Star Democrat editor Barbara Sauers shared this recent success story involving the newspaper’s coverage of a fatal car accident.

While it is hard to describe this has a “success” story considering the subject matter, the newspaper did its job by providing the community up-to-the-minute news coverage of the event.

Sauers described how the newspaper handled its coverage:

Today we had a fatal accident on U.S. Route 50 in Easton (not far from the newspaper). Photographer Roxane Doster Watts and Reporter Dustin Holt were sent to the scene. While Rocky was shooting photos, Dustin shot video of the head-on aftermath of the accident and came back to the office to work on the video to post it. Managing Editor John Griep and I updated the breaking news posts until Dustin was able to get enough facts from news sources to write an actual story. Westbound Route 50 was closed to traffic for two hours while investigators worked the scene. In that time, our online edition, Facebook and Twitter accounts were constantly upgraded. On News Beat, traffic to our site was consistently in the 90 to 120 range throughout the afternoon with a peak active visitors of 133 visits. With the monitor in the newsroom, reporters were able to see the spikes following each update.

Not only is the Star Democrat providing breaking news coverage online, it is also enhancing its digital-only content at its website, www.stardem.com.

The website launched its third digital-only feature, “Star Artist.”  Talbot County is an artist enclave. It has hundreds of artists living here on the Mid-Shore. From painters to photographers to sculptors and everything in between, the region has people from around the world who come here to live, work and to be inspired by the beauty of the Chesapeake Bay and all shorelines and pastoral settings in their works. There is the Academy Art Museum in Easton and numerous art galleries downtown, several major art events, including Easton’s annual Plein Air competition and the longtime Waterfowl Festival.

The “Star Artist” feature launched on Friday to coincide with the print edition’s WEEKEND! section, which is heavy on entertainment and lifestyles coverage. Star Democrat photographer Chris Polk interviewed an instructor of a clay class for children at the Academy Art Museum.

Check out Chris Polk’s “Star Artist” video feature below:

“With that, Star Artist is our third major feature element now part of our online edition,” said Sauers. “So in addition to Star Artist, we now have our daily Star Forecast, Dustin’s Finding a Home, Reporter Dan Divilio’s regular updates from the legislative session in Annapolis, sports interviews by Sports Editor Bill Haufe and Chris Polk, plus numerous videos on school activities and community events by Chris Polk, Erin Fluharty and Roxane Watts and Reporter Becca Newell, and, all our spot news events of accidents, fires, etc. In the near future, we plan to add an environmental/watermen’s feature by Kelley Allen and an outdoors feature by our Outdoors Page Writer and Reporter Chris Knauss.”

Great job, Star Democrat staff!