Traditionally a print newspaper, the News-Gazette is in the process of advancing their use of technological tools to build up their web presence. “We’re trying different things and trying to incorporate more video into our web report” said Dan Corkery, managing editor of administration. In choosing to place their focus here, the news outlet has transformed their executive editor’s office into a small television studio of sorts.
Using two Canon HD CMOS Pro cameras, the outlet has been inviting subscribers to read their Letters to the Editor on camera. They’ve also been interviewing athletes of the week in house. Up to four people can be interviewed at once, as each camera can record two.
Canon HD CMOS Pro
“This studio gives us great potential,” said executive editor Jim Russow. “We’re not using it to its fullest right now certainly, just because we’re unable to do much with it other than bring people in here.” At this time, live video streams are not possible. Instead, the Gazette must go through an arduous process. They first film the video, then use a zip drive to get the video in the system. Once it’s in the system they must go through a couple more steps before finally uploading it to their website.
Jim Russow
Russow and Corkery believe that video is the right direction for the website. To them, including a multimedia aspect to their stories is a good way to interact with the audience. “Everything is interactive now, people want engaging content” said Corkery.
Dan Corkery
Stories are posted to the website primarily by the Gazette’s online editor Mike Howie. Howie has been at the Gazette for 36 years and mentioned that the site’s heaviest usage is between the hours of 8am and 5pm. “I assume that a lot of our print subscribers are checking in throughout the day while they’re at work” said Howie. Usage drops off after 5pm, but if the Gazette posts a breaking news story, usage goes up. “Breaking news drives web traffic pretty quickly for us.”
Mike Howie
The Gazette monitors web traffic using Google analytics. The newsroom houses three monitors, one of which has a live feed of their site’s activity. They observe their analytics and send out an email at the end of each day summarizing the top 100 things from the previous day. “We don’t go real deep into using them” said Howie. “We observe what in any given time is at the top, but we certainly don’t use them as a basis for print stories.”
Monitor depicting Google Analytics
More often than not, the stories getting the most traction on the site are about sports. “Our biggest online draws right now are crime and sports” said Russow. Matt Daniels and Bob Asmussen cover Illini Football. Though the newsroom does not require it, both of them have Twitter accounts with a substantial following (Daniels has 1,663 followers while Asmussen has 3,566), yet they use the platform in different ways. “Twitter is kind of a running wire stream of information” said Daniels. “I find Twitter to be more useful than Facebook to be honest.” Daniels uses his Twitter account to post his stories along with updates about football. “I don’t really tweet personal thoughts because people who follow me on Twitter want to know about Illini football” said Daniels.
Asmussen on the other hand spends more time on Facebook and uses Twitter more loosely. “I don’t do nearly as much as Matt does on Twitter specifically” said Asmussen. “I post more personal thoughts on it. Like, ‘Wow that’s weird that guy just committed to Illinois.’ I’m more likely to do that.”
Asmussen & Daniels at work
Though their opinions on social media differ, both post to the Gazette’s sports site, IlliniHQ. Daniels often cross promotes his work on the Gazette’s different social media accounts as well as his own, but doesn’t use a social media management system to do so.