The Digital Desk

Everything you ever wanted to know about NewsOK.com

Reader requests more responsible commenting on articles July 30, 2009 | Comment on this article

I’ve posted recently about comments on our site. I was talking about how other news organizations are looking at their comments and trying to find ways to improve the the level of dialogue for their audience. Then, the very same day, I received this bit of feedback from one of our visitors through our feedback... Read More

Article comments drawing attention on news sites like NewsOK.com July 28, 2009 The Poynter Institute, which I was fortunate enough to visit about two weeks ago, posted a story about a trend in article comments on news sites around the country. The headline caught my attention: Racism, Attacks Lead News Sites to Disable Story Comments It caught my attention because when we read some of... Read More

Another man dies on the Internet

July 24, 2009 We had an article today about a Tulsa man making up news about another athlete. The news? That one of the atheletes was dead. The news made it to TMZ.com. Oh … the irony. I wrote a couple weeks ago about traditional media outlets and the way it’s difficult decisions about the breaking news about Michael... Read More

lsKnow it forums: Where Oklahomans help Oklahomans

July 16, 2009 A little more than one year ago, we launched our first ‘know it’ topic. We had two full pages of coverage about cancer, plus an extensive online piece under the new ‘know it’ brand on NewsOK.com. The goal? To use the power and resources of our journalists to gather all the information we could on a topic... Read More

Live from Florida: NewsOK presents breaking news July 12, 2009 This week, I’m learning and sharing. I’m at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. , where 29 news industry professionals are gathered to share tidbits about what they are trying and what is working in their market. We have a lot to be proud about what we’ve done at NewsOK.com, so I submitted an... Read More

A quick look at Fourth of July fun July 06, 2009 I didn’t get a chance to go to the parade in downtown Edmond on Saturday. I had planned on it, but reality of the company that was arriving at our home later that day settled in, and I found that the time was better spent preparing for the cookout. A Fourth of July parade is a key part of the festivities, in... Read More

It’s all about you

July 02, 2009 I enter July 4 weekend with a story about YOU! Frankly, I should talk more about YOU! And I think I will be talking more about YOU! in the coming months. I’m proud of this Web page, where we showcase the content from the Thursday YOU! printed publication in The Oklahoman. It’s filled with interesting... Read More

Update: Jeff Goldblum is still not dead June 30, 2009 On Friday, I posted about how NewsOK treated the breaking news story about the death of Michael Jackson. The larger discussion in question wasn’t really about NewsOK. It was about traditional media being upstaged — or at least scooped — by non-traditional media like blogs and social media sites. I relayed... Read More

Share it Live on the Fourth of July

June 29, 2009 During this past weekend’s Club H.O.G. rally in Bricktown, we launched our partnership with Share it Live, a photo-sharing application developed by visionaries working the OPUBCO Communications Group Audience Development department. It’s an iPhone application with a unique slogan – “a new era in citizen... Read More

Covering Michael Jackson’s death: Inside the mind of a NewsOK editor June 26, 2009 The news of Michael Jackson’s death broke up a meeting I was in Thursday afternoon. “Michael Jackson … dead!” said sports editor Mike Sherman (though it didn’t sound as undignified as it does when I typed it on this blog). “TMZ is reporting it.” I walked back to my office and called our digital... Read More

Share your hog rally experience live with the world on NewsOK

June 25, 2009 You might not know about it right now, but I have a funny feeling you’re going to become very aware of it before the weekend is over. The Bricktown H.O.G. Rally (Harley Owners Group) is this weekend (Friday and Saturday) in various areas of Oklahoma City. We built a special page to cover the event on... Read More

Watching, reading and learning about Wanda Jackson June 24, 2009 We launched another nDepth piece this week. It’s on the famed Rock ‘n’ Roll star Wanda Jackson, who still lives right here in Oklahoma City. OK … full disclosure time: I had never heard of Wanda Jackson until earlier this year when news came out about her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.... Read More

Shotgun approach – browse new things on NewsOK June 16, 2009 I used to write a weekly column that appeared in The Oklahoman. I would communicate with my readers (dozens and dozens of them) about things that were happening on NewsOK.com. But there were some days when I just didn’t have something new and innovative to write about. On those days, I wrote about just about... Read More

NewsOK.com struggled through Tuesday afternoon June 10, 2009 If you were on NewsOK.com yesterday afternoon or evening, you noticed something unusual: NewsOK simply wasn’t responding like it should. We noticed the problem at about 3:20 p.m., and our programmers, developers and server administrators immediately began investigating. The site was up and down intermittently... Read More

Couchsurfing through Europe with Oklahoma angle June 08, 2009 Blogs are launching all the time on NewsOK, so you always have to keep you eye on what’s going on on our blogs page. One cool one that just started up is Casey Cornett’s (yes, that Casey Cornett) blog about his June adventure of couchsurfing through Europe. There are daily updates and videos from the... Read More

Another dose of reality from On the Line in Afghanistan June 05, 2009 Nice weather this week, huh? Just in case you are getting too comfortable on your nice Oklahoma patio during our nice spring evening in beautiful Oklahoma in early June, here’s a little dose of Afghan reality. It’s on the “On the Line” blog on NewsOK.com – powered by Mike and Carlos Boettcher, who are... Read More

Today is a day to learn new things on Twitter June 03, 2009 Sometimes Twitter comes in real handy. Take today for example. About one hour ago, our newest employee, Dane Beavers, posted a message on Twitter that I found very interesting. It was a link to a blog from STLToday.com reporting that Tony La Rusa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, was suing Twitter.... Read More

The interns are in the building (and out covering the news)

June 02, 2009 It’s early summer, and the interns – the future of journalism – are in the building. Check out all of their work on our Interns page on NewsOK, where you can see the bios of the young people that are working for us this summer. You can also see a map from where they are coming to us from, plus links to... Read More

Comments now available on pharmacy shooting story

May 28, 2009 Our policy on comments on our articles is very clear. It is not our intent to offer comments on crime or fatality stories. It’s so clear that our users who regularly comment remind us of the policy if an article slips through the cracks. They know the policy as well as we do. But sometimes, stories become... Read More

Get to know OPUBCO Communications Group May 27, 2009 This description of this blog is “everything you ever wanted to know about NewsK.com.” So it seems like I should push people here to our nDepth profile on our company – OPUBCO Communications Group. We released it more than a month ago, but it’s not something that we would put at the top of the Web site... Read More