Nolan Clay shares latest info on Jerome Ersland verdict and the jurors
Nolan Clay has been covering the Jerome Ersland and the Pharmacy Shooting saga since it began in May 2009.
This weekend, he had a great piece about the jurors on the case who have spoken out. Here’s one excerpt about one of the jurors:
She said she has been around conversations criticizing the verdict. “I never said I was on the jury. I would just sit there, keep my mouth closed and feel like I was turning red in the face. It was like, ‘Oh, my gosh! Here they are talking bad about me and they don’t even know it.’ It was very odd,” she said.
We took the opportunity with this story to link the uncut police interrogation of Jerome Ersland the night of the shooting. That video is almost 30 minutes long, but it’s quite interesting.
We have a lot of content on this story, and we’ll continue to add everything on our Ongoing Coverage page on this subject. Nolan will be sure to let the world know when he has more information to share in the aftermath of the verdict and Ersland’s incarceration.
NewsOK and auto-play videos
I received a question the other day:
1. Why does NewsOK.com auto-play the videos that accompany the news stories? I can’t think of any other news website that does that.
2. Why is there not an option available for the site visitor to toggle auto-play on and off?
3. Had there been discussion or thought to make videos not auto-load or click to play only?
Fair questions. We’ve been asked before. It’s something some users prefer we would change, but we don’t get as many comments about auto-play videos as we do about other functionality on our site (like, say, commenting, for example).
Here was my response:
1: The auto-play has been our most effective way to expose that content to users. In many cases the video tells the story better than the text, and the auto-play feature allows us to put that content in front of the user.
2 & 3: We’re always discussing various functionality and possible changes on our site. But to my knowledge, we have no plans to make a change at this time.
I can say a little more about that here in the blog (I never want to get too wordy in an email) …
We understand that some users see the auto-play function as mildly inconvenient and maybe even highly annoying. Pausing the video when it starts to play automatically does require another click of the mouse. But the fact is that we want those videos to play for our users as much as we possibly can. We can’t really apologize for that.
The decision we’ve made early on about auto-play for our videos goes back a few years.
First of all, we created the video. We think it adds to the story we’re telling. We want people to watch it.
Secondly, we want our advertisers who purchase pre-roll on our videos to get in front of our users. That’s important, as well. That’s one way we can help fund the work we’re trying to do.
The bottom line is this … NewsOK is a highly respected news website in our industry. As I’ve met and spoken with colleagues and other industry leaders around the country in the past decade, I’m always amazed at how many smart people recognize and admire our site.
But if there’s one piece of our operation that we’re known for more than anything else, it’s our investment in video — the in-house studios, the talent, the equipment and the commitment to the story-telling techniques on our website.
We’re proud of that commitment. So, for now, we’re showcasing our videos inside articles by automatically playing them when the article loads.
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.
A week on NewsOK: Jumping off a building, a Thunder victory and a Royal Wedding
If your friends jumped off a cliff …
Two guys jumped off the under-construction Devon Tower on Sunday morning (it was so early that you might still consider it to be Saturday night). How did they get up there? Where did they land? Why would they do such a thing? Were they arrested? You have to read the story to find out all the answers. Actually, you might not get all the answers — the ‘why’ remains elusive. Regardless, we had a story on Sunday, and it was so popular that we left it in a prominent spot on the site on Monday.
Cram for the marathon
I led with this two weeks ago, but it’s worth mentioning again. The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon is just a couple days away, so I have just one more chance to let you know about our page devoted to the event. We have an outstanding interactive piece, some great stories and a terrific blog from some OPUBCO employees that are running this year. I recommend checking it out this weekend.
A humble Mr. Lackmeyer
Steve Lackmeyer told his tale of becoming a social media superstar in his column this week: “On Sunday, I topped 2,000 followers, and I’m listed on 124 ‘news lists.’ Consider carefully that many of these folks know I’m a social media curmudgeon who joined the conversation kicking and screaming.” Steve wrote this column to admit publicly how wrong he was about the power and usefulness of social media. Steve is many things … a blogger, a Twitter star, a personality, a top-shelf reporter … but he’s also clearly self-assured enough to confess his own social media sins.
The aftermath of a Thunder loss
We all stayed up late to watch the Oklahoma City Thunder play the Denver Nuggets in Game 4 of their first-round series on Monday night. We woke up Monday morning to a ‘Thunder-storm’ of Russell Westbrook debate. Did he shoot too much? Was he arguing too much? Does the Thunder have a big problem? Darnell Mayberry weighed in. Berry Tramel weighed in. Sports Editor Mike Sherman weighted in. Thunder star Kevin Durant and coach Scott Brooks weighed in. Berry finally asked the tough questioned to Westbrook on Tuesday at practice – the video is below (scroll way to the bottom). It was the story of the day on Wednesday — as it well should have been. What all the commotion and concern shows me is just how popular the Thunder is. It shows just how much this community is hanging on the swinging moods and every movement of the team. That’s the stuff of sports fanatics. Hyper-analysis and over-reaction of sports fans … it’s not just for college football anymore. At NewsOK, we’re more than happy to help you get all the info you need to feed your sports hunger. We’re right there with you.
The glory of a Thunder victory
Oh, and by the way, the Thunder went out and won Game 5 in Oklahoma City in the team’s most thrilling victory yet. If you thought fans were upset after Game 4, you can only guess how happy they were after Game 5. Again … this sports stuff in Oklahoma isn’t just for college football anymore.
The blood-alcohol level story of the week
This week’s “we-can’t-possibly-make-this-stuff-up” story came on Tuesday when a man was arrested behind the wheel of his car and an hour tested with a .35 blood-alcohol level. We can’t make it up, but we wish we did.
Arts Festival coverage
We made a point this week to drive our users to our Arts page under the A&E main navigation choice. It was, after all, late April — which means the Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts. It’s a very colorful page this weekend, and I encourage you to see all we have to offer with our Arts coverage. This is the perfect weekend for that.
Norman Music Festival coverage
We are covering the Norman Music Festival this weekend with the same plan. We’re using our Music page under the A&E main navigation choice. You can find all the coverage from George Lang, all the videos from our video team and all the Twitter posts with the #nmf tag. It’s all right there on our Music Page this weekend.
Static again
Speaking of music, George Lang launched another episode of Static this week — this time it featured local artist Jabee. This episode was another set of performances from George’s and videographer Kyle Robert’s trip to the SXSW Festival in Austin. It’s good stuff. Watch it now … and turn the volume up.
A fan of the baby elephant
We received this piece of feedback this week about our Elephant Nation page and live camera. It was from a NewsOK reader in Illinois: “Got to see the baby for the first time for a few seconds. oh dear, I have tears but good tears. Can not thank you enough for sponsoring the cam. Elephants of the world can use all the fans possible. … High regards to your team and thank you.” Making an impact by sharing information. That’s what we like to do. I’m glad we helped this user.
A storm that wakes us up
A major storm took over national news this week. We woke up Thursday morning to news that was more significant than we really thought when we went to sleep Wednesday night. 300 people … that’s way too many. It was a sad story, one that we unfortunately know a little too well. We had lots of coverage on Thursday. We had continuous updates on the story, plus an interactive graphic on tornadoes in 2011, a series of videos from our NDN Video player that helps us cover national news, and a huge photo gallery with 176 photos of the devastation.
Most-viewed article
Remember the article I mentioned earlier about the two guys who jumped off the under-construction Devon Tower. Yep. That’s the one you read the most this week.
Most-viewed blog post
Remember the Thunder controversy I mentioned earlier about the number of shots Russell Westbrook took? Yep. Berry Tramel’s blog post about the issue led the way for all our bloggers.
Most-viewed photo gallery
Remember the photo gallery of the severe storms that killed more than 300 in the south? Nope. That didn’t lead the gallery charge. Instead, it was our photo gallery of the Royal Wedding. That gallery had more than 200 photos. And yes — I think her gown was stunning.
Most-viewed video
Remember how Berry Tramel and Darnell Mayberry covered the mistakes of Thunder guard Russell Westbrook in Game 4 against Denver. Well, the video of Berry’s questions to Westbrook and Durant topped our video views for this week. It’s good stuff.
Have a great weekend!
iPad news, Outlook updates and ‘Open Flames’ — all available on NewsOK
The iPad-vs.-newspaper battle in Cyril
My favorite story and video of the week came from reporter Don Mecoy on Tuesday. He had a nice story about a mother and son in Cyril who are avid readers of The Oklahoman. The mother, 94-year-old DeLois Patterson, prefers the printed newspaper. The son, 77-year-old Bill Patterson, prefers the iPad edition. Reports Mecoy: “When Bill Patterson buys a new iPad, he hopes to give his current one to his mother, who immediately dismisses the idea with a wave of her hand.” Great stuff. But the words only tell half the story. Mecoy’s video helps paint the picture.
A page for ‘Mr. Know It’
Don Gammill is a ‘know it’ all. It says so on his new Personality Page set up just for all his content. He is ‘Mr. Know It.’ You can see everything Don writes, blogs, tweets or posts on our newest page devoted to our reporters — the ‘Mr. Know It’ personality page.
Berry’s blog of the week
I stumbled across another great Berry Tramel blog post this week. This time, he wasn’t even the storyteller. He merely re-told a story that was told to him by Chip Land, the former managing partner of the old Oklahoma City Cavalry CBA team. It was a story about Denver Nuggets coach George Karl and his experience in Oklahoma City 20 years ago as the coach of the CBA’s Albany Patroons. And to entice you to read it, I’ll share the last line of the post: “So there you have it. George Karl thinks he had trouble in Oklahoma City this week. It was nothing like 20 years ago.”
‘Open Flame’ series begins at American Propane
Dave Cathey is cooking again. Actually, Dave is always cooking — and I, for one, am grateful. I’ve been using his recipe for old-fashioned chicken wings for important football games since I first saw the recipe last September. Now, I have a bunch of other recipes to try, thanks to his “Open Flame” video series in partnership with American Propane. The first video was all about chicken, and it featured some heavy-hitters in the local culinary scene. I enjoyed it so much that I watched the entire 8-minute video on NewsOK.
‘Open Flame’ out-take
Video director Dave Morris was at the ‘Open Flame’ shoot at American Propane and posted his thoughts about the event on his blog. He even posted an an out-take that didn’t make the final cut. Check out the 5-second video at the bottom of Dave’s blog post and see the Food Dude scurry from an open flame. I’m pretty sure the Food Dude hasn’t moved that fast since his soccer-playing days in college when he was a finely-tuned athlete on the brink of greatness.
Outlook on NewsOK
The News and Information Center has been hustling the past few weeks, working hard to write, edit and produce the annual Outlook special section. The section is released on Sunday, and you can see all the stories on the Outlook website here (until Sunday, you’ll still see the 2010 edition). The 2011 edition will be ready for you to see on Sunday, and that’s the same time you can pick up the special newspaper edition in The Oklahoman in your driveway or at the newsstands.
Outlook on the iPad
But this year, we have a special edition of the Outlook section. It’s a special iPad magazine edition that features some of the best articles from the publication. It doesn’t have every story we wrote for the Outlook section, but it does have some specially-chosen stories presented and optimized for viewing on the iPad. If you are a subscriber to The Oklahoman’s iPad edition, you will see the download-able magazine in your Sunday edition. Looks for more features like this in the future as we continue to find ways to deliver content in new and exciting ways.
Thunder-mania!
It would be silly of me to post this week without mentioning the Oklahoma City Thunder and their big week with first-round playoff victories over the Denver Nuggets on Sunday and Wednesday. We have all the coverage of every game on our Oklahoma City Thunder coverage page, and during the games we have live chats so you can join the conversation with our reporters and editors while you watch the game. You can even join the conversation on your mobile device. There’s really no better place to get all the information about the Thunder than the NewsOK page. That’s a guarantee.
Most-viewed article
NewsOK users were very interested in the story that broke Wednesday morning about the Piedmont officer who shot and killed the retired firefighter in Yukon. We covered the story as it developed on Wednesday, and we followed it up with more details on Thursday. And the audio of the 911 call really helps tell the story. The video below almost became the most-viewed video of the week; it came in as a close second.
Most-viewed blog post
In case you weren’t aware that OU football is a big deal in this state, I bring you this blog post from Jake Trotter on Wednesday: “Sooners add another walk-on kicker.” That’s right … a kicker. Yes … a ‘walk-on’ kicker. That’s the most-viewed blog post of the week. No, you read that right … a kicker.
Most -viewed video
The highlights of OU’s annual spring Red-White game led the charge this week:
Marathon blogs, disemboweled cats, Billy Joel reviews and much more this week on NewsOK
Marathon coverage
The annual Oklahoma City Memorial marathon is going to be held in just a couple of weeks. That’s just enough time to see all the content on our Marathon page on NewsOK. The page is home to a really interesting interactive map and video of the race route. The page is also home to a blog by three journalists in our operation that are participating in the race. I’m always intrigued by the stories of people who are training to finish a race like this. You can follow their progress on the blog. There is plenty to take in on this page, so I invite you to check it out well in advance of the May 1 event.
Bombing page
And the reason for the Memorial Marathon — remembering the events of April 19, 1995 — should never be forgotten. That’s why I take this opportunity to again remind our users of this site we built in 2005. As I load the page, the opening video and music still makes me stop whatever I’m doing and watch. The site is full of history, photos and information about the victims. If you do nothing else on NewsOK this weekend, browse through this site.
Gas-saving myths
I was browsing through our Know It: Money page this week and came across an excellent story on the myths and urban legends about saving gasoline. The story came from AAA Oklahoma and does a good job of sharing the truth about what we often hear about saving money on gasoline. I learned some good things in this article, but the most interesting? … Myth No. 10: Putting the tailgate down on your pickup saves gas. False: You get better mileage with the tailgate up. Counterintuitive but true.
This week’s disemboweled cat story
From the “we-can’t-make-this-stuff-up” department comes this week’s story by Nolan Clay — Oklahoma City woman disemboweled cat, put liver in makeup box. It’s really impossible to read that headline without clicking through and reading the story. Go ahead. try it.
Elephant
Yes … that photo on the right — it’s an elephant. It’s from a screen catpure of the Elephant Cam on NewsOK this week. The live video is always embedded on our Elephant Nation page that was the inspiration of reporter Carrie Coppernoll. The video was also embedded in Carrie’s story on Tuesday about the baby elephant that’s about to arrive. Trust me when I tell you that we will cover the elephants at the Oklahoma City Zoo as they add another to their group.
Another conversation about comments
I had a pleasant conversation on Thursday with a NewsOK customer that uses our site frequently and likes to comment frequently. He was comparing our commenting functionality and philosophy to the comments on other news websites he has used in the past. He was in the process of changing his news home to NewsOK.com and still beginning to understand our commenting. Some thoughts he shared … (1) He loves being able to respond to someone’s comments, (2) He loves being able to sort comments by oldest or newest and (3) He likes being able to LIKE and FLAG comments. He does wish, however, that we would allow commenting on Letters to the Editor, but he understood our reasoning (essentially, that people who are forced to share their first and last name should be attacked in the comments by anonymous posters). He also asked that we expand our list of banned words. He gave some recommendations, and they were good recommendations (I won’t repeat them here), so I expanded the list of derogatory terms that aren’t allowed in our comments. In the end, it was another pleasant conversation with a NewsOK customer.
Get the Thunder in your inbox
Just in time for the NBA Playoffs, we launched a daily Oklahoma City Thunder e-mail newsletter on Thursday. The email is packed full of Thunder articles, videos, blogs and more. It goes out at noon every day, and you can sign up by selecting the option on your NewsOK Settings page and choosing to receive sports newsletters.
History on NewsOK
Joe Hight, one of the key leaders in The Oklahoman/NewsOK newsroom was at a conference last week where many of his conversations centered around our unique approach to a History Page on NewsOK. It’s a page that’s worth a visit on a slow afternoon. It isn’t full of breaking news or sports opinions, which drive a lot of our traffic. But it is full of outstanding content that can be read at any time. Check out Mary Phillips’ blog posts on “The Archivist” blog or flip through our list of historical photo galleries. If you want to learn something you didn’t know before about Oklahoma History, this is your place.
TSA official makes news
I was fortunate enough to attend the PLN (Peer Learning Network) Spring Partner luncheon on Thursday. PLN is run by the Zig Ziglar Center for Ethical Leadership at Southern Nazaren University, and OPUBCO is a member. As a result, I get to attend some of the events throughout the year. On Thursday, John Pistole was speaking. Pistole, who is the top official in the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), had much to talk about this week after the YouTube video of the pat-down on a 6-year-old girl went viral on the web. Pistole answered questions from the large audience, including some good ones from our own reporter, Jennifer Palmer. Palmer turned his reactions into a NewsOK.com exclusive Thursday afternoon, and it became one of the most popular stories on our site that day. Good question, good reporting and a quick turn-around for our readers. That’s what our reporters do on a daily basis.
Billy Joel … even better than Huey Lewis
I like Fridays. That’s when we publish our latest list of CD Reviews each week on NewsOK. This week’s list of reviews included a review of “Billy Joel: Live at Shae Stadium — The Concert.” I appreciate Brandy McDonnell’s review, because I know that she knows her music. “Two jam-packed CDs are needed to capture the 2½-hour concert, which mixes familiar hits, album cuts and high-wattage guest stars, including Oklahoma native Garth Brooks, Tony Bennett and Paul McCartney.” Two and half hours? That’s the Billy Joel I know. I just might have to buy a CD for the first time in a few years.
Most-viewed article
The runaway winner in our most-viewed article race this week came on Friday, when we picked up a lot of views on “Oklahoma rejects $54.6 million federal grant.” This article was a good story that was featured on our home page, but it was also linked to from the popular Drudge Report website. What was the most-popular article not linked from the Drudge Report this week? It was this gem from reporter Nolan Clay: “Oklahoma City woman disemboweled ca, put liver in makeup box. “(See my previous note about us not being able to make this stuff up!) If you want to know even more about the rejection of the federal grant, check out the article’s author, Michael McNutt in this excellent explanatory video:
Most-viewed blog post
It’s OU football again. This time, Jake Trotter’s post on Sunday about freshman wide receiver Justin McCay’s tweet about his injury led the blog traffic charge on NewsOK.
Most-viewed video
OU football spring game preview information led the way in our video views this week. It wasn’t close:
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:
Love from Olivia Munn, a haircut for Dave Morris and a brave trip to Egypt for Katya Kruglak
See the news and notes about NewsOK.com on this very fine final week of March.
Olivia Munn still loves us
We received a fun package in the mail this week. It came from actress and icon Olivia Munn, who we have written about a few times in the past month or so in The Oklahoman, NewsOK.com and LOOKatOKC. I even wrote about how she posted a link to our story on her Twitter account so all her fans could see what George Lang wrote. But this week, we received this (click the image to enlarge):
Blake Griffin know it launches
We launched a new ‘know it’ page this week on one of Oklahoma’s finest — Blake Griffin. It was an easy call, really. Our most popular ‘know it’ pages have centered on Oklahoma’s most famous people – Sam Bradford and Kevin Durant. And Blake Griffin is about to be named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year. He has a chance to become the most dominant player in the NBA at the rate he’s going. He’s already the most exciting player in the league. All those superlatives? That’s all it takes to become a ‘know it‘ page on NewsOK.
Know everything about severe weather
Speaking of our know it pages, this is a great weekend to browse around on our Severe Weather know it page. The page was updated with fresh information last week as Bryan Painter organized another set of tips — things like what to do when you’re on the road, how to prepare and tornado myths. This page has tips, historical information and tons of links. No kidding — the Severe Weather know it can help you be ready for this storm season.
Dave Morris on video
Dave Morris appears on many of of our videos. He is the Director of Video, after all. And he’s a top-notch host that we’re lucky to have fronting our stories. And this week, he became a top-notch BALD host. If you wonder what happened to his full head of short hair, just watch this.
Angi Bruss on video
Angi Bruss also appears on many of our videos. She is one of our video hosts, after all. She’s also a great story-teller and fine journalist. Check out this story below. It made me stop and appreciate how we can capture emotions and stories with a camera, a voice and worthy story to tell.
The Rosalin Reynolds story
The stories we’ve had in the past week on the 8-year-old Watonga girl haunt me. We’ve had daily coverage of Rosalin Reynold’s death — how she was found in the field behind her home … how the man who was arrested was related to her … how the mother ‘just can’t let her go‘ … how the accused was at the home passed out drunk … how mother and father were arguing that night and staying in separate apartments … and how the victim might have been sexually assaulted. You can read all the stories by searching “Rosalin Reynolds” using the NewsOK search window. It’s a sad story — one we have to tell, even if we’d rather not.
A question about the NOOK?
I received a question from one of my blog readers this week (yes … I did say that … I have a reader). Essentially, the question was about our Digital Oklahoman replica edition. Would the new NOOK that’s being released in April be supported? The problem in the past is that the Digital Oklahoman is a Flash-based experience, and Flash has not been supported by the NOOK. The answer? … “I’m not certain if the Nook Color upgrade will include Flash and allow for the flash-based Digital Oklahoman replica experience to be viewed on that device. Quick research leads me to believe that it will be available, but Nook is a closed Android device, so it might be configured in a way that would make the Digital Oklahoman unusable. I just don’t know for sure right now. I can tell you one thing you already know … we have an e-reader experience for the Nook through the eNewspaper store. That would be my first recommendation. But I understand if you prefer the page-by-page replica experience. Another option we will soon have is an optimized native Android application for smart phones with that OS. It’s a good question, and I hope to learn more soon. Thanks for your question. And thanks for attempting to find ways to use our product in the way that best fits your needs.” The reader replied, promising to find any way he can to read The Oklahoman … “Thanks for your reply! We’ll hold out hope that the rumored addition of Flash to the Nook this Spring will enable access to the Digital Oklahoman we’ve grown so accustomed to. One way or the other, with whatever e-reader or tablet, we’ll find a good solution to keep our favorite daily paper available!”
New video players
You can find some new videos available on our website. It’s through our partnership with NDN Videos, which publishes AP videos as well as many other news sources. You can see these video players sprinkled throughout the site, like our health page, our parenting know it, our technology page, our home and garden page and more.
Lock your car
Have you ever sat and watched to see how driver after driver locks his or her vehicle after parking and running inside the post office. Don Gammill has. It’s a fun column. My favorite part … “He stepped out, shut the door and pointed the remote at the car. He pressed it. Nothing happened. He moved closer and tried again. Nope. He moved all around the car, trying to get it to lock. Finally, after he had tried every angle he could think of, he just opened the door and pushed the lock, then closed it.”
Email us a photo
A reader sent us a photo via our new photo-submission process using the email address pics@newsok.com. The photo appeared on the cover of The Oklahoman’s Metro/State section on Thursday. It just proves how much fame you can get by sharing your photo on NewsOK.com. And just to prove it, I shared a photo on April 1 to launch our April user-submitted gallery.
Katya’s trip to Egypt
I’ve written about Katya Kruglak before. Her ‘Dusty Globe‘ blog is always a great read, but I just ran across her blog posts from a couple weeks ago where she detailed her trip to Egypt. That’s right … that Egypt. I wish I knew about these posts earlier. She posted some great firsthand accounts of visiting the post-revolution and post-Mubarak country. She actually had 10 posts from her week in Egypt, but it all started with this great lead on March 11: “Landed in Cairo about an hour ago. Before you start to wonder if I’ve lost my mind, I did check out all the various travel warnings before booking the flight and it seems with a little common sense travel in Egypt should be fairly safe now. Or at least I hope.” She was safe. And we’re thankful for her posts.
Most-viewed article
It was incredibly close this week. But Berry Tramel’s article on Thursday about “UCO’s Terry Evans meeting with OU regarding basketball coaching vacancy” led the way this week. On Friday, we reported that “OU is expected to name Lon Kruger as the next coach.” The Friday report might very well surpass the Terry Evans report (Actually, I’m quite certain it will). But since I compiled this list at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, the Terry Evans story get s the award. Regardless, we know this: the OU coaching search leads the way for article traffic on NewsOK this week. UPDATE: by 4:15 p.m. on Friday, the Lon Kruger story is the most-viewed story of the week on NewsOK. UPDATE NO. 2: Our sports coverage team is simply awesome. We had the scoop on this story this week, and we’re really proud of that.
Most-viewed blog post
The OU coaching search takes the award this week. Mike Baldwin’s blog post on how the “OU coaching job is not an easy sell” for big-time coaches across the country led the way for our blogs this year. This makes the second consecutive week that posts about the OU basketball job topped this list. And we thought nobody cared about OU basketball anymore?
Most-viewed video
You guessed it … OU basketball coaching job analysis … for the second consecutive week.
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.
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.
