‘Endangered Black History’ nDepth series comes highly recommended
We are in the middle of a six-part series titled, “Endangered Black History,” that I would highly recommend our users take a look at.
We’ve organized this coverage as part of our nDepth – Stories of the Ages presentations, where we tell a story in a long-form and high-design format. We’ve completed dozens of nDepth stories over the past few years, but this is perhaps our most ambitious project, because we’re linking six of them together over the course of a few weeks.
We’ve already released Part 1: The Overview, Part 2: Langston and Part 3: Boley. There are still three more to come.
Graphic artist Chris Schoelen is producing the designs, reporter Ken Raymond is writing the stories, video producer Paige Dillard is producing the videos and web editor Nick Tankersley is putting it all together on the web pages.
They all deserve high praise for the extra effort that benefits our readers, but the work goes far beyond them — videographers, photographers, editors and researchers have come together to make this a successful story-telling effort.
It easy to navigate. The stories are detailed and descriptive. The videos add more context to the words that surround them. And the photos — well I’m a sucker for historic photos.
But here’s my favorite part: We went with Facebook comments to keep the conversation going in this series, and it’s proved to be an interesting way for users to share the series with others and offer their own commentary and insight.
Take a look. But don’t worry, there’s no rush. We’re going to keep this package active on the site for years to come.
The well-told story of Freckles Brown and Tornado
We put together another nDepth – Stories of the Ages piece for Sunday. It’s called, “The Ride,” and it focuses on the most famous “Eight Seconds in Rodeo History” when Freckles Brown stayed atop Tornado in 1967.
The story appeared on the front page of The Oklahoman on Sunday and was featured prominently on NewsOK.
I’m no rodeo aficionado, but I really enjoyed this piece by contributor Ron J. Jackson Jr.
I spoke on the phone this morning with a true rodeo fan who said he was there that night in 1967. He said that Jackson had “everything right” in his accounts and that it was a “great article.”
I agree. Reading the story of Freckles Brown and Tornado is worth the time. If you haven’t read it yet, do so today.
And make darn sure you take the handful of minutes to watch the great video, narrated by Bryan Painter and Doug Sauter.
Seeking Truth: nDepth piece shares Dr. R. Murali Krishna’s story
Kelly Dyer Fry wrote another heart-wrenching piece. This time, instead of sharing the gripping story of addiction within her own family, she shared an equally gripping account of an equally challenging affliction from the family of Dr. R. Murali Krishna.
The title is Seeking Truth: Where is my Amma? It shares Krishna’s accounts of his mother’s fight with mental illness while he was a young boy in India.
It’s part of our “nDepth: Fighting Back” series, where we tell inspirational stories of people making a difference in our community. Dr. Krishna definitely qualifies, and the only proof you need is Kelly’s story.
As he enters the backyard trimmed with rose bushes, he sees his mom. She is standing in the yard. Smoke is rising from her yellow sari with black trim. Flames. She is setting herself on fire.
Fry — who, for the record, runs our newsroom – transitions from Krishna’s flashbacks to Krishna’s present-day advice. As the audience, we learn not only what drove and inspired Krishna to become a community leader in the field of mental health.
We also get a bit more insight on how the world can change for a family dealing with mental illness.
‘Finding a Forever Family’ — a special NewsOK nDepth story
In the midst of all the earthquake madness this weekend, you might have missed a special nDepth presentation we put together and launched on Saturday night on NewsOK.com.
So take the time to read “Finding a Forever Family” when you have a few spare minutes. It’s a story told by OPUBCO’s own Michelle Kelley as told to our Night News Director Yvette Walker. Michelle tells the her story of working with the system to adopt a child.
This isn’t the story of Michelle Kelley. It’s the story of a little boy and a little girl nicknamed Biggin’ and Darlin’. And it’s also the story of why some children have to wait so long to find families to take them in and love them forever — “forever families.”
We also created a special PDF presentation that is enhanced be flipped through on a user’s iPad. It’s best viewed in iBooks on the iPad, but it’s a good PDF to read in any way you want to.
I highly recommend reading it an whatever way you want. And for a nice preview, here’s a video to get you started.
Sports, nDepths and Halliburton executives dominate last full week of August on NewsOK
A blank blog post for about 15 hours
Thank goodness for moms. At a family gathering last weekend, the No. 1 reader of this blog reported that last week’s blog post was blank — as in empty …. nothing to read at all except for a catchy headline. I called up the blog post on the computer and saw that her report was accurate. I’m not sure how that happened. I do know that I made some changes (fixing typos) Friday night on my iPad. I must have pushed the wrong button. Luckily, WordPress has a nice version history of all posts, and I was able to retrieve what was there on Friday night. Whew!
NewsOK.com is hiring
I’m hiring a web editor position. We recently lost a good hand. It’s a shame. But we understand that not everyone spends their entire career here. There are plenty of opportunities for career growth for good people, even when times are tough in the news publishing business. But with every loss comes great opportunity, so we’re looking for a web editor that can do a wide variety of things to help us grow: “NewsOK.com is looking for a web editor to work closely with our online sports initiatives and our sports department. We need a journalist skilled in social media, blogging, content curation, industry technology and trends and solid news judgment to connect with our audience and continue our aggressive digital media efforts. Contact aherzberger@opubco.com.”
OHP sex scandal page
We launched a new Ongoing Coverage page last week amid the series of stories covering the case of Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Patrick Venable. Venable is charged with second-degree rape after being accused of taking a woman into custody in the early morning hours of June 20 and then driving her to her house in Guthrie to have sex. Venable’s next court appearance is set for Sept. 22. On our ongoing coverage page, you can see all the previous stories on this case and read the court and read the affidavit that led to the charges.
Fighting Back – a new nDepth
We launched a new nDepth special presentation this week that is intended to be the first in a series of nDepth specials titled “Fighting Back.” The first one was a story about Reggie Whitten, who has started several non-profit organizations during the past few years after the death of his son Brandon. In this nDepth piece, Jenni Carlson shares Whitten’s story about Brandon’s addiction and eventual death – and how he turned that tragedy into a life spent trying to help others in the world. It’s a powerful story.
Berry’s take on Perkins
Berry Tramel had a Berry-like take on the recent Kendrick Perkins controversy that we reported on last week (and I blogged about in my previous post). From Berry: “What a crock. Hey, Gran Torino, let me tell you what Clint Eastwood would not do in this kind of situation. He wouldn’t hide behind some shill. If he felt he was wronged, he would say so. Or at least, keep quiet and not let anyone else do his talking for him.” We’ve really had all sides of this story covered. Now we’re just waiting on the truth to come out.
Happy iPad customer No. 1
I received an email this week from a longtime newspaper subscriber who now gets the edition every day on his iPad. This customer is a perfect example of a traditional newspaper reader who has transitioned to a digital device as his lifestyle has changed. He was patient and pleasant, but he couldn’t get an edition to download on Tuesday morning. After a quick email exchange (I handed him off to our customer service specialist for digital products), the problem was fixed. We don’t have many problems with customers trying to get an edition or get connected, when we do, we’re happy to help as quickly as we can.
Happy iPad customer No. 2
I spoke with my brother-in-law last weekend. He lives in Springdale, Ark., and reported that he is a new subscriber to The Oklahoman on his iPad device. This customer is a perfect example of a non-traditional newspaper reader who has connected with us because of his new device. He didn’t read the newspaper daily when he lived in town, but he’s always been a digital news consumer. The Oklahoman’s iPad app is a great way to stay informed, especially as it relates to Oklahoma. He’s interested in staying informed about his former state. So because of technology and our development, he’s a new customer. That makes us happy.
Community blogs
We recently launched a community blogs page that has links to a lot of Oklahoma bloggers (45 of them, to be exact). Some of the bloggers are hosted within the NewsOK blogging community, but others are doing their own thing. We link to them as well. I’ve always known the blogging community is Oklahoma is strong, but having dozens of them in one place really helps get around the community quickly. If you’re a blogger, but don”t see yours on here, let me know. I expect that we will add many more in the next week or so.
Travis Haney is on campus
Our new OU football reporter Travis Haney started this week. And judging by his first two blog posts about his tour of the OU campus and his memories of the great Pat Summit, we’re in for a treat on his daily reports and musings about the OU football program. Check them out. Send him a note. And look for much more from Travis.
All-Access from ESPN
Speaking of the OU blog, Mike Baldwin is also covering the Sooners every day. This week, he had the rough assignment of watching television — something many OU fans surely watched as well. His breakdown — ESPN’s ‘All-Access, training Days With the Oklahoma Sooners’ is must-see TV — was helpful to me, especially since I’ve yet to see the program. Mike offered a series of notes about the show, and then said this: “The only negative for a reporter like myself is the media used to get this type of access years ago before college football coaches shut down watching practices. I miss those days. Not only did you get to see which backup players were close to being ready to contribute you saw more of the players’ personalties.”
Gina Mizell starts her gig with us
Staying with the sports theme this week (we are almost ready for football season, you know), check out the blog posts from the new OSU football reporter Gina Mizell. She opened up with an interesting comparison between the OSU football program and the Arizona State football program. She also talked about how she saw her first OSU practice. But her big introduction to us is this video with Berry Tramel from the OPUBCO Studios …
Most-viewed article
A Halliburton executive sipped from a cup of fracking fluid at an industry conference. We had an AP story on it, and Fark.com linked to it, driving the Halliburton executive takes a swig of fracking fluid article to the top of the list for articles this week on NewsOK.
Most-viewed blog post
Travis Haney’s aforementioned blog post about his experience with legendary Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summit was our most-viewed blog post this week.
Most-viewed photo gallery
For the second consecutive week, the gallery of the former OU quarterback Jimmy Harris has been the most-viewed photo gallery in our photo section. Jimmy keeps on winning.
Most-viewed video
An OU practice report from Tuesday was our most-viewed video this week:
A week in review on NewsOK – August 12 edition
I decided this week to revert to a weekly blog format with a series of notes about what’s cool on NewsOK. If you like this better than random posts, let me know.
If you prefer shorter posts, let me know.
If you don’t really care, stay silent and roll your eyes.
Super 30
Barry J. Sanders topped the list. It’s fitting, since it seems like anybody slightly interested in high school or college football is talking about him. What’s the list I’m referring to? It’s the Super 30 list that The Oklahoman’s high school coverage team put together this summer. It profiles the top 30 players in the state, beginning with Norman’s George Kittle and finishing with offensive stars like Heritage Hall’s Sterling Shepard, Jenks’ Alex Ross and Sanders, who is also from Heritage Hall. Um … I’m not expert, but I think Heritage Hall will be pretty good this year.
The Boys of Summer
We put together two special presentations on NewsOK in recent weeks. The first was from our sports department — a story about a group of softball players who are all over the age of 75. It’s a great team. And the best part … they don’t replace you when you’re not effective on the field. According to the story, you’re on the team until you decide you can’t play anymore or you die (or both, I guess). Reading this story left me with a goal — I hope to one day play for the Royals.
Thrills Gone By
The other special presentation we had in recent weeks was a “Stories of the Ages” project that reflected on the deep history and memories of Oklahoma’s amusement parks. The story included all the memories of Springlake, Wedgewood Park and Frontier City. It even features earlier parks, like Belle Isle Park, Delmar Gardens and Wheeler Park. It’s a fun Stories of the Ages, especially if you grew up in Oklahoma City and have early childhood memories of these parks. I highly recommend spending some time with this story and reading all the ‘thrilling memories’ section of what our readers think about these spots.
A historic blackboard
Reporter Jane Glenn Cannon put together an interesting story this week about a blackboard with instructions from 1935 found behind a wall at Longfellow Middle School in Norman as workers were renovating the room. From the story: “Chalk writing on the board indicates a zoology teacher was instructing students on the requirements for an upcoming paper.” Zoology? Yuck. A college freshman-level zoology class was difficult for me in 1994. I’m certain I would have flunked the middle-school class back in 1935.
Gene Triplett honored
The Oklahoman’s Entertainment Editor is a soon-to-be Hall of Famer. NewsOK posted a story on Tuesday afternoon about Gene Triplett: “Raised in Oklahoma City, Triplett is a respected expert on live and recorded music, having interviewed such music industry stars as Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger, and such homegrown talent as Wanda Jackson and Hoyt Axton in his nearly four-decade career.” Gene know his stuff. And he takes his craft and his coverage as seriously as anyone in our news operation. Congratulations to him.
How did we ever live without it?
I lost power Monday night as the first of a few storms swept through the Oklahoma City metro this week. The power went out at about 7:45 p.m. As I gathered the flashlights and candles in preparation for sunset, it dawned on me that I was just about to lose all the battery power in both my iPhone and iPad for the day. So … brilliant mind that I am, I used some of that juice to post that revelation to Twitter. But after that, I started to be more careful about how I used the phone. I needed to be able to make a phone call to my wife who was driving in the storm at the time. I was fully prepared to take my car charger into the garage (after manually lifting open my garage door, of course) and setting up office in the car. But thankfully, normalcy return when the lights came on at about 9:30 p.m.. Whew! Then, my 10-year-old asks the question as he headed to his night-lit room: “What did people do before there was electricity?” All I could muster for an answer was, “Read.” I had no better answer. I had the same question, but it wasn’t about electricity. My question … “What did people do before smart phones and tablets?” I can’t remember.
New faces in the sports section
Sports Editor Mike Sherman has brought on three new faces in our sports department in the past week or so. We had already announced that Jason Kersey would moving to cover the help high school scene along with Ryan Aber. Replacing him on the sports desk is Jacob Unruh, who comes to us from Lawton. The new reporter that will be covering OU football is Travis Haney, who comes to us from South Carolina. Gina Mizell is moving from Beumont, Texas, to join the OSU football coverage team. Sherman was careful to find the best fits for our audience, and we’re very confident that these additions will help us continue as the undisputed leader in OU, OSU and high school football coverage.
LOOKatOKC navigation change
We launched the new LOOKatOKC website a few months ago, and we’re happy with our we’ve managed to merge all our entertainment content in one nice and well-presented online brand. We even started experimenting with Facebook commenting on LOOKatOKC, and we’ve been pretty happy with what we’ve seen from our audience there. Our latest addition to the site is our Photo Gallery page, where you can see all the LOOKatOKC photos in one place. We’ve added that page to he main LOOKatOKC navigation. It’s there in the nav before the Swimsuit page, where we have three years worth of LOOKatOKC swimsuit edition photos.
The Oklahoman on your Kindle app
Since I bought my iPad a few months ago, I stopped using the Kindle in my possession. The Kindle app on my iPad actually served me very well, and I began reading and buying more books than I had before. But Amazon had previously decided to not allow periodicals to be available on the app. Those periodicals were only available to those with the Kindle hardware. So, I was disappointed that I couldn’t read The Oklahoman’s Kindle edition on my iPad. But about two weeks ago, that changed. Amazon, as part of their strategy to not allow in-app purchases, is now allowing periodicals to be downloaded through the app. It’s hard to follow, I know. It’s all part of a war between two digital giants — Amazon and Apple (and many others). But the bottom line is that it’s just one more way for readers to read and subscribe to our product.
User photos
The photos we have on our user-submitted gallery for August show the wide variety of weather we’ve had in recent weeks. We have photos of droughts, photos of storm damage, photos of lightning strikes, photos or happy people swimming and photos of extreme temperatures. Our process for automatically adding photos from NewsOK users is starting to work better with each month, and it’s always fun to take a look at a month’s worth of photos as a snapshot of life in Oklahoma. Add your photo for August by attaching an image in an email to pics@newsok.com.
Kevin Wilson and the radio rant
Jenni Carlson had my favorite blog post of the week when she detailed the exchange between Indiana head football coach Kevin Wilson and a couple or sports radio talk show hosts. Wilson, was the offensive coordinator for OU in recent years, was angry at how the hosts poked fun at his struggling program. Jenni’s take: “…when Zack and Jack decided to hang up on him, then tear him down, it turned them from unknowing buffoons to shady bullies.” Great stuff. And it was a great example of Jenni Carlson knowing what the NewsOK audience will be interested in.
Most-viewed article
We published an article from Carrie Coppernoll last Friday, but it really took off over the weekend and early this week, eventually leading the charge for all NewsOK articles in the past week. It was the story about the naked woman and the charity golf tournament at a city-owned course in Woodward. The story was picked up and linked to on fark.com, which gave the story more views than a normal top story on NewsOK. But the help from fark.com didn’t matter in the end. Let’s face it … a story that combines nudity, sports and politics is a guaranteed top story in any given week.
Most-viewed video
Most-viewed blog post
Jenni Carlson’s post on Wednesday about Texas A&M possibly leaving for the SEC led the blog charge this week. From Jenni: “I have just one question for Texas A&M: do you like winning or losing?” It’s been a good week for Jenni and her blog.
Most viewed photo gallery
We created a gallery of all the Oklahomans we know in the NFL, and it became the most-viewed gallery. Our users like to look at photos.
Enjoy the weekend. And thanks for reading.
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.
Winning awards, visiting with a Pulitzer Prize winner and telling important stories this week on NewsOK
Some more notes and thoughts about a week on NewsOK.com.
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:
A show for Static, a blog for Turkey and vote for Tubby Smith
Another week has passed, and NewsOK users have picked a new OU coach, seen the highlights from SXSW in Austin and learned a little history about Anita Bryant. Read more about our week below.
Static goes to Austin
George Lang and Kyle Roberts spent some of last week in Austin for the SXSW Festival. They took that opportunity to film some episodes of Static: Season 3. The first episode from that trip — Pretty Black Chains — was posted last Friday, and more came this week. Static has been a critical success, so we’re doing many more episodes this year, thanks to our sponsor — Fowler Volkswagon.
Anita Bryant: Sunny Side of Life
The nDepth: Stories of the Ages did its job again with its latest release on Sunday. Robert Medley did the reporting and wrote the story. Steve Boaldin did the design. Angi Bruss narrated the video. In the end, we told quite a story about the legendary and controversial Anita Bryant. And we learned what she’s doing now and what she thinks about her life in the 1970s, when she was a lightning rod in the middle of the gay rights debates. Some people knew a lot about Anita Bryant before reading this piece. After reading it, they know a lot more. Others didn’t know anything about her before reading this piece. After reading it, they are informed. Check out the latest Stories of the Ages on our nDepth page on NewsOK.
OU coaching search: Fans get the vote
Sports editor Mike Sherman and columnist Berry Tramel had an idea last week. Put 64 possible OU men’s basketball coaching candidates in a tournament bracket and let Berry pare down who he thinks will end up with the job. OK … it’s not a new idea. They did the same thing five years ago the last time the job was vacant. Berry had 64 potential candidates, and the eventual winner — Jeff Capel — wasn’t in his bracket. This year, we’re doing something a little different. We’re allowing the fans to cast their votes to help us determine the eventual winner. My choice? It’s Tubby Smith. I’m a big fan of Tubby Smith. I voted for him until he was eliminated in the quarterfinals. It was fun to play along.
My favorite video this week
I’ve been folowing the O’Connell’s saga for months. On Tuesday, we posted the video of the original O’Connell’s being torn down. To me, that video made the entire thing real. It was even more real than my real-life visit to O’Connell’s in December for my last meal in between those historic walls. Sometimes, video just tells a great story.
Travel Along blog update
Marcy Williams had another fine post on her Travel Along blog this week. Actually, she had three posts on her trip to Texas — NASA, Kemah Boardwalk and Galveston Beach. I went to Galveston last year with my family, as well. I’ll say this … Galveston is underrated. It’s an fairly easy drive, and the kids loved it. I’d go back.
Oklahomans in Turkey
T
his is a blog post about a blog post about another blog post. Check out Carla Hinton’s blog post on her Religion and Values blog. Her post is about Louisa McCune-Elmore’s trip to Turkey as a guest of the Institute of Interfaith Dialogue in Istanbul. Louisa is an important member of our community as editor-in-chief of Oklahoma Today magazine. Carla will be posting some of Louisa’s posts on the religion and Values blog, but you can see all of Louisa’s posts on JenX67.com under the Oklahoma to Istanbul posts. So … a blog post about a blog post about another blog. That’s a blogging community at work.
New blog for all the ‘know it’ pages
Don Gamill has started a new blog for all of our ‘know it’ pages on NewsOK. There’s more to come on Don’s ‘know it’ mission. You can expect to see a personality page for him soon, where everything he know about the ‘know its’ will be hosted. As it is, this is what you can expect on the know it blog: “… guest posts from local and national experts on all “know it” topics, as well as regular updates from Communities Editor Don Gammill.”
In the MOOD for a show
Heather Warlick-Moore started a new show on the MOOD website last week. It’s called “This is Mood,” and the first episode is below. I like it. Well done. And … a big thank you to sponsor Eskridge Lexus of Oklahoma City to helping us make this happen for our growing MOOD audience.
Most-viewed article
On Tuesday night, a series of gunshots were heard in the middle of Oklahoma City. We reported that. But by Wednesday morning, we had been able to confirm more details about what happened. It wasn’t pretty. An Edmond attorney was killed by her ex-husband in a murder-suicide. The story took off on Wednesday and it quickly became a strong traffic driver for NewsOK. In the end, it’s the most-viewed article on the website this week by about 20,000 views over an article about OU freshman running back Brandon Williams, which came in at a strong second place.
Most-viewed blog
Remember that OU coaching bracket I mentioned earlier in this post? Well, the blog post we used to promote that fun game for the fans was our most-viewed blog post of the week.
Another word about Tubby Smith
Of course, I wanted Tubby Smith (and still do). I think he’d be a great choice for OU. But I’m not impartial. My father and I had season tickets for the Tulsa basketball team during Tubby Smith’s first season at Tulsa in 1991. And he was a top candidate for the OU job in 1994, according to this archived article from John Rohde. Nobody is really talking about him this time around — and that makes me think he’ll be named the next OU coach next week. I don’t know anything, but if it comes true, I’m taking credit for being a genius.
Most-viewed video
It’s (spring) football season again. OU football takes the lead in our video views with our first analysis of the week reaching the top of the list for most-viewed video this week.
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.
