Thursday 26 November 2009

Online is lifeline for flood-hit Cumbria


Regional newspaper the News & Star used its online news service, video, blogs and Twitter to provide vital news and information to the communities of flood-hit Cumbria and to cover the disaster.
The News & Star website has attracted around 85,000 unique visitors and more than 630,000 page impressions for its coverage of the floods, which included a live blog. The blog ran between last Thursday lunchtime and Friday evening, engaging over 5,300 unique users who tuned in to read up to the minute flood reports from the paper. The News & Star published 2,130 reader comments on the blog and provided answers to 332 questions during its duration.
News & Star staff continue to post videos, news stories and images to the site, and have been updating their 500-plus Twitter followers with a continuous stream of news links.
Ian Brogden, online editor for Cumbria Newspapers, said: “The live blog was intended to act as a means for people to interact with the paper, ask questions and get the information they needed back in real time. Information was gathered from the police very quickly by our team of reporters, and we then wrote stories off the back of this for publication online and in print.
“One of the great benefits of the live blog was that it turned the website into something of a self-help site. Advice was being passed between readers to help one another."
Via the Newspaper Society

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