Sparse updates on here usually means one thing: crazy week. It has been, and I’ve been drained by the time I came home. But it’s good crazy.

It’s a busy news week in Lafayette. The biggest news being, of course, they found the body of the missing Purdue student Monday. Between getting the story and getting it online followed with second day coverage, it was pretty much go-go-go. And I only played a small part. (Imagine how tired my editor must feel.)

I’m not going to talk about any of the content in the coverage itself for obvious reasons. But I will say, I was totally impressed with how it came together and how we quickly got the news out there and followed with impact coverage. The first story confirming the body’s identity was posted about 15 minutes after the press conference began (while it was still going on), with steady updates throughout the day.

No doubt people wanted the news, and they were looking for it at the J&C. Both Monday and subsequently Tuesday set new records for page views on the site. What impressed me most was how there was no question of holding anything back. It was every body and every resource. Photo galleries, video, half a dozen reporters (on a dozen reporter staff). And as soon as we had it, or part of it, it was online, right then.

And that story was only part of the news going on this week. We still covered a lot of other big news events for the community.

I think if I wasn’t a convert already, this week would totally have won me over to the brillance of immediate news online. I’m not even one of those reporters who got into journalism for the adrenaline rush. Hardly. But it’s hard not to get caught up in something that big. If there was anyone in the newsroom holding back — I don’t really think there was; it’s a forward-looking paper that emphasizes and is expanding Web coverage, which was part of its appeal to me — they can’t possibly have reservations any longer. (Disclosure: It’s a Gannett paper, so that whole info center thing, say what you will, it worked.)

I know it might seem like I’m blown away, but take into consideration that this is the first major story I’ve worked on outside of college. (Remember, I graduated about three months ago. The student went missing the same weekend I moved here to start this job.) I got to work on some major stories at Kent State and even direct coverage of some, but this is different. It’s the first real-world test I think we’ve gotten to see of how it all comes together. It’s one thing to talk about immediately posting things online, getting video and photo galleries, setting up forums and letting the communication flow. It’s entirely different to see it, to watch it and be part of it from the front line. And the audience gobbled it up.

All right. Here’s to a few slow news days for the rest of this week, at least until this county can catch its breath. ;)

You’ll remember my previous post about the wrong way to do polls.

In it, I lamented newspapers tendancies to put polls at the bottom of the homepage and to not include any context or link to the story. Those are major pet peeves of mine. I also mentioned any publication of the results needs a disclaimer about how unscientific the poll is.

I just noticed the IndyStar does polls right. Usually, I enter the Star through my RSS reader and bypass the homepage. Today, after reading an article I decided to click over and take a look at the front page.

What I like:

• Location: The poll is on the second full screen down on the page. It is in the middle of the main content area. Granted it’s under an ad, but it’s still located with the other news headlines and content.

• Topic: This is a controversial issue in Indiana. Just the 104 comments on the story already and the near 50/50 split on the poll should tip off even those who couldn’t care less that lots of people do in fact care. Lots of interest means lots of readers with strong opinions to take the poll.
• Context: Notice that blue in the image? It’s a link to, get this, the story that prompted this poll. Now that you got my attention, I want to know more about where the bypass stands. I don’t have to go search through your clunky archive to find it. (I’ve never actually used their archive, but news site archives are by very nature hard to work with.)

I still would like to see a link to the poll on the story itself, but I’ll settle for this as a good example of polls for newspapers to follow.

I want one of these:

New Products: Flash IMs to fellow drivers

DEBORAH PORTERFIELD, Gannett News Service

Want to flash a message to the tailgating car behind you? With Roadmaster’s Scrolling Rear Deck Message System, you can tell the car to “Slow Down,” or one of nearly 10 other messages. by Roadmaster

Want to flash a message to the tailgating car behind you? With Roadmaster’s Scrolling Rear Deck Message System, you can tell the offending driver to “Slow Down.” With more than 99 preset words and phrases, you also can ask for “Help,” tell drivers you’re “Turning Left” or create your own message to share. Using the included remote control, you can adjust the message’s speed and brightness as it scrolls across the LED display. Just be careful where you drive as not all states allow scrolling displays in moving vehicles. Roadmaster also makes a Scrolling Digital License Plate Frame. Both items cost about $60 each.

www.roadmasterusa.com

Of course mine would probably include a few phrases like “WTF? Back off” or “That was a stop sign, moron.” I could have so much fun with that. Genius.

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me.”
— Isaac Newton

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”
— G. K. Chesterton

Otherwise known as, the entire point of ethics class summed up in one succinct sentence.

OK, so maybe ethics class was to teach us how to tell the difference.

I miss that class. It was actually one of my favorite journalism classes (ranking just behind print beat reporting and just before feature writing and news design). It was also one of the most challenging because, as Jan would always tell us, there was “no fence sitting.” It definitely prepared me to situations I later ran into and will surely run into in the future.

It doesn’t take much to make me smile. The night editor is constantly telling me I laugh, eh hem, giggle, more than anyone she’s ever met. It’s true. I’m probably one of the happier people in the world.

Why am I so happy? It’s not that my life has been amazing. I’m still waiting on the UPS truck to bring me that silver platter and still wonder who stole my silver spoon. Nope, I’m not happy because I’ve had it easy. Because, I learned a long time ago to find pleasure in the small things and to laugh at life’s bumps and learn from its bruises. You can’t really do anything about something that’s already happened except accept it and move along.

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” — Unknown

The truth is, I find joy in the silliest of things. It might be a funny item in the blotter, such as someone getting arrested for underage consumption the night before their 21st birthday or some teens running out of gas while trying to burglarize a home. (OK, so that second one, it seriously made me laugh the whole night.) It might be a vending machine that tells me, “Have a nice day.” It could be not finding a parking ticket on my car, six hours after I should have moved it off the street. It could be flipping a penny face up so the next person to walk by can enjoy the “all day long you’ll have good luck.” Or it could be as simple as a stranger saying hello, a nice breeze as I walk from my car into the building or a glimpse of the skyline on my drive home from work. I’m seriously easy to make happy.

Today, it was the two empty newspaper boxes I saw on my way home from work.

It made me smile so much I took my camera out and snapped a photo. Why? Because, empty boxes means that people were compelled to buy today’s papers. The J&C and the Indy Star made people stop, pull out 50 cents and buy the news. Although I’m all for new media and the Web, there is still that rush that comes from knowing what you produce is being read and seen.

I used to love going to Chipotle in Kent. Not because of the food (though the chicken burritos are amazing), but because standing in line I was always guaranteed to see at least half a dozen students reading the Stater. For some reason, the newspaper box in the front door and the long lines combined to produce a steady stream of readers. I loved to watch them. My colleagues and I used to stand in line and almost squeal everytime we saw someone follow the jump or read something and prod their buddy, “Did you see this?”

It’s one thing to produce the content, to talk about the stories,develop them and lay them out, and even to see that pay off in print. But seriously, nothing can replace knowing that people actually see what you spent your time on. It makes it so worth every sleepless night, every stressful day.

I get a similar rush from story chats, e-mails or phone calls. Likewise, our editors send out a daily online reads telling us the top dozen or so most read stories on the Web the previous days.

Like I said, it doesn’t take much to make me happy.