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TEMPLE: Lessons from an intense week

By John Temple, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 29, 2008 at 11:45 p.m.

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Editors work on our print and online editions at the Rocky's central news desk during the Democratic National Convention.

Photo by Andy Piper / The Rocky

Editors work on our print and online editions at the Rocky's central news desk during the Democratic National Convention.

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What a ride, Denver.

It's been fun to have the Democrats swarming our streets during their national convention. It's not that we don't normally have enough news of our own. But when this many people hit town, it's like a 100-year-flood of stories.

And that's what many journalists live for.

We had been planning for this event for so long that until Monday it felt like we were a football team stuck in the weeks between the NFL conference championship games and the Super Bowl. The wait makes you crazy.

But when the rush finally started and we got our kinks worked out, we were immersed in a game that never stopped, 24 hours a day.

The Democrats leave town on a high. By most accounts, their party - that's, after all, what it was - was a grand success.

I hope my colleagues at the Rocky and the Denver Newspaper Agency - the printers and technicians, salespeople and distributors - feel the same way about what they accomplished. This mega-event went off far more successfully than anything we've done in recent memory.

I'd like to share a few impressions and lessons learned:

* News still rules. For the longest time we've been trying to build an audience for our video reporting. We've done some remarkable work. But I couldn't figure out why more people didn't watch it. And then we saw what happened when ace breaking news photographer George Kochaniec Jr., captured the intensity of the conflict between a Fox News reporter and an angry crowd, a police officer and a CodePink protester. Our traffic spiked. In one day more than 90,000 people watched the first video. The second had been viewed more than 175,000 times on YouTube before Barack Obama spoke at Invesco Field at Mile High.

* Working in real time on the Web is complicated, way complicated. We published unedited news updates, photos and videos by our journalists from the field directly to our Web site. Managing that river of content is like juggling four bowling pins. This new world seems four-dimensional, and we had many quirky problems pop up. For example, old items would show up on our Web site. Other times, our staff couldn't find displayed what they'd worked so hard to gather.

* You may not agree with some of our opinion writers, but boy do they matter. TV can show you what happens in the Pepsi Center, as we did with our live feed from The Associated Press. But a newspaper and its Web site can provide analysis, perspective, argument and humor in a way that adds value even to the most addicted talking-heads buff. We used the convention as a launch pad for dramatically expanding our opinion coverage online and saw that many welcomed it. More to come.

* People do not know what they're capable of unless they're called to rise to a challenge. Of course, there are limits to what people can do, but it's amazing what they can accomplish when they believe in their cause and know that the time is now. Our commentary staff, which typically puts out three pages a day, doubled its output. We produced two pages of non-convention opinion and four pages about the convention. Online we did much more. That extra effort was seen across the newsroom. As an editor, nothing made me prouder than seeing our journalists - writers, photographers and editors - rise to the occasion, producing work that radiated their commitment and passion for doing a good job.

In the end, work is like play. I look for partners who can keep their eyes on the ball. I'm proud to say that I think this newspaper did that during the convention, that we produced some of our most memorable newspapers and most dynamic Web presentations in my time with the Rocky.

I hope you enjoyed the work and saw in it why this news organization makes such a special contribution to the life of this community.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or by mail at 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 500, Denver, CO 80202.

Comments

  • August 30, 2008

    11:07 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    HopiMedicineMan writes:

    Suggestion: When you do those "real time" postings, use first person. They came off as incomplete news reports rather than reflection of a first hand witness.

  • August 30, 2008

    11:26 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    HopiMedicineMan writes:

    Believe it or not, there were conservative protests, totally overlooked by the media. Here's a link to some photographs:

    http://www.lookingattheleft.com/2008/...

  • August 30, 2008

    2:31 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    samsmargolis writes:

    Good to see you got your *ss handed to you on the O'Reilly Factor, Temple. A well-deserved shot for your insane and asinine reporting crews. Could your staff possibly have been more high-school girl giddy and star-struck in their reporting? If you're that easily led around by the nose, maybe it's time for another business.

  • August 30, 2008

    3:50 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    HopiMedicineMan writes:

    I didn't see the O'Reilly Factor. I generally think of the News as a little gem. It could use more reporting in the suburbs. There are no conservative writers but one. Lynn Bartels is Mark Udall's campaign manager as she was Paul Noonan's. John Temple seems to be transitioning the paper from it's Republican past to a Democrat future. It fawned over the Democrats as Messiahs from Dairy Queen. This paper is the main reason the state went blue. The information the public needed to make informed decisions was concealed. Other than these few items, pretty good little paper

  • August 30, 2008

    4:52 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    andybosselman writes:

    The Rocky has a long way to go before it should pat itself on the back for its web content. In my latest post, I argue that the Rocky's video content is taking away from resources that should be spent on finding a way to better integrate images into the paper's website:

    http://andybosselman.blogspot.com/200...

  • August 30, 2008

    6:13 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    HopiMedicineMan writes:

    andybosselman,
    You are so right! The Rocky isn't well integrated.