Readers’ Choice nominations available on NewsOK.com
It’s that time of year again. Readers’ Choice nominations.
I could spend a lot of time explaining it, but frankly, our Reader’s Choice page handles it pretty well.
Today, The Oklahoman announces its 2009 Readers’ Choice Awards. We want you, the reader, to nominate your personal favorites in each of our 180 categories under six major topics: Food, Lifestyles, Shopping, Community, Travel and Local People, Places and Things. As an example: under restaurants, give us your choice for best American food, best Chinese, or best place to have breakfast. Every time you nominate or vote, you enter yourself into the drawings.
We will be taking nominations until May 26. Voting on the finalists will begin on June 11. Results of the voting will be announced July 26.
But it all starts with your nominations, which, for the first time, you can do entirely online on NewsOK.com.
Remembering May 3, 1999 tornadoes in Oklahoma
I heard the F5 tornado on May 3, 1999.
Yes, it really did sounds like a freight train. I’ve been lucky in my life not to have experienced many negative encounters with danger. That day was a close call. The possibility of death actually crossed my mind as I heard the ‘freight train’ loud and clear before hearing the carport roof rip off the house I was living in. I thought my pickup truck was in the living room – that’s what I was certain I had heard.
Alas, the damage wasn’t that bad, and devastation was about four blocks north of my location in Moore. I survived, and helped my friend repair his fence and carport in the following days. I ended up with an interesting story to tell when May 3, 1999 comes up for discussion.
But in the grand scheme of things, I was very lucky. Sometimes, I’m ashamed to tell my story of that day, when so many other stories need to be heard. Forty-four people lost their lives. And hundreds more were affected for the rest of their lives. Their stories are compelling, gripping — and way more real.
We tell lots of those stories with our special online presentation on the May 3, 1999 tornadoes.
- We tell the story of a lot of the survivors and how they’ve recovered over the last 10 years.
- We have dozens of awesome videos, letting people tell their own stories. And if it’s been awhile since you’ve seen the video of the Grady County police officer rescuing the muddy baby – you must go and see it now.
- We have amazing photo galleries from that day and the days just after.
- We have a very nice interactive map, showing then-and-now photos along the path of the destruction.
- We remember all of the people who died with profiles of life.
- We worked hard to present as much information as we could about the day. Anyone who was in Oklahoma at the time has a story to tell, whether they heard the freight train or not.
Remember your story while learning about all the other stories.
New videos added to sports pages
NewsOK.com added more beef to its basketball coverage this week.
We partnered with AthletixNation, allowing us to embed their video content – namely Big 12, Pac 10 and SEC basketball and football highlights — on our Web site.
What does that mean for you?
It’s simple math …. you now get a lot more video than you did a week ago.
NewsOK has been producing lots of video highlights and analysis for OU and OSU basketball games for well over a year now. But we haven’t been able to cover every game in the Big 12. And we sure didn’t get the highlights of the Arizona State-USC game from the other day.
But now we have those highlights.
Check out the NewsOK Sports page for these videos every day. We also have the highlights on our OU page and our OSU page.
Inauguration ‘09 to be covered thoroughly on NewsOK
We’ve already started blogging.
We’ve already begun feeding live video – thanks to our friends at C-Span.
And we have tons of content to read, watch and discuss.
You don’t want to miss our Inauguration ‘09 page, where we will be publishing updates from people at the scene (our own Carrie Coppernoll will be compiling stories from sources in Washington D.C. and beyond) with our breaking news blog and showing the live video of the inauguration.
Plus, we’ll have all the stories, videos and analysis you will need to understand this historic even from an Oklahoman’s perspective.
And the bonus? This page will be archived for our users to return and relive the moment.
Watchdog page live on NewsOK
We launched a new page last week.
We’re telling you about it this week.
And you’ll see much more from it in future weeks.
The Watchdog page is officially live on NewsOK.com.
What is the watchdog team? Nothing says it better than the page itself:
The Oklahoman Watchdog team is a dedicated group of journalists here to expose corruption in Oklahoma.
On the page, we have links to our data warehouse – the Your Right to Know page. Database Editor Paul Monies spends his days digging up data to serve the citizens of Oklahoma.
You can also find links to our ongoing DHS coverage and our CrimeWatch page, something I’ve written about in the past.
But the coolest thing about the page …. meeting the journalist who spend their days and nights serving our communities with their specialized talent.
Make no mistake – we know we’re in a changing world, and OPUBCO Communications Group is changing and adapting right along with it. But our bosses have made it very clear that this type of journalism is a staple of what we do here. We are indeed still watching out for the citizens of Oklahoma.
Now we have a page to showcase that journalism.
Celebrity (Mickey Rourke and Mickey Rooney) news on NewsOK
The NewsO
We’ve started this daily focus because we’ve enhanced this page’s content with articles from Entertainment Tonight and Parade Magazine, as well as The Oklahoman’s articles and our own Gossip blogger – who I also read daily because he can tell me who shares a birthday with my 8-year-old son.
As a result, I’ve been checking out the page more often, and it’s become a favorite stop of mine.
Today, I was pleasantly surprised to see an article about Mickey Rourke on the page. I was so excited that I sent the link in an e-mail to my wife with the subject line, “Mickey Rourke is back!” …. to which she responded, “Is he still alive?”
She has not been briefed on the difference between Mickey Rooney and Mickey Rourke.
The point? The Celebrity Watch page should be a daily stop for NewsOK visitors who are interested in world affairs and city government, but will still read about the lives of celebrities (but will never admit in public to watching “The Hills.”)
I know … I don’t watch it either.
Really.
I don’t think a wedding in Mexico is legal in the U.S.
But I have no clue what you’re talking about.
