Kelly Fry, vice president of news and information at OPUBCO Communications Group, presents NewsOK's video operation at the APME convention in St. Louis on Oct. 30. See more photos on Flickr: APME 2009

We were a finalist in the prestigious category of “Innovator of the Year.”

As our awards czar (unofficial title) Joe Hight pointed out before and after the award was given – the APME innovator award is one of the most prestigious awards in journalism and probably the most difficult to win. As he says, the hardest part is convincing a room full of top-notch journalists that you deserve the award.

Joe should know. We’ve won quite a few awards in the past year. I’ve blogged about them before. It’s fun to win. It validates the hard work.

I was lucky enough to attend the APME conference in St. Louis last week. The key person from our operation that wasn’t able to attend is our video superhero (unofficial title) David Morris.

The Innovator award goes back almost three years. It began with a vision from OPUBCO Communications Group leadership. I went through phases of implementation, training, construction and trial and error. It culminated with the execution of a plan to change the culture of our news and information operation and grow our audience.

It was good for the newsroom to win the Innovator.

Now – back to work.

Kelly Fry, vice president of news and information at OPUBCO Communications Group, accepts the award. That's me (Alan Herzberger) in the background.

]]> http://blog.newsok.com/newsok/2009/11/06/newsok-innovator-of-the-year/feed/ 0 http://blog.newsok.com/newsok/2009/11/05/one-happy-newsok-visitor/ http://blog.newsok.com/newsok/2009/11/05/one-happy-newsok-visitor/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:19:40 +0000 alan herzberger http://blog.newsok.com/newsok/?p=686 I received this message in my inbox this morning – a forward from sports editor Mike Sherman:

I just wanted to say that this website is looking amazing, and the functionality is great! I especially enjoy the sports team specific pages, as I look at the OSU page everyday, and it is set up great! Thank you for this service, it is greatly appreciated.

Unfortunately, in this business, the people that work hard on providing important information to the public rarely get to hear about the positive impact and the results of their efforts.

So I’ll blog about it as much as I can.

Sam Bradford made his decision public yesterday, ending a week of speculation, debate, cancellations and breaking news turned breaking predictions.

(Yes, that last part is a friendly shot at ESPN and their coverage on Thursday and Friday.)

In the end, everybody reported the truth at about the same time. Sam Bradford was having surgery. It’s scheduled for Wednesday. We’ve blogged about it. We’ve shot videos about it. We sent SMS text alerts. We sent e-mails. We wrote stories.

We have it covered. Reporters Jake Trotter and David Ubben have had it covered from the beginning. On Wednesday, NewsOK correctly reported the facts and reasons behind the news that Bradford’s news conference was cancelled. On Thursday, NewsOK was hoping it didn’t have to report about something that wasn’t scheduled and wasn’t planned, but when talk about an impending news conference became widespread, a report was necessary. It was good work by our local reporters. Jake and David can be counted on for the most complete and most accurate information about OU sports — guaranteed.

And now more about knowing Sam ….

See our ‘know it’ on Sam Bradford. It has everything you need to know about Sam. You can see all the stories, all the blogs, all the videos, all the stats, all the links from around the Web. You can even join the message board about Sam Bradford and talk about everything Sam.

We launched ‘know it’ topic pages on OU quaterback Sam Bradford and OSU quarterback Zac Robinson shortly before the season began. After the first couple of weeks, we thought we had unknowingly unleashed a ‘know it’ curse.

Look at the early evidence:

• Bradford was hurt and the Sooners lost.  (See BYU)
• Robinson was looking a bit shaky early in the year. Was he secretly hurt? Did he gain too much weight? Was he just overrated?

Bradford’s luck continued down a unfortunate path, but Robinson has emerged as a strong All-Big 12 quarterback candidate. So I can rest easy — there is no ‘know it’ curse.

However, we also launched  ‘know it’ topic on Kevin Durant. If he goes down with injury, I’ll reopen the investigation.

A few weeks ago, I shared a page we produced as a test. It was our first Story Wall – a collection of photos, videos, quotes and text from the Oklahoma State Fair 2009.

I was so inspired that I assigned another wall to be produced for the OU-Texas game 2009. I thought it would be a great way for OU football fans to re-live the biggest game of the year.

Of course, when I made the assignment and helped coordinate the specifics, I expected fans would be re-living and celebration a Sooner victory. Instead, it was a close loss in a demoralizing way (losing Sam Bradford …. again). It might be a game that nobody wants to talk about ever again, let alone re-live.

Alas, we did it anyway. And now that you are a full 48 hours removed from the end of the game, it might be a good time to experience our OU-Texas Story Wall. It truly is a fun experience.

But here is a quick steal from his blog – the air times for the shows:

Here is the upcoming schedule:

Sat 10/17 3:30-4:00pm 7 OKCOX7
Sat 10/17 8:30-9:00pm 7 OKCOX7
Sun 10/18 1:00-1:30pm 7 OKCOX7
Sun 10/18 4:00-4:30pm 7 OKCOX7
Wed 10/21 9:30-10:00pm 7 OKCOX7

It was so outstanding that I had to stay far away from my blog for two weeks just to let the servers cool down. But now I’m back (we’re looking for a strong October, as well).

Breaking traffic records isn’t new. Our audience continues to grow steadily. The opening of the football season in September always provides a nice boost. And unfortunately, when a Heisman-winning quarterback at the University of Oklahoma sprains his shoulder in the first half of the first game, people care – and they go to the one place that covers OU football better than any other place.

It also rained a lot in September. And if people online in Oklahoma are interested in anything more than they are interested in football, it’s weather. We launched a new interactive weather radar. It’s really cool. You can change the settings and see exactly what you want to see — things like warnings/watches, current temperatures and lightning information. You can also scroll across the map and see the live radar for Australia if you want. (I believe knowing the weather conditions in Australia can be a big help).

We also shattered the records for traffic on the NewsOK blogs. It’s been the fastest growing area for traffic on NewsOK in the past year, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down. Penny Soldan’s Television Blog and Brandy McDonnell’s BAM’s Blog led the way, followed closely behind Tim Henley’s Celebrity Gossip Blog, George Lang’s StaticBlog and Matt Price’s Nerdage. As you can see, our Life and A&E audience loves blogging. That works for us.  (Side note – my blog did not crack the top 50. I’m counting on you to change that in October).

Thanks for making September a stellar month in both page views and unique visitors. We’re growing and adding and improving NewsOK.com every day. We’ll count them up again at the end of October.

They might get a photo if they click on one block of content.

They might get a video if they click on another block of content.

They might get a bit of text if they choose yet another block.

And moments after that idea, the ‘NewsOK Storywall‘ was born.

Nick began working on the database that would feed our first storywall, learning more about the Django framework to feed the application. Multimedia reporters John Estus and Ken Raymond began developing content that would go into the wall, and photographer John Clanton began getting a variety of photos to feed the page.

After some hard work and unforseen obstacles, we launched the first ‘NewsOK Storywall’ this weekend as the Oklahoma State Fair came to a close.

Check it out. Let me know what you think.

Personally, I kind of like it. I think it would be interesting to add wall for OU and OSU football games, perhaps the OU-Texas game or the Bedlam battle later this year.

But I’d like to see if our users think it’s as nifty as I think it is. Just comment below, send me an e-mail or post a message on Twitter. I’ll listen any way I can.

I spent a day at the Golden Goose Flea Market in Midwest City a few weeks back when the Mid South Wrestling Alliance held one of its events.

Welll … I think I spent the day there.

Frankly, I can’t remember if I was actually there or not. I can visualize being there. I feel like I had some conversations with some fans and participants. I heard the sounds, tasted the popcorn and sat in a metal folding chair.

I think.

That’s what reporter Ken Raymond photographer John Clanton can do with a project. They will put you in the middle of the action, and you won’t remember if you experienced that for yourself or if you read about it and watched a slideshow.

They pulled it off for their package on the Mid South Wrestling Alliance last week. Ken Raymond wrote the story. John Clanton took the photos and put together a slideshow. Throw in some great design and headline writing, and you have …. Ringmasters – a tale of professional wrestling in Oklahoma.

Check out the picture he paints of one of the top Mid South stars, Kevin Morgan, a.k.a. “The Awesome One”:

I don’t know the champ, but I met Morgan at practice yesterday. He’s a big guy — 6 foot 5 and 255 pounds — with wiry brown hair, a long, straight nose and a lantern jaw. In the ring, wearing his silver and black wrestling tights, knee braces and shiny black boots, he looks like a superhero, albeit one who takes a few nights off each week for a good steak sandwich and a pitcher of Bud. Like most of the wrestlers here, he’s strong and intimidating but looks better as a shirt than a skin.

I didn’t say it, Mr. Morgan. It was Ken Raymond. R-A-Y-M-O-N-D.

Be nice to him, though. He can really craft a story.

Our sports department is creative.

Local Editor Michael Baker and a few members of his reporting team – John Estus and Bryan Dean – pulled off a nice multimedia package last week.

They enlisted the help of web editor Nick Tankersley, art director Todd Pendleton and graphic artist Brian Mays to effectively tell the story about the  battle between the Oklahoma City firefighters and city officials.

We have three articles, a video interview and four informational graphics to help tell help describe the details of this story — which range from arguments about excessive overtime pay, contract negotiations and incident rates.

It was an experiment for us. Can we tell an hard news, ongoing coverage piece in a way different than we normally do.

We think it worked this time. And we’ll do something to take it a step further next time.