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President Barack Obama's visit to central Illinois was bound to get great coverage. Both the Peoria Journal Star and the Galesburg Register-Mail kept readers apprised throughout the day. Check out their online packages.
On Peoria's homepage (with a link to an entire page dedicated to Obama coverage):
On Galesburg's homepage
WHAT THEY DID: Peoria and Galesburg went with the big package to display President Obama's visit. Peoria linked to a page created just for the visit. And Galesburg used multiple links as part of the package. Both papers also used Twitter to keep people up-to-the-minute with Obama's whereabouts. They used the hashtag #ilobama, agreed upon by in a little Twitter exchange the day before the president's visit, to lead the community conversation. Peoria also used a Twitter feed onto the Obama page. And they pointed readers to the Twitter account of political reporter Chris Kaergard, who offered a play-by-play of Obama's movements.
Peoria is careful not to inundate its main Twitter account with too much of one subject, but in the case the main account pointed readers to the specific account used (the political reporter's) for the more frequent tweets.
Nice job to both papers for cooperating and thinking of their readers' needs throughout the day of the president's visit.
Couple of cool photo galleries to check out on pjstar.com: the newsy Obama gallery and the quirky Obama photo blog.
TAKEAWAY: When something big is happening in your town or your area be sure to keep your readers updated throughout the event. Even if you don't have a smartphone, if you can text, you can tweet from the scene, whether it's breaking news or the president's visit. And if you're more than a one-person newsroom, you can call in updates for your website.
GateHouse Media News & Interactive Division staff post best practices on social media uses, as well as information on the newest technology newspapers can use in the social media space.
