Media coverage
Questions about the conference? Contact Rob Curley at rcurley@ljworld.com or
(785) 832-7275.
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.
Parched Prairie, August 2002
With the nation's heartland in the midst of one of its worst and most devastating droughts in decades, Lawrence Journal-World senior editor Bill Snead set out to see just what the effects were on Kansans across the state.
What made the special series -- which was entitled "Parched Prairie" -- so powerful was how this former Washington Post "White House Photographer of the Year" embraced the Internet to better help tell his stories of how extraordinary Midwesterners were dealing with extraordinary situations.
Snead spent six days visiting areas of Kansas hit hardest by the lingering drought. He covered nearly 1,600 miles and interviewed farmers and ranchers, merchants, local officials, retirees and people from many walks of life who had been living with extreme heat and very little moisture.
The results were telling stories complemented by expanded online photo galleries, video shot exclusively for the Internet by the series' author, as well as custom Flash animations, and other supporting Web content. Full story.
More past projects of note:
