Media coverage
Questions about the conference? Contact Dan Cox at dcox@ljworld.com or
(785) 832-7275.
KU unveils fieldhouse seating results, May 28
When officials at the University of Kansas athletic department announced their controversial plan to "re-seat" all of the Jayhawk basketball season ticket holders based upon a donation points system, the Journal-World and its local media partners went about building one of the most converged local packages the organization had ever built for a "one-off" story.
Once Journal-World senior reporter Dave Ranney knew all of the elements of the story, he began working with the newspaper's online staff to develop content that would better explain the new ticket plan to readers.
LJWorld.com programmers built an online calculator that pulls together a very close approximation of how many points someone has after that person answers related questions. (We would say that it exactly shows the points totals, but if you've read the pamphlet from KUAC, there is a lot of ambiguity and poor writing that is almost impossible to pinpoint.) The online staff then worked to put together an interactive map of Allen Fieldhouse that illuminates different sections of the arena seating chart based upon selecting what point total you have, or are interested in acquiring. The interactive seating chart also shows the reader (through a series of several photographs) what the actual view of the court is from the different sections.
Online editors also scanned into the pamphlet that KUAC mailed to season-ticket holders, and typed in the key sections.
News6 did a follow-up that evening that was promoted in both print and onlne that had some community reaction to the plan, as well as other information from KUAC officials. 6News also did a reader poll on its Web site that was promoted on the newscast, as well as a reference to the extra context on the Web. The 6News follow-up also was referenced in the Friday morning edition of the newspaper.
Also, on Friday morning, an e-mail was sent by the online staff to thousands of KUsports.com readers informing them of not only the stories, but of all of the tools on the site that could show them their points and possible seats. Full story.
More everday convergence stories »
Clinton calls for civility, May 22
When former president Bill Clinton came to Lawrence to give the inaugural Dole Institute of Politics speech, the Journal-World and its local media partners pulled out all of the stops to produce convergence synergy.
Online editor Dave Toplikar coordinated with newspaper managing editor Ric Brack, city editor Mike Shields, and photographers Scott McClurg and Thad Allender to let them know what we wanted to have extra for online that they wouldn't be able to get into the actual newspaper. Toplikar also worked with News6 news director Cody Howard's staff to make sure understood coverage plans for TV. Live online coverage of the event used a similar gameplan used for other major press conferences and speeches (the hiring of KU's new basketball coach and athletic director, the Kansas Governor's State of the State address, etc...) in taping the 6News live video coverage of the event and immediately preparing video and audio clips for LJWorld.com and 6Newslawrence.com sites.
A Journal-World photographer also shot a 360-degree "steerable" virtual reality photo shot inside the arena during Clinton's speech.
LJWorld.com had a breaking news precede story posted early on our site (about 4 a.m.) to let people know parking information, what to wear, what they could and could not bring, etc... The news staff began updating that story around 10:30 a.m., when Journal-World reporters arrived at the scene. Newspaper reporter Joel Mathis gathered quotes and color information from the scene and called back several times, providing updates to the precede story. Journal-World reporter Eric Weslander also provided information from the police that was phoned into the online editor. When the local version of CNN Headline News went live at 11:54 a.m., (which is produced by News6) the online staff taped it, got the video from it and posted it into the precede breaking story by a little after noon.
During the speech, online editors jotted down quotes heard during the live telecast of Clinton's speech, and updated the story during the speech. Online editors began processing the video as soon as the speech started and had the introduction from Bob Dole up before Clinton had even finished his speech. Journal-World photographers submitted nearly 20 photos to be posted early on the newspaper's Web site.
The follow-up coverage in the newspaper was very in-depth. On the online version of the lead story from the Journal-World had links to all the J-W stories, all the 6News stories, the video clips of Clinton's entire speech, the audio clips of his entire speech and Q-and-A session, the 360-degree VR photo and a huge photo gallery. If you missed the speech, you could go to our site and see the whole thing, plus get all the J-W stories and all the reaction. There was even local a "blog" on the site about the speech, which was getting a ton of local reaction. Full story.
More project-oriented stories »
UAB's 'hell' hath no fury, March 27
Whether it's a pre-season exhibition game or a Sweet Sixteen game in the NCAA Tournament, the Lawrence Journal-World and its local media partners report on the Jayhawks like few other college teams in the country are covered. A look at the schedule/archives on the Journal-World's University of Kansas athletics site, KUsports.com, shows that overkill is the gameplan from mid-October through March Madness.
Before the game began, KUsports.com played host to live online chat with readers and Journal-World basketball writer Gary Bedore and Birmingham News basketball writer Toraine Norris.
The game coverage then segued to a three-person team dedicated to live game updates on the Web site. One person writes an AP-style game write-through that is updated after every basket. Another person updates the homepage game brief after each basket. And the third person updates a detailed "live" box score for the game.
This real-time game coverage crosses from the Web site over to mobile phones, as the Journal-World became the first newspaper in the United States to offer daily news updates via SMS. SMS stands for Short Messaging Service. SMS technology allows mobile phones to receive short (about 100 characters). Throughout KU basketball season, thousands of Jayhawk fans receive these cell-phone game updates as often as four times a game.
At halftime, the Journal-World's photographers send at least one photo back to the newspaper so that it can be posted to the online game story.
Once the game is over, the bottom of the online game story tells readers to pick up a copy of tomorrow morning's Journal-World or watch that evening's News6 broadcast.
But the real convergence overkill kicks in once the game is over.
Journal-World photographers send between 20 and 40 extra photos for each game to be published in an online gallery. Post-game interviews with players and coaches are digitized and edited so that readers can listen to the entire responses. Box scores are augmented to have links to detailed player pages, which include game-by-game and cumulative stats. Video reports from News6 are posted to KUsports.com.
Because News6 doesn't have newscasts on weekends, games that are played on Saturday or Sunday include special online-only post-game video reports built exclusively for KUsports.com.
All of the other post-game stories and columns are then cross-linked within all of the related coverage on the Web site.
The next morning's newspaper has a high-profile reference in it, telling readers what extra content is available online. Read story.
Local election, Spring, 2003
For the 2003 local government and school board elections, the Lawrence Journal-World wanted to use the tools that the Web brings to the table to create not only some of the most cutting-edge local journalism on the Internet, but to serve its readers in a way that would truly help them make informed decisions.
More importantly, it wanted to interact with its readers in a way that would allow them to navigate their way through several hotly contested local contests and questions.
This election site included stories written specifically for the site, archives of content from the newspaper and it's local television partner, live chats with all of the candidates, live updates every five minutes on election day for voter results, an interactive map of vote totals showing detailed results for all precincts in Lawrence, a web-only look at campaign contributors for each candidate and a database-driven tool aimed at helping voters sort through all of the candidate's promises and platforms.
The last tool mentioned above was called the site's "candidate selector." It showed a list of all the questions that were asked each of the candidates in preparation for the newspaper's voter guide, as well as each candidate's response. All responses were listed anonymously and in a different order for each question.
A visitor to the site could read each question, as well as each answer, then select all of the answers that mostly closely represented his or her viewpoint for each question. At the end, the "candidate selector" would show readers of the site which candidates seemed to most closely represent their views.
The site's local chats were highly successful. Though all were scheduled to last 30 minutes, all of them lasted more than an hour, with several questions still going unanswered.
The chats were then covered in the newspaper with a partial transcript of the chat published. The newspaper's sister television then did a video report of each of the chat's for that evening's newscasts.
Voter turnout for this election was the highest in Lawrence in decades, despite nasty weather on Election Day. Full story.
More past project convergence stories »
Examples of band pages from our local music section:
Local music online radio stations:
Local music television show produced and hosted by a member of the Lawrence.com staff:
