Earlier this month, NorthernLife.ca was honoured by the Ontario Community Newspapers Association as the top community newspaper website in the province. We are thrilled.
The web allows us unlimited space for news and information, and
it offers us a chance to use video and audio, as well as words
and pictures, to tell stories.
At mid-career I am excited, not threatened about these changes,
and about learning more about what is being called "new" media;
e-journalism or multi-media news reporting. I hope to take some
"e-journalism" long-distance college courses in the fall.
Newspapers may disappear but journalists will still be needed
to report and analyse the news. (Most of the "reliable"
information currently on the Internet comes from newspaper and
broadcast newsrooms.)
A few years ago, our web readers tended to be under the age of
30. In a very short time, baby-boomers and seniors embraced the
technology and have come to understand that the Internet has
become as vital to our daily lives as the automobile and
touch-tone telephones.
Our web readers are young and old, and they don't all live in
Greater Sudbury; we get e-mails and comments from just about
every location on the globe.
Northern Life's editorial department is rethinking what it does
and changing its deadlines to meet these new demands.
Our site does not just republish the newspaper. Many stories,
features and photo galleries appear only at
NorthernLife.ca.
Many readers are not aware that news and information at
NorthernLife.ca is updated several times a day Monday through
Friday. When news breaks on the weekend, reporters are on call
to get that information on the web, and someday soon they will
be able to do that without having to come into the office.
Many of our readers receive our Sudbury Today newsletter, which
is e-mailed to them weekdays at 3 pm with background on the new
stories they will hear about on drive-home radio newscasts and
the supper-time television news.
In addition, our web readers have a chance to comment on news
items. And many enjoy commenting on the comments.
One of the newspaper's most popular features is the Community
Calendar. In the newspaper we only publish listings for three
or four days. NorthernLife.ca has listings for the entire
month.
People who are reporting event information can click on the
front page of the website and send it directly to us. I also
recommend that people send information by mail, fax or e-mail
to our Community Calendar and WOW co-ordinator Bill Bradley at
[email protected]
about two weeks before their events.
Twenty-five years ago when I was entering journalism school,
newspapers were called dinosaurs, and newsrooms were called
"bone yards of broken dreams." Today newsprint's days may be
numbered, but electronic newspapers' futures are bright. And
this year's crop of journalism graduates have unlimited
opportunities to dream.
Vicki Gilhula is the managing editor of Northern Life.
