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Tuesday morning's tornado in Harrisburg, Ill., which killed six people and injured hundreds, has had an impact on the GateHouse Media newsroom in that community.
The Daily Register, a small newspaper in Southern Illinois, located in Harrisburg, had an employee who lost two family members in the tornado. GateHouse Media CEO Mike Reed sent condolences to employees who lost family in the tornado in this memo.
Tornadoes are unfortunately nothing new to GateHouse. Last year, a tornado ripped through Joplin, Mo., and wiped out the Big Nickel newspaper. And a few years before that a tornado basically wiped out the town of Greensburg, Kan., where GateHouse owns a weekly newspaper, which was destroyed, as well.
During these difficult times, readers look to newspapers to deliver information and because this story impacted a GateHouse town, their employees and the newspaper, we launched a national website with information about the tornado. The website includes news from our newspapers in southern Illinois, as well as how to help info, photos, videos, social media content and callouts for readers to share their condolences. This website has been updated several times a day and is featured on all of our newspapers' websites.
The Daily Register has produced some highly compelling content that's featured on the website, including this story on how residents are trying to put their lives back together and this gallery.
Our thoughts and prayers are with our newspaper employees in Harrsburg and their families.
David Arkin is Vice President of Content & Audience for GateHouse Media. Contact him at darkin@gatehousemedia.com
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David Arkin is the Vice President of Content & Audience for GateHouse Media. He oversees all matters related to print and online content, strategy, and online development and support related to the company’s content management system. From 2007-2011 he served as the executive director of the News & Interactive Division for GateHouse Media. Prior to that, he served as the executive editor of Greater Niagara Newspapers (Niagara Falls, N.Y.) and served as the top editor for the Cullman Times (Ala.), the Porterville Recorder (Calif.) and the Huntsville Item (Texas).
