While the destruction doesn’t come close to what the community of Moore, Okla., is dealing with this week, the newspaper staffs in Ottawa County, Okla., and Brown County, Texas, are having to cover some local storm damage.

The Miami (Okla.) News-Record’s Wednesday edition features several stories about local damage from storm that swept through the area late Monday night, causing damage in Ottawa County, Okla.

In Brown County, Texas, the Brownwood Bulletin provided solid coverage of damage in the community of Blanket, Texas, in its Tuesday edition.

See a gallery of their coverage below:

Congratulations on the Jackson County Times-Journal reaching 3,000 Facebook likes.

Check out their page at this link.

While the world watches as rescue crews survey the damage of the powerful EF4 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, several other regions in the Midwest dealt with severe weather on Monday, May 20.

Near Brownwood, Texas, where ACM operates the Bulletin and its website, http://www.brownwoodtx.com, three tornadoes touched down in Brown County.

The staff of the Brownwood Bulletin quickly posted coverage of the event on its website, http://www.brownwoodtx.com. View the coverage here:

Photo gallery: http://www.brownwoodtx.com/gallery/collection_b3e09738-c1b4-11e2-b95e-001a4bcf887a.html

News coverage: http://www.brownwoodtx.com/article_9eff1e3f-ecac-5c47-b184-da3c632712b8.html

According to Derrick Stuckly, editor of the Bulletin, the newspaper’s use of social media paid off. On Facebook, the newspaper added 159 new likes to push the Bulletin over 6,500 likes.

“From the time of our first post when we were put under the tornado watch to 7:45 a.m. this morning, our weather-related posts have generated 413 likes and, more importantly, 685 SHARES,” said Stuckly. “This should serve as a reminder just how much people depend on us and rely on us for major news, and we should all feel proud of the job we did. Thank you again to everyone!”

The Bulletin’s website had its highest traffic day of the month with 3,040 visits and 18,621 pageviews.

To view the Tuesday, May 21, front page of the Brownwood Bulletin, see below:

Kudos to Jim Ellis, sports editor of the Miami (Okla.) News-Record, for now providing sports news via a  video show on his newspaper’s website, http://www.miamiok.com.

Ellis started the new feature earlier this month. The show, which will run no more than two minutes, features the latest sports news from around the Miami, Okla., area, and also promotes upcoming coverage and features in the print edition of the Miami News-Record.

Ellis was a member of the third and final installment of the ACM Digital Reporter Project in 2012. The ACM Digital Reporter Project provided iPad workstations and digital tools to 30 reporters throughout ACM to help them enhance their newspaper’s website content. 

The show is being taped in a new studio in the newsroom of the Miami News-Record. Members of the newsroom worked recently to transform an old closet into a video studio, complete with a green screen and editing station.

Great job Jim and the News-Record on always thinking, “Digital First… Print Best!”

Check out his latest video below:

American Consolidated Media is proud to announce  it is currently in the beginning stages of developing its first mobile newspaper application through a partnership with vendor, Verve.

The project is currently in beta test right now, as ACM and Verve will develop a mobile newspaper application for one ACM website.

The ACM website for which the mobile newspaper app will be developed is the Cecil Whig’s, http://www.cecildaily.com. It was determined that the Cecil Whig would serve as the beta test site due to the fact its website has the highest mobile traffic in ACM.

The Cecil Whig app will be developed for both the iTunes App store and Google Play. The app will also be available in mobile phone and tablet versions. The app will be free to download, and will feature the latest news, sports and other information from the past 72 hours.

Once the beta test launch of the Cecil Whig’s app is complete, ACM will consider partnering with Verve to launch three more test sites — one each for the Southwest, Superior and Ohio regions this summer.

After the second phase of the beta test is complete, ACM will determine whether or not to roll out the mobile newspaper app platform for all its websites.

The launch of the mobile newspaper app will not add any additional workloads to the newsrooms of ACM. The app is updated through dedicated and determined RSS feeds.

Pino Shah, corporate digital director for ACM, is serving as project manager for the mobile newspaper app program, with assistance from Micah Moore, a member of the ACM digital team, and Rick Rogers, corporate operations director.

For more on Verve, see below:

The Miami News-Record launched a new feature on its website, http://www.miamiok.com, recently using Dropcam technology deployed in many ACM newsrooms.

On the home page of the News-Record’s website is a media player allowing viewers to watch live coverage of the construction of the new Northeast Oklahoma A&M football stadium.

In the past, Dropcam technology has been used to broadcast live from the finish line of a ski race in Hayward, Wisc., and from town squares throughout ACM locations.

If your newsroom does not have a Dropcam deployed in its market, please email Allen Free, ACM digital projects manager, at free@amconmedia.com.

Great use of live video coverage, Miami News-Record!

The photo gallery page for reader-submitted Bluebonnet photos on the Stephenville Empire-Tribune’s website.

Earlier this spring was Bluebonnet season in the state of Texas, and it is a rite of passage to take family photographs in a field of the wild flowers.

So, the Stephenville Empire-Tribune got their readers involved again this year by conducting a photo callout for them to submit their Bluebonnet photos to the newspaper for publication on its website, http://www.yourstephenvilletx.com.

Fifteen photos were submitted and can be viewed on a special photo gallery page at http://www.yourstephenvilletx.com/bluebonnets/.

The summer season is a great time for photo callouts. In the next several months you will have photo gallery opportunities such as graduation, Memorial Day, Fourth of July and beach season and more.

Great your readers involved and showcase their photos. They will love to tell their friends, “did you see my photos on the newspaper’s website?”

Rick Rogers

One of my favorite exercises while serving as an editor and publisher of my old newspapers was to count the number of local faces in each day’s edition.

I really didn’t have a rule of how many faces there should be in each paper, but if I were to set a benchmark it would be no fewer than 25. Of course, that number is based on how large the publication. My old newspapers were two small daily editions (anywhere from 10 to 24 pages) and two weekly editions (averaging 12 pages each issue).

The purpose of this exercise is that local photos add value to your product, both in terms of newspaper sales and reader outreach.

Everyone loves to see their photo in the newspaper.

So, I spent a few minutes this morning checking out today’s edition of the Grove (Okla.) Sun, a twice-weekly newspaper. Kaylea Hutson is in her first month as editor of the publication, and I wanted to see how she was doing with the product.

She’s doing very well, especially when I looked at not only the quantity of photos, but the quality of photos in today’s publication.

I counted 45 local faces in the May 14, 2013 edition, and I do not include column mugshots in that figure.

That’s 45 local faces in a 12-page newspaper.

Today’s newspaper also featured a graduation section with headshots of all the graduates, so if you take that into account we are nearing 200 local faces in today’s newspaper.

That’s 200 sets moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles that could pick up a copy of the newspaper to clip the photo of their loved one.

That’s a lot of refrigerator art.

And that’s what community newspapers are all about.

Thanks for reading.

- RR

Check out a few pages from today’s Grove Sun.