Earlier this week, Facebook announced it will drive a campaign to ask members to post whether or not they would be willing to become an organ donor.

Stephenville (Texas) Empire-Tribune digital reporter Micah Moore localized this national story with a video report. Check out the cool intro!

It was announced this morning that the national unemployment rate dipped to 8.6% in November, making it the lowest percentage since March 2009.

The bigger question is, what is the unemployment rate in the counties, regions or states where our ACM newspaper and website readers reside? This is a great opportunity to localize this national story. Talk to your local unemployment centers, temp employment services or even folks who are struggling to find unemployment. How do you find the unemployed? Use your newspaper’s Facebook or Twitter accounts to crowdsource for contacts, asking a simple question, “The Athens Messenger is working on a story on the local unemployment rate, and is wanting to interview someone currently seeking employment and having a hard time landing a job. Do you know someone who is willing to be interviewed?”

For a look at national coverage of the unemployment rate dip, see this link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/business/economy/us-adds-120000-jobs-unemployment-drops-to-8-6.html

This photo provided by Texas Parks and Wildlife shows a fire burning in Bastrop State Park in Bastrop, Texas. More than 1,000 homes have been destroyed in at least 57 wildfires across rain-starved Texas, most of them in one devastating blaze near Austin that is still raging out of control, officials said Tuesday.

On Wednesday, ACM Newsroom suggests our editors and reporters at our Texas newspapers contact their local fire departments to see if they have any firefighters assisting with the wildfires raging in Austin, Texas, Tuesday.

This would be a great way to localize this now national story.

If your town doesn’t have a firefighter or two battling the blazes, another way to localize this story is interviewing your fire chiefs about the potential wildfire dangers in our community, and how people can protect their property from falling victim to such a tragedy.

Even if this story has been done prior to this event near Austin, a reminder still works in this case because of the impact these fires will have on the state. If not a full story or sidebar, consider a breakout box with informational bulletpoints.

Remember, providing a local feature or sidebar to a state or national story is a great way to improve readership!

For a link to the national story on the Texas wildfires, click this link:

http://news.yahoo.com/texas-fires-kill-4-destroy-more-1-000-230345872.html

ACM’s newspapers and websites in our Chesapeake, Maryland and Ohio regions reacted quickly to the national news story of a 5.9 scale earthquake on the East Coast with news bulletins online and video reports on local angles.

Here are links to stories filed by the staff of the Star-Democrat, located in Easton, Md.

• Video report on college campus closing due to earthquake: 

Here are links to stories filed by the staff of the Cecil Whig, located in Elkton, Md.

• Patrons at local hair salon react to earthquake tremors: http://www.cecilwhig.com/local_news/article_ab6abf10-cdbf-11e0-9dfb-001cc4c03286.html

• Health Dept. building closes; first day of school canceled due to quake: http://www.cecilwhig.com/local_news/article_736e0728-cdb2-11e0-9b3f-001cc4c002e0.html

• Video of resident reaction in Elkton, MD: 

• Eyewitness accounts of earthquake in Maryland:

• Earthquake damages building in Elkton, MD:

 Here are links to content posted by the Newark (Del.) Post

• Earthquake strongest felt in Delaware since 19th century:

http://newarkpostonline.com/articles/2011/08/23/news/doc4e5440a43c7b1678964672.txt