Coffee Break for a Tuesday recovery
Below are some highlights of all the videos you might have missed over the long weekend on NewsOK.com.
Dave Morris and Angi Bruss take us through the best videos with today’s Coffee Break:
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.
Oklahoma City Blazers blog keep fans throughly informed
I’m taking this time out from a busy day to showcase a solid blogger that might not be as noticeable to the wide NewsOK audience.
Bob “The Boneman” Przybylo covers the Oklahoma City Blazers hockey team for OPUBCO Communications Group. He’s at every game and every practice. He knows the players and coaches.
We’re not sure about this, but he might know more about the Blazers than the Blazers themselves.
I know all this simply because I read Bob’s blog. And I was compelled to post on my blog about it after I watched an entertaining and enlightening video interview with “The Boneman” and Blazers coach Doug Sauter (”the mustache”). Heck, Sauter even plugged the blog for “The Boneman” at the end of the video. Now that’s quality marketing.
The Blazers are in the playoffs now. All the coverage can be found on NewsOK’s Blazers page. And all the rest can be found on the Blazers Blog.
Mike and Carlos Boettcher partner with NewsOK.com for ‘On the Line’ embedded journalism
We lauched a new blog aimed at telling our soldiers’ stories from their eyes.
It’s called “On the Line,” and it features longtime war correspondent Mike Boettcher and his son Carlos Boettcher as they are embedded with U.S. service men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Their story was featured on the front page of The Oklahoman on Sunday and on NewsOK.com. A video interview with Mike and reporter Bryan Dean can be found here:
But the real meat of the package will be found on the blog itself – which Mike and Carlos have begun to feed in recent weeks.
Mike and Carlos are working independently of corporate media. They aren’t reporting from safe zones and telling the stories that our government wants us to report. They are embedded with the young people serving our country, allowing them to tell their stories from their points of view.
And no – they don’t have to be doing this. Mike and Carlos are essentially risking their lives so they can share the lives of the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Why is NewsOK.com involved?After all, we are corporate media, right?
Simply put – the Boettchers needed a platform for their efforts. They wanted to be able to post blogs, videos and photos in an unfiltered way.
So we worked with Mike on a design and showed him how to blog. The rest is left to the journalists in the field – in this case, half a world away.
The Boettchers do not work for NewsOK.com – this is pure journalism at its base. Mike explains his mission and his motivation in his first blog post, titled “The Arrival.”
We invite NewsOK users to follow Mike and Carlos on their journey into war from the comforts of our offices, cubicles and living rooms.
We’re proud to be involved with this worthy effort.
It’s NCAA Tournament time (’plus vacation time’)
We are mere days away from the start of the NCAA Tournament.
You know … the day that your co-workers mysteriously disappear from the office, take looooooong lunches or are on “vacation.”
Side note: I will be out of the office on Thursday and Friday, but it’s a legitimate family trip to the sports ba – er …. I mean …. Arkansas. Really. I know people in Arkansas. It’ll be good to see them.
But you can see all the coverage on NewsOK.com’s NCAA Tournament coverage page. The coverage is brought to you by Nissan, which is why we have such cool content. We have every thing you will need:
- The national stories
- Printable brackets
- In-depth coverage of the local teams (OU men, OU women and OSU men)
- Contests
- Live scores
- Live chats during the OU and OSU games
- Blogs
- Video highlights
You can also find the latest local stories on you mobile device, the iPhone or the traditional mobile site. That’s what I’ll be using as I drive and visit in …. Arkansas.
Second Side note: If I see any basketball on the TV while in Arkansas, it will be a mere fortunate coincidence. No lie.
‘I’m George Lang, and this is Static’
These words are becoming well-known in the local music industry.
And no, George is not copying the long pause after “This … ” like Ryan Seacrest on American Idol. And no, he doesn’t banter with a cranky British judge.
But he is the perfect person to host our new local music show. It’s called “Static,” and it’s really cool stuff.
It’s hosted by George Lang, our assistant entertainment editor. It’s edited and put together by videographer Tanner Herriot. It profiles local bands and artists and shows clips of them performing in our studios.
Simply put, these videos are awesome. They’ve done five profiles so far — and now that the catalogue has built up, we’re going to start bragging about it more.
But you can check it out now.
Below is just a taste:
A visit with Henry Bellmon
It’s amazing the cool things you can find on NewsOK.com – especially if your looking deep into the site, especially on a Monday morning.
Take our story on former Gov. Henry Bellmon, for example.
It was on Page 6-A of The Oklahoman on Sunday.
It was on the home page of NewsOK.com Sunday morning.
But the video can only be found on NewsOK.com. And that’s how the story about former Gov. Henry Bellmon hit home for me.
Veteran reporter Bryan Painter did a great job telling the story with the written word.
He also did a great job with his video interview.
Oscar night showcases entertainment depth on NewsOK
Sunday night was a big night for NewsOK.
It was the Super Bowl for the motion picture industry — The Oscars.
I watched it. I also read the live chat with George Lang and Matt Price during the show.
Sure, I was curious if “Milk” or “Slumdog Millionaire” would win the Best Picture. But I really wanted to know if Mickey Rourke (aka – the John Daly of the movie industry) would win an award.
NewsOK covered this show as thoroughly as we’ve ever covered it. Frankly, our visitors have made it very clear that they want more entertainment content online. Our most-views blogs reports every day/week/month are dominated by our entertainment blogs, so we’re making a very public effort to focus on entertainment content online in every way possible.
You will see more text, blogs, chats, videos and more throughout 2009.
This Sunday was just one example.
- Fashion Editor Linda Miller was Twittering her thoughts about the Oscars fashion show.
- Brandy McDonnell was blogging live as the show unfolded. She leads the world (OK … she leads the NewsOK world) in live blogging for an event.
- George and Matt were communicating with our visitors on NewsOK with a live chat. We had more than 100 people on the chat.
- We had a photo gallery from the Red Carpet.
- We had a photo gallery from the show.
- We had a photo gallery on the fashion, plus Linda Miller’s thoughts on the choices.
- We even had Kayne Gillaspie in studio to talk about the fashion (note his take on Mickey Rourke).
I could link to more items all afternoon, but I’ll stop there.
Just be warned. There is more entertainment coverage on the way.
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.
Missing links on Signing Day coverage
We covered college football signing day yesterday. It’s always a sizable traffic driver for NewsOK.com during what is traditionally one of our slower months of the year (we would prefer giving February another couple of days every year).
We’re proud of all the live coverage – the live chat, the press conferences from Norman and Stillwater. We did lots of video analysis from inside our studio, as well. Plus, we had text bios on all the players that signed with OU and OSU. It was good stuff, and the traffic showed that users liked it (check out all the videos, chats, articles and blogs here).
However, we had two questions from our users – both via e-mail to my colleagues.
Is the paper going to publish (online) a list of where all the Oklahoma students have chosen to sign a letter of intent? I believe this was the practice when I lived in Oklahoma and since I’m a Dallas resident I was hoping to see where the players in my home state chose to attend.
Yes. Here is the full list of Oklahoma high schoolers who signed on Wednesday.
Is there anywhere on newsok.com that I can find a list of high school football players who signed at any other universities besides OU and OSU?
Yes. It wasn’t listed in a prominent place on the Signing Day page, but it is now. Here’s the direct link to football players who signed with other state colleges.
