The Record's coverage of breaking news story Tuesday sets site traffic record

On Tuesday I blogged about how The Record newsroom executed coverage that day of breaking news story – Troy’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute locked down its campus after an alleged armed robber was reportedly sighted near one of its buildings - exemplified our paper's digital first strategy.

I also said readers responded to our tweets, blogs and e-mail alerts and scoured our coverage in large numbers. The traffic stats are in and we set a one-day site record for visitors, crushing a record set a week earlier. Some 26,343 visits were recorded, up 46 percent over a previous one-day record of 18,028. Wednesday's coverage also drove an audience near the size of the previous record: 17,422 visitors. We also set a one-day record for page views on Tuesday (70.556). And, we set a record for two-day views of a single video (4,156) of the sound of an RPI alert shot from our newsroom window. Another video from the same package also recorded the second most views over a two-day period (2,743).

Our use of social media to drive site traffic also drove registration for our main Twitter news account; 45 new followers signed up.

More on how our digital efforts are paying off in bigger audiences in future blogs.

Breaking news story offers opportunity to fully execute JRC's new 'news ecology'

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy locked down its campus this morning after an alleged armed robber was reportedly sighted near one of its buildings. Police are still searching the city for an unidentified male who made off with more than $40,000 after he allegedly robbed a local business.

A few years ago, you would have first read The Record's coverage the following day.

A year ago we might have posted a short story online with a few details fairly late in the news cycle on the same day.

Today we have reported continuously as the story developed, from roughly 90 minutes after the theft occurred at 8:10 a.m., through the morning and early afternoon as police warned the community to stay behind locked doors. And more reporting is coming this evening.

I have blogged lately about our newspaper’s – and our parent company, Journal Register Co.’s – rapid adoption of a digital first philosophy. Here's a rundown of how our news staff – led by Tom Caprood - did an excellent job in reporting a breaking news story as it happened today.

Photographer Jeff Couch called into the office with a report that the robbery had taken place and that police were on the scene at 8:30 a.m. Within 10 minutes Caprood was on scene with a Flip video camera and notepad to get what very few details police would offer, and a few quick shots of the scene and a helicopter flying overhead. A brief video was uploaded just before 10 a.m. (2,118 views as of 2:30 p.m.); and another with the audio of the R.P.I. alert was posted shortly after 10 a.m. (1,536 views as of 2:30 p.m.).

And another version of the original video edited with reaction from local business employees near the robbery site was uploaded at 2:12 p.m.

In addition, a story was updated throughout the morning as it progressed. Photos were posted. By 2 p.m., reporter Jessica Pasko added more from a press conference on the matter, and an R.P.I. statement on the matter was posted at 2:37 p.m. A story was published about (and a link established to) Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian’s controversial tweet criticizing RPI’s emergency alert system (further coverage on this development will be published by reporter Dave Canfield tonight.) And city editor Jim Franco blogged about the controversy.

Some more highlights:
- All of our reporters have created work-related Twitter accounts in recent weeks, and several drove traffic to the site with their breaking news tweets.
- Many of our sources for reaction stories came from mining Tweets from R.P.I. students and others.

We gained more than 40 Twitter followers throughout the morning and had 13,000 page views on the coverage by just before 3 p.m. I’ll report out more on our same-day and next-day traffic on Thursday.

Kudos to all who wrote, posted and edited coverage, shot photos and video, and blogged. Welcome to the new “news ecology” … let’s do it again tomorrow.

Journal Register CEO ponders name change

The Journal Register Co. - parent company of The Record and the Oneida Daily Dispatch - considers a name change.

Do citizen journalists need legal protection from frivolous lawsuits?

Does the First Amendment offer citizen journalists legal protection to say what they believe? Yes and no.

Companies regularly use lawsuits - which have become know Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) - to silence and punish critics, usually individuals who have posted a negative comment on the Web. Legal experts say the plaintiffs lose more SLAPPs than they win because the First Amendment is on the defendants' side, but that is not the point. The goal of the lawsuits is to get the critics to back down - or face financially rehabilitating legal action.

A bill now working its way through Congress - The Citizen Participation Act (H.R. 4364) - was introduced to protect either “petition activity and speech or conduct in connection with an issue of public interest with a set of procedural mechanisms", according to the Public Participation Project". "An 'issue of public interest' includes any information or opinion related to health or safety; environmental, economic or community well-being; the government; a public figure; or a good, product or service in the marketplace."

Twenty-seven states have signed similar provisions into law, but the levels of protection vary. According to the Public Participation Project, the proposed act "allows a defendant to bring a special motion to dismiss the lawsuit at an early stage in the proceedings. The defendant must show that the lawsuit against him arose from his protected speech or petitioning activity. The plaintiff must then demonstrate that her claim is both legally sufficient and supported by a sufficient prima facie showing of facts to sustain a favorable judgment."

One expert - speaking on National Public Radio's "On the Media" show - also suggests anyone who blogs regularly to add defamation coverage to their homeowner or renter's insurance coverage; he estimated such coverage could cost as little as $3 a year.

More feet on the street at The Record

I wrote late last year we would add more feet on the street in The Record newsroom in 2010. To date, we have hired three people into new reporter positions:

- Jessica Pasko, a former editorial assistant for the Associated Press bureau in Albany and SUNY-New Paltz grad, joined the city desk staff as a general assignment reporter.

- Cecelia Martinez, a former assistant editor at NTP Media and College of St. Rose alumnus, is covering news and politics in Troy.

- Katie Nowak, a Syracuse University (master's degree) and SUNY-Albany (bachelor's in journalism) grad and former editorial intern and freelancer for Bentley-Hall, is a general assignment reporter.

Also, Rebecca Eppelmann, a former editor of our Latham Life publication and College of St. Rose grad, has joined our news desk, filling a vacant copy editor position.

This development counters an industry trend; some 15,000 full-time reporting and editing jobs in the newspaper industry have been lost in the last three years, according to a Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism State of the News Media 2010 report released this month.

More developments coming.

The Record has record participation in lottery promotion; Mechanicville man wins $5,000

The Record had record participation in its annual $1,000,000 Instant Jackpot promotion this winter with the New York Lottery. There were 4,209 entries this year, up over 41 percent from last year and roughly 80 percent from two years ago.

This second chance promotion was tied to the New York Lottery's new $1,000,000 Instant Jackpot Instant Game ticket. It offered readers the opportunity to mail in a non-winning $1,000,000 Instant Jackpot ticket along with an official entry blank from The Record. Winners were chosen each week to win $1,000,000 Instant Jackpot Instant Game tickets. Four weekly drawings were held, and all non-winning weekly entries qualified for the grand prize drawing on March 12.

The grand prize winner was Clarence Skipp of Mechanicville, a The Record subscriber for many years. In addiiton to a check for $5,000, he received 100 scratch-off tickets because he is a subscriber.

Jim Collier, circulation director of The Record, and Jina Matthews and Yolanda Vega, New York Lottery personalities, awarded the winner his check today at The Record office in downtown Troy. A photo from the check ceremony will be published in The Record this weekend.

Newspaper industry is at "peak of creative destruction"

The newspaper industry is at the “peak of creative destruction,” according to Penny Abernathy, Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the University North Carolina and former executive at the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

Speaking at the New York State Press Association convention seminar on Saturday, Abernathy borrowed the phrase from Joseph Alois Schumpter, an early 20th century, Czech-born economist and political scientist. His theory – which described the process of transformation whereby established companies succumb to the pressure of new technology – applies today to print media, she said. Industry leaders may take one of two approaches: The first is to retreat with “Chicken Little” pessimism that “the sky is falling”. Another is to “embrace change” and experiment freely. She said the best tact is “to walk down the middle” of the two courses of action so not squander resources or act too slowly.

Innovation and progress isn’t enough to save newspapers from changing consumer media consumption habits. Companies must shed legacy costs; the industry’s distribution and printing systems are outmoded, she said.

Professor Abernathy outlined a five-step strategy process as the “path of renewal” which involved defining our companies; defining our customers; determining whether we are in a cycle or cyclone; performing a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis; and setting a long-term strategic plan. The only part of her discussion that didn’t ring true was telling participants – mostly publishers and editors – to set three- and five-year plans. That seemed to contradict a statement earlier in the talk about how disruptive innovation has quickly evolved from being a once-a-century phenomena for the print industry, to something that now happens every 18 months. Pretty hard to aim so far in the distance when the target is moving that quickly.

For a copy of the presentation, click here. (Please note that at the time of this posting, the title slide on presentation had two numbers transposed; date should be 2015 and not 2105.)

For more on the NYPA convention, click here.

The future of newspapers gets debated locally in two forums ... with decidely different outcomes

What a difference a day makes.

I attended a joint meeting of the Albany chapter of the American Marketing Association and the Albany Ad Club on Thursday, and the first day of a New York State Press Association conference today in Saratoga. At both functions newspapers were under a microscope. The first gathering was disconcerting and chaogenous; the second included a keynote address that was much more insightful and competently presented.

The topic of the AMA/Ad Club meeting – held ironically within walking distance of the Times Union Building - was “Are Newspapers Dead?” I didn’t catch the title of the press convention keynote today but the premise was how community newspapers are poised to thrive in the new media order.

Let’s take the “Are Newspapers Dead?” discussion first. It was billed to be a “roundtable” discussion but was neither figuratively (there was no “round table”) or literally (only two people presenting and there was little back-and-forth dialogue between them). It was also reported to be a “sell out” (a dubious distinction because several attending commented there were easily room for 35-40 more people in the room) and a breakfast (again questionable because the only food served was convenience store-quality danish). But I digress. The most suspicious part of the gathering was the agenda itself, which included participation by exactly zero people representing the daily newspaper industry (again, remember the T.U. is a brisk couple minutes walk away) and a seminar title I am absolutely certain the same organizers would never use to broach the future of local TV or radio (or any other business their members represented).

Mike Danieli, representing the New York State Press Association – a group of mostly free and paid weekly newspapers and a former T.U. executive – spoke first. He adequately represented the outlook of his current employer, which is that weekly newspapers have grown both in number and in audience in the last decade throughout New York. He sufficiently delineated why that segment of the print media has grown, because of the insatiable interest of consumers in hyper-local content.

If it is accurate to say Danelli was representing the ”newspapers remain viable” side of the conversation, albeit with only a little insight into why, a second presenter, Ron Ladoceur, executive vice president/executive creative director at Media Logic, represented the opposite thesis. Except that he wasn’t a terrible willing participant – saying on one hand that he still encouraged buyers at his firm to use local print, while on the other meekly suggesting through anecdotes and observations that maybe newspapers’ time had passed.

Missing in both men’s discourse were the fundamental reasons for both the negative headlines about newspapers today (corporate debt, the loss of multiple titles in almost all metro markets, and the erosion of seven-day subscriptions to weekend or Sunday home delivery offers are just three), newspapers’ audience growth in recent years (through Web and mobile offerings, among others), or the myriad of steps many newspapers have taken to improve their fate (shedding legacy costs and partnering with competitors and companies outside the industry, to name just two).

The 90-minute AMA/Ad Club presentation wasn’t informative but it was good drama. Several of the dozen or so Times Union staffers attending loudly expressed their angst at Ladoceur’s remarks, a woman from a weekly newspaper contributed comments that were off topic several times, and many from outside print media seemed to be confounded, embarrassed and, or amused by the whole affair. Neither Ladoceur or Danieli should have been the target of any angst; that belonged to the organizers. As someone who sat on the board of an Ad Club in another market for six years - and as attendee/presenter/organizer at dozens of other trade functions - I feel qualified to say this was something of a public train wreck.

By contrast, it was a Web guy – Interactive Advertising Bureau CEO Randall Rothenberg – who almost gushed about the future of local newspapers at the NYPA conference in Saratoga Springs. During a half hour talk, he drew upon a range of data from ComScore, MORI Research, Borrell Associates and others to outline why newspapers are poised for a resurgence in the coming years if they embrace new technologies and adapt to new social realities.

Rothenberg cited strong brands, consumer trust, terrific knowledge of and access to local advertisers, and an abundance of sought-after local content as assets that positioned newspapers for success. And he demonstrated how as direct mail, radio and telephone directories lose local market share of ad dollars in coming years, newspapers were poised to gain share through interactive advertising because of their strength in selling to businesses in the categories that are most embracing Web and mobile advertising such as retail stores, financial services, telecoms and others.

The IAB chief set aside projections and statistics and talked about the vital role newspapers serve as he neared the conclusion to his speech. He described how merchants rely on newspapers to drive foot traffic, how readers count on newspapers to inform, and how consumers use newspapers more than any other source to make local buying decisions. “Speaking as someone who runs an online trade association,” he said, “nothing exists in my town without the things newspapers do”.

It wasn’t that the IAB chief sided with my point of view on my industry’s outlook that made his presentation better than the one the day before. It was because Rothenberg – like a good opinion editor – had done his homework and composed and articulated an intelligent viewpoint.

For more on the NYPA convention, click here.

Welcome fellow Oneidans ....

This past weekend my blog became available at the Web site of the Oneida Daily Dispatch. It is began as a column for The Record (Troy, N.Y.) last July when I became publisher there, and the blog component was added a little over a month ago. I also became publisher of the Dispatch last week. Twice the newspapers but still one blog.

The blog is (now) about both newspapers, our parent company (Journal Register Co.), the state of the journalism business, and the communities we serve.

To catch you up, you may want to try reading an old post ... One that discusses some of the signficant changes coming in our company.

More coming soon ...

My 16-year-old son approves of JRC's choice of Jeff Jarvis as an advisor

Our parent company, Journal Register, announced a new advisory board yesterday.

Jeff Jarvis is a member; he is associate professor and director of the Interactive Journalism program and the new business models for news project at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism. He is a career media executive and the author of the best-selling book, "What Would Google Do?" Hours after the announcement, he joined about 80 JRC employees - mostly editors and online journalists - for a two-hour discussion during a two-day content conference.

Recently my boss John Paton gave out copies of the "Google" book to all JRC editors, ad directors and publishers as a precursor. Ironically, I was the second in my house to read it; my 16-year-old son Trevor - who enjoys finance and tech books, along with sci-fi and fantasy - read it last April. So when I told him I met Jeff yesterday and that he was a member of the advisory board John named, Trevor - who is critical of the future of dead-tree media - paused and then said, "that makes sense." And then he went back to Facebook.

That is as close to props as we are going to get from Trevor. More on Jarvis and his book in the next few days.