that private citizens are required to give our information to the government to vote or drive, but the same information about state employees is off limits.
To read more on the issue, dating back to our stories from last year, visit the Public Records Dispute ongoing coverage page on our site.
Two weeks worth of NewsOK memories
I missed last week. Thanks to everyone for all the messages of concern when my weekly blog didn’t appear on NewsOK. Wait, let me count all the messages of concern I received … hang on … carry the zero … yes, that’s right … Zero. That’s how many concerned messages I received. It doesn’t matter now, because I have two weeks worth of highlights from NewsOK.com. Enjoy.
‘A Thousand Hail Marys’
All notes about the great things to see on NewsOK in the past couple weeks have to start with Kelly Fry’s nDepth piece about her son’s fight with addiction. We’ve done some excellent nDepth pieces in the past three years, but this is undoubtedly the best. I urge you to read it and watch the video. But it doesn’t take much urging. If you start, you’ll finish.
A special PDF presentation
We also took the opportunity to put together a special PDF version of this story that we marketed to our iPad subscribers. The PDF is best viewed in the iBooks application on iPads, but it’s also viewable on any computer. The design from Art Director Todd Pendleton is outstanding.
Drug deaths covered this week
On the same day that we released the “A Thousand Hail Marys to Florida” piece, a story broke about a woman’s death after ingesting a designer drug. Several others were hospitalized. On Friday afternoon, we learned that a second man died after spending days in the hospital. It’s a sad story that we developed throughout the week. Then, on Wednesday night, we posted the 911 call from the night on May 7. It’s just further proof about how drug abuse and drug addiction affects every community.
An official iPad convert
I spent an hour Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and The Oklahoman, as I do on most every weekend morning. But this weekend was a bit different. It was just my second weekend as an iPad owner. Before I bought my own iPad, I used one of OPUBCO’s devices during the week. That convinced me to buy my own. In the weeks since I received my iPad, I’ve tossed my large portfolio notebook in the trash and I stopped dragging my laptop home every night. I’ve even stopped using the family iMac we bought earlier this year. Almost everything is easier on the iPad. And yes … I now spend my weekend mornings with a cup coffee and my iPad edition of The Oklahoman. But here’s the kicker … after I had set it down and moved along, I wanted to look something up about the Oklahoma City Thunder game against Memphis on Saturday. I picked up my iPad and started moving to the quickest way to find a story about it. Did I choose NewsOK.com on my Safari browser? Nope. I launched The Oklahoman app again. I found my story, read it and moved along. That’s was my ‘aha’ moment. There is indeed a future for packaged reading experiences like we have with The Oklahoman on the iPad. It’s easy, quick and already downloaded to my device. That’s not to say there’s not a future for NewsOK (I love NewsOK), but I understand why I pay to subscribe to The Oklahoman’s reading experience.
More kind words about our product
Speaking of the iPad edition, we received some kind feedback from a reader who recently bought an iPad and launched his subscription. Melissa Howell, a colleague that spends a good amount of her time editing the MOOD website, had the conversation with the esteemed reader. She shared it with me: “I love what you guys have done with the iPad. I am so hooked!”
Remembering May 3, 1999
Tuesday was May 3. That gave us an opportunity to send readers to our May 3 page that we built two years ago on the 10th anniversary of the devastating storm. I really like this site, because it does an excellent job of sharing the stories of the victims and what they remember from 10 years prior. The videos featured on this page never get old. And the stories they tell in the articles are mesmerizing. Schedule some time before clicking, though. You’ll want to browse a while on this page.
‘Hot Ink’ launches
Professionals in our newsroom volunteer their time to work with high school journalism students to produce an annual publication we call “Hot Ink.” We printed it a few weeks ago, and the website went live last week. You even saw a number of their completed articles in The Oklahoman on Sunday (May 1) as we showcased some of the young talent with a couple of inside pages of The Oklahoman. Carrie Coppernoll leads the group, and she does an outstanding job. Want proof? Just check out the Hot Ink website and read the articles. It’s worth your time.
A page full of interactive graphics
We have recently launched a page under our Multimedia main navigation that showcases the daily interactive graphics offered by The Associated Press. It’s really an interesting page to visit, because you get a little bit of everything. In just a few minutes, you can see everything about the death of Osama bin Laden to a live map of active wildfires in the country to a panoramic photos of the crown at the Royal Wedding last week. We started updating this page a few weeks ago, and we feel it’s ready for you to look at everything on it. Enjoy.
Courtroom fisticuffs
David Prater
What’s the old joke about attending a boxing match when a hockey game broke out? Well … reporter Nolan Clay went to cover a fist-fight, and a closing argument in a first-degree murder trial broke out. According to Nolan’s reports, Oklahoma Country District Attorney David Prater more than held his own after a convicted murderer took a cheap shot at him. This has to go directly into the “we-can’t-possibly-make-this-stuff-up” file. I’ll say it again. If this was a Hollywood movie script, I wouldn’t have believed it. But since Nolan reported it, I believe it.
Our users send message to bin Laden?
Osama bin Laden was killed on Sunday (May 1). We learned about it on Sunday night. Our editors had it covered that night with a bunch of stories and photos and interactive elements. I’m proud of that. On Monday, we saw some elevated traffic, something I expected after such a big news event. But our biggest hour was at noon. That’s not normal. Our busiest hours on the site for traffic are generally in the morning. But maybe our users were up to something. At the end of the day, our traffic chart for Monday kind of made it look like our audience was intentionally sending a message to the recently deceased bin Laden. I’ll let you make the call.
Geronimo nDepth piece came in handy
The code word for the operation to get bin Laden was “Geronimo.” That sparked some discussion about the proper use of the Apache warrior’s name, and it sparked some outrage. Luckily, we created an nDepth — Stories of the Ages piece on Geronimo a couple of years ago. It’s great read, and it has a really good video with it. Since the nation was suddenly interested in Geronimo last week, we took that opportunity to make sure our readers were an informed as possible about his life.
Finishing in the top 7,500
Columnist Carrie Coppernoll ran the half-marathon on May 1. I wrote about how she wrote about her training as she prepared for the event, but her column after the event was a great read, as well. Carrie finished in the top 7,500 in that race. That’s infinitely better than I did. Good for her.
Loud and Proud Thunder fans
As long as the Oklahoma City Thunder are playing in the NBA Playoffs (we hope that’s for another couple of weeks), we will continue to encourage users to submit their photos that prove they are the craziest basketball fan on Oklahoma. Our rules stated that we will accept entries until the Thunder loses in the playoffs, but we had a glitch that opened voting for those that had entered. That made at least one participant angry. I can’t blame her for being angry. We corrected the glitch and tried to make the submission process even more clear. Bottom line … it’s not too late to enter the contest for your chance to win an iPad.
Thunder bandwagon
Speaking of the Oklahoma City Thunder, there is still plenty of room on the Thunder Bandwagon.
Live chats during Thunder games
And if you haven’t joined the the live chats that we’ve had during the Thunder playoff games, you should. Prop up your laptop next to you and see what our reporters and other fans in the chat are talking about as the plays are happening. It’s a great way to add to the experience of the game in your living room.
Election results
We had some elections in the state on Tuesday (May 10). And as we’ve done with all elections recently, we had complete results. That’s something other news sites just don’t do. We have a deep database of election results that we are continuing to find ways to enhance in the coming months.
Static from Norman Music Festival
I’ve written a lot about Static and George Lang’s trip to Austin for SXSW earlier this year. But a couple weeks ago, Static visited the Norman Music Festival, and the episodes are starting to find their way on the Static website. Check out Episode 45: Other Lives.
Most-viewed article
Since I didn’t post last week, this is a two-week honor. It goes to a story that went viral, thanks to a link from the Drudge Report website. “A mentally impaired Oklahoma City man was held down and shocked in the genitals with a stun gun April 17 while his attackers forcibly tattooed the word ‘RAPEST’ on his forehead.” Judging by our traffic, you read that story, but if you somehow missed it, click here.
Most-viewed video
You guessed it. The same story … this time in video format:
Most-viewed blog post
Bob Przybylo’s post about Manny Pacquiao led the blog charge this week. I was a little surprised, but a lot of users around the world were searching on Manny’s name, and Bob’s blog post ranked high for those users.
Most-viewed gallery
The photos from the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon on May 1 led the traffic for galleries on NewsOK. It’s been almost two weeks since we built that gallery. It’s definitely worth another look.
NewsOK’s spring break highlighted by Jeff Capel and Sunshine
A lot of people take it slow during spring break. Many families are on vacation. Extra-curricular activities are postponed. Plus, we have the St. Patrick’s Day and the NCAA Tournament. In general, the world takes a breather (except for wars and natural disasters). But we didn’t take a break on NewsOK. See below for notes from this week on our website.
Email us a photo
While the wildfires raged last Friday, we tried something a little new. We had been working on creating an automated way to collect photos that are emailed to us during breaking news events. The idea is simple, attach a photo in an email and send it to pics@newsok.com. From your mobile device, it’s as simple as snapping a photo and forwarding the image to that address. Those photos then automatically appear in our monthly user-submitted photo gallery. So, as the fires raged and we chased the news of the day, we asked you to send us your photos. We didn’t expect a ton of images, but it was worth a shot. The process worked very well. We received a handful of photos that helped us tell the story for our visitors that day. Thanks for sharing. … And now you know. If you have a good photo and want to share it with NewsOK, just send it pics@newsok.com. We are now accepting all photos.
NCAA Tournament has arrived!
Sunday night was a big night for college basketball fans. That’s when the NCAA tournament brackets were announced. Thursday morning was even bigger for college basketball fans. That’s when they all skipped work (or took a veeeerry looooooong lunch) and watched the action at Buffalo Wild Wings (presenting sponsor of our tournament coverage on NewsOK). We have all the coverage you need of the tournament this year. We have the printable brackets for the men’s tournament and the women’s tournament. We have the Hoops Madness picks contest and all the live scores. We even have tons of video analysis from our experts in the OPUBCO Studios.
Capel coverage
Jeff Capel was fired as the OU men’s basketball coach on Monday. I learned on Twitter. Then, moments later, I received a text message with the news from NewsOK. Then, I received a breaking news e-mail alert from NewsOK. Within about 10 minutes, NewsOK had a full story, a blog post with analysis from Berry Tramel, an online poll to take the pulse of OU fans, a photo gallery of Jeff Capel’s tenure at OU and a question to allow readers to share their opinions on who the next coach should be. The sports staff and the NewsOK editing staff worked fast to get the information you needed. It’s a good thing, too. The Capel news gave us a nice spike in traffic for what might normally be a slow spring break Monday.
Images from high school basketball
Web editor Dane Beavers focuses on enhancing a lot of sports content on NewsOK. You see his work every day throughout the site. This week, you can see a fine idea on our Varsity page, where Dane featured the photo galleries from each of the high school basketball tournaments from last weekend. Oklahoma crowned 10 champions from Classes 2A-6A for both boys and girls. That’s a ton of celebration photos and images of disappointment. The high school tournaments are unique — and if you haven’t been, I highly recommend going. It’s raw, passionate competition — and it means the world to the participants.
More photos on Alternate Crop blog
Photographer Sarah Phipps posted some large images of the high school basketball tournaments on the Photo department’s Alternate Crop blog. I always enjoy visiting this blog because photographers will always have some interesting insight on the images that they like the best. Sarah also linked to the galleries I mentioned above, but she picks some of her favorites to showcase in the blog post. I encourage you to see her choices.
Posting other coverage of Japan destruction
I posted an extra blog post this week — a bonus blog. We were in the office looking at the ABC News presentation of the before-and-after images of the Japan destruction. It was jaw-dropping, so we linked it up with my lead in. Shortly after that post, I realized the the New York Times and MSNBC had posted equally impressive presentations. It doesn’t matter what brand you went with. The important thing is that you saw it. It just makes you shake your head. And then there were videos like this …
… again, shaking my head.
Blog comments
About the blog I posted in the middle of the week. It sparked a couple of comments from readers who had a difficult time referring to the Japanese people as allies based on the history of our two countries during World War II. Some highlights: “My heart is moved enormously by the suffering of the innocents in this horrible national disaster and i will give generously to help them… but I will not be called an ally of their nation. Period.” and “…they didn’t generously offer to help rebuild Pearl Harbor and all the ships in the harbor on 12-7-1941.” Said the third commenter on that post: “What is wrong with you guys. You embarrass me.”
Sunshine Week
But here in the United States, it’s Sunshine Week. You’re probably wondering what Sunshine Week is? Here’s a quick explanation: “An annual nationwide initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information.” I know … this stuff isn’t the full of sizzle. It doesn’t have splashy headlines and sure-fire web-winners, like a story about a man who leads police in a chase before getting out of the car with two cats in his arms, but it’s stuff that is important for our community and our future. Heck, just forget for a moment about stories about dates of births or about government bids (just an exercise … you shouldn’t really forget about those). But here’s the point: If open records laws aren’t preserved for our citizens now, then we might never be able to bring you that story about the man, his two cats and the police chase. Now that’s a scary thought, isn’t it?
The next big thing
I watched “The Social Network” this weekend. I also saw “The Adjustment Bureau” in the theater. Before seeing the movies, I was more interested in “The Adjustment Bureau,” but I have to say that “The Social Network” was more entertaining. Since watching that story. I’m inspired to invent the next big thing. I’ll unveil this invention on NewsOK. Keep an eye out for it.
High praise from reader
We had an out-of-towner visit the city last weekend during the high school state basketball tournaments. He was impressed with the newspaper coverage of the tournaments: “I just want to say thanks for the excellent coverage of the 6A-2A state tournament games. That includes all editors, writers, and photographers. … I really enjoyed the layout, the stories, the photos. Just excellent work. … Yes, I enjoyed the online coverage of the A-B tourneys the previous week.” That’s a customer we’re proud of. He uses NewsOK.com when he’s out of the area and reads the The Oklahoman, as well. And he liked both of them. Congratulations to the sports staff, once again.
A real-life ‘stuck-in-the-well’ story
I was browsing the know it: Unusual Oklahoma on Tuesday and came across this article: Firefighters rescue Bartlesville boy, mom from 30-foot well. It’s a well-reported AP story from Bartlesville. The mother apparently slid down to wait with her 7-year-old son as the rescue team was called and assembled. Said fire chief Bob Hasbrook: “It was a general consensus out there that the mother was the general hero.” It’s a good story. I like good stories.
Homicide map upgrade
The Oklahoma City Homicides map and database was improved in a major way this week. Our designers and developers did exceptional work in making the data our News and Information Center is gathering more user-friendly to sort, search, filter and browse. You can now sort the data by gender, age, ethnicity and more. You can sort by years, dating back to 2008. You can search the homicides by your Oklahoma City address and then change the proximity of the returns near that address. It’s a great tool for our users. But it’s also a great example of teamwork at the OPUBCO building. Local Editor Rick Green’s team is responsible for reporting on these homicides and adding the information into the database. Web editor Nick Tankersley is responsible for building the data structure in the Django frameworks and delivering clean data for display. The Audience Development team of designers and developers is responsible for making the user-interface as slick as it now is.
Most-viewed article
Jeff Capel dominated our readership this week. I already mentioned above about our coverage the day he was fired. The big story that day was the big story of the week as well. So what was our second most-viewed article? It was this: Jenni Carlson’s chat recap from Tuesday.
Most-viewed blog
Jeff Capel coverage won this category, also. This time from the OU blog. The second most-viewed blog post? It was this (also from the OU blog): Non-conference football schedule set in stone.
Most-viewed video
Jeff Capel again.
I’d show you the second most-viewed video, but it would just be another video about Jeff Capel. I think you get the picture.
This week: Remembering 2010, wimgo, slideshows and new personalities
Another roundup of NewsOK.com and the happenings on our site this week.
- We’re almost all the way to mid-January (and we might be all the way there, depending on when you read this), so this is my last opportunity to encourage you to visit our 2010 Year in Review page. This page is simple. It’s the top 25 articles that were viewed on NewsOK in 2010 — the good, the bad and the ugly. Don’t look at us. You guys clicked on them. Actually, it’s a a pretty good cross-section of what our readers tend to click on. And the commentary from web editor Nick Tankersley, who put together this page, is quite entertaining at times.
Steve Lackmeyer, author of the much-read OKC Central blog, sent me this post from the OKC Talk message board he frequents. He found it interesting because they were talking about our partner - wimgo.com. The people in the discussion on the post are really just saying what we’ve know for quite some time — wimgo is an awesome resource for making decisions about your life. If you need to decide how to spend your time or your money, wimgo is a comprehensive resource for everything about events, movies, restaurants or businesses.- Bob Przybylo’s blog post on Monday was interesting to me because he featured the progress of the Edmond North boys basketball team under new head coach Jeff Tanner after a tough loss to Norman. Said Tanner: “We have to get tired of having these results. Norman played like a team that was tired of losing. Our energy and our focus has to be there every game.” I took particular interest in this post because coach Tanner is new to my neighborhood in Edmond, and his family is a great addition to our block. We wish him and his team very well. But that’s my personal interest. You should take interest in this post because it highlights the depth of coverage the Bob and the rest of the NewsOK Varsity coverage team offers with its constant blog posts, Twitter streams and article updates on the site. Varsity is the absolute best and most comprehensive coverage of high school sports anywhere. It’s not even close. We’re very proud of our high school coverage.
- Our photography department put together three really interesting slideshows this week. The first was posted to NewsOK after Mary Fallin’s inauguration. The second was a photographic story about the Rocktown ice-climbing wall this winter (I’ll just look at the pictures and leave it to others to experience it firsthand). The third was a nice story about Julie Adams, who is juggling life as a young mother while finishing high school at Emerson High School.
- We have a whole page of slideshows, and we archive them going back to when we first started these. It’s just another example of great story-telling on NewsOK.
- The saga of the Bethany man who was arrested and charged in the stabbing death of his wife topped our article traffic this week. This is my cue to say again … you can’t make this stuff up.
- Oklahoma State football fans got some good news this week, when Justin Blackmon and Brandon Weeden both announced that they would play at OSU next season instead of declaring themselves eligible for the NFL Draft. The video of their announcement was our top video on the site this week:
- We launched a new ongoing coverage page this week to house all the content related to the 2010 U.S. Census. We have all of our stories that analyze the census data, plus a pretty cool map of Oklahoma’s foreign-born residents broken down by county. Another really cool item to digest if you have a free afternoon is the New York Times’ interactive map breaking down every city and every block in the United States. It is one impressive map. So impressive, in fact, that we insist you browse it. That’s why we’re linking to it from our Census page — because we love great journalism.
- Marcy Williams is a web editor on my staff who recently retired. She had been working with us for more than a decade, and her work online pre-dated most web experts you come across on Twitter — and all of those early online efforts came after she retired as an elementary school principal. She is already greatly missed in our newsroom, but her life in retirement can still be followed with her Travel Along blog. See her post this week about trying to go to an OU-Texas game without a ticket — and let that be a lesson to all as they prepare for the 2011 OU-Texas game.
- On Wednesday, I came across this story on our Know It page that covers Unusual Oklahoma. It was about a boy in Woodward who was rescued after his tongue was stuck on a frozen metal pole. It was a story straight out of the famous holiday movie, “A Christmas Story.” This wasn’t a story that inspired great journalism. And it wasn’t a story that became extremely popular on the website. But it does illustrate just the massive amount of content we can offer in a single day. And it’s probably the story that I’ll remember more than anything else this week. Especially the this line: “… the boy told officials he got stuck after his brother dared him to lick the pole.”
You can now see everything produced by Helen Ford Wallace on Helen’s personality page. Helen is an icon at The Oklahoman and NewsOK. She’s has enough energy to fill the newsroom, which I’ve written about before. And now she joins our other prime personalities with a page devoted to all the work she produces — blogs, videos, articles, photo galleries, Twitter posts, etc.- The new personality pages bring up another cool page we have on NewsOK. All the personalities we’ve pulled out to a separate page can be found on our NewsOK Blogs main page, where you can see all the personalities and all the blogs we have available on the site. I love to visit the page once a day, because I always see something I hadn’t seen on the site yet.
- Database editor Paul Monies doesn’t have a personality page, but he has the next best thing. He edits and controls a page completely devoted to one of his passions. His passion is right your right to know. He blogs on his Data Watch blog and posts tons of database information that empowers you as an American citizen with more information. He has city code complaints, pot hole complaints, gifts from stat lobbyists and much, much more. One thing that caught my eye this week was his map of the top neighborhoods in Oklahoma City with home vacancies.
Photo by Jim Beckel, The Oklahoman
Enjoy another week of NewsOK browsing.
Elections, lingerie and Bedlam football — a record-breaking combination
First, we had the 2010 Elections.
Then, we had the Lingerie Football League story.
Finally, we finished with Bedlam.
In the end, NewsOK broke another record for page views, unique visitors and blog views in November. It’s the second consecutive record-breaking month.
I knew we’d have a big push with our 2010 Election coverage. We always do. But I very much expected traffic to slow a bit as we inched closer to a long weekend around Thanksgiving.
But then came the story about the Lingerie Football League.
That story went viral, receiving high traffic from referrals from the popular Drudge Report website.
After the Lingerie Football League story, it became clear that we would overcome a sluggish Thanksgiving weekend for web traffic and break another monthly audience record.
However, the sluggish Thanksgiving weekend wasn’t even that sluggish. As a matter of fact, we spiked with our coverage of the Bedlam game, thanks the intense audience interest in that game and the extensive multimedia coverage we provided.
Bottom line: NewsOK’s audience continues to grow. We thank you for coming to our website for the most comprehensive coverage of Oklahoma and the things important to Oklahoma.
A look back at election night 2010
We covered the 2010 Elections on Tuesday night.
It was a full newsroom, hopping with reporters, editors, copy editors, etc. The phones were ringing off the hook, colleagues were yelling instructions to each other across the room, and the constant tapping of keyboards provided a settling background.
There was a buzz in the air. And there was pizza in the break room. (Generally, when there’s a palpable buzz and an aroma or pepperoni in the air, you can bank on it — journalism is being practiced in the vicinity.)
And the good news for NewsOK is that our web traffic peaked between the hours of 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on election night.Usually, our traffic dips in the evening hours, but that wasn’t the case on Tuesday. Sure, we could have predicted that, but it’s always good to see that news consumers know where to go to find our what they want to find out.
In the case of Tuesday night, it was the live election results, which we had as they were released.
For both Tuesday’s live coverage and Wednesday’s aftermath coverage, NewsOK’s traffic was about double that of a normal weekday.
You can check out all the results, all the stories, all the videos, all the photos and all the analysis on our 2010 Elections page.
It’s still getting pretty good traffic, even two days later.
Enjoy browsing with a slice of cold pizza.
Search the candidates in Oklahoma with our 2010 Elections Page
You’ve seen the yard signs.
You’ve probably had some people stop and talk to you while you were mowing your yard.
You know it’s coming quickly.
It’s the 2010 elections.
I know. If you’re not a political junkie, you might not be all that excited. The primary that’s scheduled for July 27 has a lot of people interested — but generally it’s the people that belong to a party and are keenly aware of the process.
The rest of you? Well, frankly, it’s hard for you to keep up with what the candidates stand for. It’s not that you don’t care. It’s just easier to know all the differences when the candidates are pared down to two or three per race.
But NewsOK’s 2010 Elections page makes it easy to find out more. The candidate data base is packed with information about every candidate that has filed to run for office in 2010.
- You can see all the candidates.
- You can click through to see their bios.
- You can see what they stand for.
- You can see the information they are providing you.
- You can see what information they might not want to provide for you.
We have a searchable database on the 2010 Elections Page, and you can follow this data all the way through election nights, beginning on July 27.
Public records dispute can be seen on one NewsOK page
The Oklahoman is sitting in the middle of a controversy.
It’s been there for weeks — actually, months.
The debate centers around the availability of public records, something journalists generally feel strongly about. They (or at least the ones in our newsroom) are passionate about the issue for one reason: They honestly believe in doing good journalistic work that serves the public at large.
We’ve covered the issue between the Oklahoma Public Employees Association and The Oklahoman pretty extensively.
The disagreement centers around the availability of birth dates of state employees. And it’s not simply an issue in Oklahoma; this debate about open records for American citizens is happening across the country.
Last week, NewsOK.com editors put together a page that provides the history of this specific issue, dating back to last August. You can read all the past stories, and even see the latest coverage from this weekend, including The Oklahoman editor Ed Kelley’s piece on why the issue is significant and the investigation about the state of Oklahoma selling the same personal data that is being currently debated.
Kelley’s final paragraph effectively summarizes the opinion of the editor:
We at The Oklahoman take very seriously the traditional watchdog role of the press in modern American life. At the heart of that role is journalistic oversight of government, particularly at the local and state level. Open records — of which dates of birth are a key component — and open meetings laws allow us to do our job on behalf of our readers and online audiences. We believe you’ve come to expect that from us through the years, and we intend to continue to meet your expectations in the future.
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.
