ion of BrainerdDispatch.com Communications Inc., Newman said. “He introduced us QuarkXpress newspaper pages. to the web, the possibilities and showed me some simple Our fourth-generation, and current, website is by far the HTML.” most advanced upgrade to BrainerdDispatch.com. With Newman spent weeks building the site and experiment- its Drupal-based platform and new content management ing with its features before unleashing it on the World Wide system, ContentWatch, an additional component added Web. in November 2011, we now “I remember how excithave the freedom to make digBy SARAH NELSON KATZENBERGER sarah.nelsonkatzenberger@ ed we were to see the logs ital content our first priority. brainerddispatch.com that showed 10 or so people The transition to the newest had visited and looked at the BrainerdDispatch.com didn’t page,” he said. “That was back before DSL and broadband come without its share of setbacks. The new site proved to offerings. Our connection to the Internet was through a 28K be challenging for users who had grown comfortable with Global Village Telemodem and the zinging sounds of the the layout of the old site. Page views were down for an enmodem as it connected to that electronic mystery place are tire year following the relaunch. “That was mainly because still some of my favorite memories.” we lost the forums we had,” Newman said. “We had a lot The website has undergone a number of make overs of users accessing the forums.” during the last 16 years, including a transition from handEven with its growing pains, BrainerdDispatch.com has coded pages to a coding assistant called Sitestitcher to a proven itself in terms of faster, more accessible news updatabase built website that extracted text directly from our dates and community involvement.
For the first time, Dispatchers are able to share blogs, videos and most recently streaming tweets. In addition to our the changes on our traditional website, the Brainerd Dispatch launched a mobile version of the website in 2011 — an addition that typically contributes nearly 10-percent of our site’s total traffic. As for our user base, 122,000 unique registered users were transferred over from our former site, and while our new site no longer requires registration, approximately 200,000 unique users access our site every month. By the first year anniversary of the updated BrainerdDispatch.com page views had largely recovered from the previous year. “We are now back to where we were before — beating last year’s numbers and growing,” Newman said. SARAH NELSON KATZENBERGER, Staff Writer and Online Content Editor, may be reached at sarah.nelsonkatzenberger@ brainerddispatch.com or 855-5879.
Tweets and Facebook:
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mmediacy has taken on a whole new meaning now that Facebook and tweets are part of a reporter’s communications arsenal. Gone are the days when a reporter could amble back to the office and start writing up a meeting for the next day’s print version. It’s a 24-hour news cycle and now means now, when it comes to breaking news. Keith Hansen, vice president of audience development for the Brainerd Dispatch, initiated the newspaper website’s “On the Fly” section in which the tweets of reporters in the field are immediately posted on the paper’s website. As the section name implies these are news items that are offered to Dispatch readers as reporters are still in the process of gathering information. “It’s not the finished product,” Hansen said. Because the tweets go directly to the website there is no edit-
New reporter tools ing process, but Hansen noted editors Jessi Pierce, staff writer, said tweets By MIKE O’ROURKE mike.orourke@ have the ability to correct or make adare a way to share information and picbrainerddispatch.com justments to the tweet when it’s necestures well before the presses roll at 506 sary. An added benefit of the prominent James St. She said she also likes that display of “On the Fly” on the website, Hansen said, is tweets can give readers insight into a reporter’s interests that it will increase the number of followers on reporter’s and personality. Twitter accounts. Staff Writer Jennifer Stockinger said she tries to reSenior Reporter Renee Richardson, with more than member to tweet information before she rushes to the 100 followers, leads the newsroom in that category. She scene of a fire or accident. While reporting on a recent often tweets business news regarding the Brainerd area Nisswa structure fire she started tweeting scanner reports or live updates from governmental meetings as they are and then relayed photos and information from the scene in progress. — including the fact that two bodies were found. She said she likes the immediacy, the informality and Sports Editor Mike Bialka tweets items from sporting the ability to draw more people to an upcoming story. events but is often limited because he has to compile When she strays from her normal beat reporting Rich- statistics at the competitions. ardson’s tweets can range from her first sighting of a The temptation to stray from one’s normal beat is one robin in spring to the welcome news that a missing that sometimes can’t be resisted. One Dispatch reporter 4-year-old in the Breezy Point area was found. felt the need to chime in as a music critic after listening to “Good news!” she tweeted after listening to music from the Crow Wing County Historic Courthouse. scanner reports. “The 4-year-old was found “Most unusual and challenging song I’ve yet to hear just before they were going to put thermal on Brainerd’s carillon bells: Jimmy Webb’s “Up, Up and imaging equipment in place to try to lo- Away.” Nice effort!” cate the child.” The Brainerd Dispatch sends stories, photos and news Outdoors Editor Brian Peterson updates to its Facebook fans but has maxed out at the visited about a dozen lakes during Facebook limit of 5,000 friends. New Media Director the last fishing opener, providing Denton Newman Jr. said between 15 and 20 friend relive Twitter reports on the bite. quests are still received each week and those people are He said his followers are seri- added as other friends drop off. The options for readers ous about fishing and hunt- who want to receive Dispatch updates, he said, are to ing and the outdoors so subscribe to Dispatch updates on Facebook or to like he sticks to the facts in the Dispatch fan page. Those options would allow them his reports. While he to receive most of the updates Facebook friends receive, believes many of his Newman said. readers might be Reporters routinely use the Dispatch Facebook page electronically/ to find sources for news stories. In one of the more fardigitally chal- flung examples, former Dispatch Staff Writer Jodie Tweed lenged, he asked on Facebook for anyone who was affected by the thinks that’s Japanese earthquake to contact the newspaper. That res l o w l y sulted in the wife of a Brainerd area traveling businessc h a n g - man linking the newspaper to her husband while he was ing. still overseas. In this age of new communication models, writing tweets has proven to be a challenge, forcing the journalists to make their point with only 140 characters. Older, tech-challenged reporters may forget that if their message is too long it may be cut off befo MIKE O’ROURKE, associate editor, may be reached at 855-5860 or mike.orourke@brainerddispatch.com. He may be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MikeORourkenews.