On the Web Again

I attended a banquet and awards ceremony for the Southern Illinois Editorial Association last Friday just outside of Carbondale and brought home 17 awards for The Telegraph.

We placed first in our category for general excellence and first in the Web site category, which especially makes me proud.

We also got an honorable mention for Vet’s Voices.

2009 SIEA Better Newspaper Contest Awards full list for The Telegraph

First Place: 
Best Feature Story - Sanford Schmidt, “Man recalls brush with death”
Best News Story - Sanford Schmidt, “Trapped man rescued from lake”
Best News Photo - John Badman, “Lake Rescue”
Best Web Site (open submission category)
General Excellence - Small Dailies
Best Use of Photography - Small Dailies
Best Newspaper Design - Small Dailies
Best Local News Coverage - Small Dailies

Second Place: 
Best Local Sports Coverage - Small Dailies
Best News Photo - John Badman, “Private Island”
Best Photo Essay - John Badman, “Raging Rivers”

Third Place:
Advertising Excellence - Small Dailies
Best Editorial Page - Small Dailies
Best Sports Photo - Jim Bowling, “Football collision”

Honorable mention: 
Best Editorial - Dennis Grubaugh, “Hayner’s boss ducks intent of law”
Best Sports Photo - Jim Bowling, “Soccer celebration”
Best Community Service - Dan Brannan and Laura Griffith, “Veterans’ Voices”

It’s been a work in progress, but we are slowly but surely adding online contests to our Web site as another way to get users involved and to drive more revenue for our establishment. 

Currently online, we have a cat contest called “My Curious Cat.”

Voting and submissions are still being accepted and winners will be announced April 30. 

We have 62 cats and 316 voters online so far.

We kicked off online contests with nearly 100 for our March Madness Basnetball Contest. Hopefully we can keep moving onward and upward.

The Telegraph’s mobile site is now online. If you visit www.thetelegraph.com via your cell, it will take you automatically to it. You can also see a preview by visiting m.thetelegraph.com on your computer.

Once I get everything set up to our specifications, we can get a page on the Web site that will explain to users how they can use our mobile browser.

Additionally, we can start to get them subscribing so we can send mobile alerts when we have breaking news.

Twitter.com/altontelegraph already affords users this luxury but the new application allows us to control what gets sent more specifically and does not require that users sign up for a Twitter account.

Lots to do, lots to do-

Though, I feel like we’re moving in the right direction, as long as our readers catch on to the craze!

School started a couple of weeks ago… still trying to get back into the swing of things. It always used to be hard coming back from a break but I’m finding it’s even harder when your “break” consists of working 40 hours a week.

I’m taking Javascript and Flash. Both are slow going so far, but I’m sure will become more challenging as the semester wears on. (I’m also sure Flash would be more complicated had I not had so much experience using Photoshop on the job, since they’re quite similar.)

I’ve been slacking on the Web site (lauranette.com), but I’m expecting things to pick up once I get back into coding more often with school assignments and such.

I didn’t plan things out very well the first time I threw something out there, so forget the green scheme. My new scheme, which is currently in the works, will look a lot more like my personal blog at http://onetoomanyblogs.blogspot.com. Black, white and charcoal with hints of blue and green. I find the contrast comforting to my eye.

The Telegraph’s 2008 evaluation is in, and Dan has given me a brief overview of how we did in 2008. Tomorrow we’ll talk more in depth, but for now I’ll share the overview that I got.

The Web site scored “Above” standards in all categories except three. Our strong points were actually video and navigation, which make me particularly proud because they’re the two I’ve worked the hardest on since I started as Web news editor in June.

Our reviewer, Jonathan Krim, noted -

The Telegraph also continues to be a leader in integrating user-generated content throughout the site.

-which is also something I’ve been pushing and plan to push even more in 2009.

We did score “Below” standard in blogs, but we knew that was not our strong suit for this year and already have a few ideas to revamp how we do blogs in 2009. Here, I completely agree with Krim.

A few blogs are current, but many are weirdly unattended. One blog’s last entry was in August. And, even more surprisingly, the sports blogs were last updated in October and November. If a blog is not kept current, it is best to remove it from the site. Otherwise readers get the same feeling they’d get looking at an abandoned building with rats running in and out.

I think with a bit more of a push and some simple training, we can have more efficient blogs and more interesting personalities and topics on the site. I’ll write more about ideas after Dan and I have brainstormed some more.

All in all, I’m very pleased with how we did. I hope I can help contribute to the effort of making the site even better in the future.

In the past month or so we’ve been working on cleaning house. No, not getting rid of more employees - God knows how long we’d last if we lost another… We’re talking navigation.

Or sub-navigation, rather.

We’ve deleted links to dead pages, moved links under new categories where it made more sense to do so, added links to user content that weren’t present before and more. It may be a little slow going in the beginning, but I think users will eventually find that things are more logically placed around the site and are easier to figure out this way.

It was a big part of our 2008 online evaluation. I’ll let you know how that goes (God knows we have a lot of work ahead of us) when I hear.

Onto new projects in 2009!

According to an article I read on HuffingtonPost.com while looking for statistical information and studies being done on this topic, more than 30 percent of Americans between the ages of 30-49 say the Internet is their main source of news.

That bodes well for me, as The Telegraph’s Web news editor, but what does it mean for the future of print journalism and for our readers here in the River Bend area?

I decided to do some more research. I found some results from a study by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. This year, the group surveyed 3,612 Americans (via both landline and cell phone) and found what we journalists were already noticing - traditional news sources are declining in popularity and losing to online and new media, news forms that are gaining popularity, especially amongst educated and young news consumers.

“Since the early 1990s, the proportion of Americans saying they read a newspaper on a typical day has declined by about 40%; the proportion that regularly watches nightly network news has fallen by half.”

And I quote,

“Since 2006, daily online news use has increased by about a third, from 18% to 25%. However, as the online news audience grows, the educational divide in online news use - evident since the internet’s early days in the mid-1990s - also is increasing. Currently, 44% of college graduates say they get news online every day, compared with just 11% of those with a high school education or less.”

The study showed that many people who like to get online news do so during the day, like when they’re at work, and then turn to more traditional forms of news at other times in the day.
The researchers divided the people they studied into different kinds of consumer groups according to how (and if) they get their news.

Traditionalists, median age 52, comprised 46 percent of the public and prefer to get their news from print sources or from traditional TV or radio broadcasts.

Net-newsers, median age 35, primarily get all their news from online sources and tend to watch news video footage online as well. They comprise 13 percent of the public.

Integrators are the 23 percent of the public that use both traditional and online sources to get news throughout the day.

Disengaged members of the public, or those who don’t get any news from any source, are about 14 percent of the public. That, to me, is kind of depressing.

It’s a lot to digest, but it looks like I’m heading up an effort that will take The Telegraph, hopefully, in the right direction. It’s a revolution, baby. Change we need?

As the former Jersey County reporter at The Telegraph, I had grown used to being banished to our neighbor county to the north on election night to report the results as they came in while the newsroom in Alton served as the information hub and election watch station - but not this year. Instead, I was right in the middle of it, posting the news as soon as we got it.

For the most part, it was everything I dreamed it would be.

We posted stories every 5-10 minutes, or more quickly it seemed as the night went on. At the same time I monitored our election forum, promoted our election coverage on social networking sites, watched CNN intently and ”Tweeted” advisories to everyone who was willing to listen via our Twitter page, http://twitter.com/altontelegraph.

Using Twitter, I tried something new. Many news sites have been using the social networking application to get advisories and news briefs to readers more quickly than their actual sites can, but since that’s not something we’ve gotten a chance to explore in much depth, here’s a bit of what we came away with:

Election discussions going on now at thetelegraph.com http://tinyurl.com/6nd9gw 9 minutes ago from web

Did Sarah Palin cause the McCain ticket to lose? http://tinyurl.com/6r8v3o 19 minutes ago from web

2008 General Election Returns http://tinyurl.com/6fp5ks 26 minutes ago from twitterfeed

Democrats revel in Obama victory http://tinyurl.com/6qswkj  about 11 hours ago from twitterfeed

Turnout sets record in Madison County http://tinyurl.com/5ogsec about 11 hours ago from twitterfeed

Dunstan wins re-election http://tinyurl.com/67e28u about 11 hours ago from twitterfeed

Bunker Hill school bond referendum fails http://tinyurl.com/5wmp2d about 11 hours ago from twitterfeed

Reiher joins Macoupin County Board http://tinyurl.com/6cve8s about 11 hours ago from twitterfeed

NEW: Obama triumphs, will be first black US president http://tinyurl.com/6c8k2j about 12 hours ago from twitterfeed

ADVISORY: Goetten wins Jersey State’s Attorney about 13 hours ago from web

LCCC faces tough IWCC http://tinyurl.com/5lrat7 about 13 hours ago from twitterfeed

ADVISORY: John McCain speaking on CNN. about 13 hours ago from web

BREAKING: News outlets project Obama as elected President http://tinyurl.com/6c8k2j about 13 hours ago from twitterfeed

ADVISORY: News outlets project Obama as winner. about 13 hours ago from web

What does Obama’s candidacy mean for the U.S.? Watch telegraph.com video for answers from locals. about 14 hours ago from web

The action started just about 18 hours ago, when I began posting frequently about what was going on in the newsroom. 43 updates in all! I found Twitter to be a great tool!

Message to Telegraph readers, sent out today:

For those of you who are not familiar, users who have signed up for a free account at twitter.com and have clicked “follow” (http://twitter.com/altontelegraph) would have recieved these updates as they were happening, via their Twitter pages. In addition, those who have changed their Twitter settings to recieve updates via cell phone would have recieved these updates in the form of text massages. Neat, huh?

If you’ve been reading this blog you know I’ve gone back to school for my associate’s in Web design.

I am taking three classes this semester - XHTML/CSS, Adobe Illustrator and Web design basics (which is pretty much a Dreamweaver class so far). They’re all going decently well.

Two of them, Illustrator and XHTML, are at the same time. Since XHTML was a Web blended class, it seemed like an OK situation until I tried to do the first project on my own, came to a roadblock and wanted to scream.

I worked it out with the head of the program that I will go to Illustrator to get my assignments, leave and attend XHTML (which ends at 7:30), then go back and catch the end of Illustrator (which is supposed to last until 9:20 p.m.). I feel like Hermione Granger in “Harry Potter,” taking two classes that are at the same time, only I don’t have the magic to help me out.

I can work through my Illustrator projects on my own though. I need someone there to answer questions about programming, which is a little more complicated. FUN, but complicated.

Still have a lot of work to do before the paper get critiqued by corporate in November.

On a personal level though, it appears some of my hard work is paying off.

I’ve updated my resume for the first time in awhile because I won a couple of my first awards as a professional journalist.

My boss wants to send me to a dinner (I feel important) to accept the awards. That’s if I can get off that night because I’m supposed to fill in with newspaper design, but I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, stay tuned for updates on the paper’s progress.