Las Vegas Sun’s terrific online fire coverage
Cory Bergman January 28th, 2008
WashingtonPost Interactive’s Rob Curley breaks down how the Las Vegas Sun covered last week’s fire at the Monte Carlo. “My jaw nearly hit the ground,” Curley writes of how well the newspaper site covered the breaking story. A live blog, photos, backgrounders, video and the ability for users to upload video through YouTube and photos through Flickr. “To me, this was a nearly textbook example of how a local newspaper should cover a big breaking news story in its community in the iPhone era,” Curley writes.
Adds Don Day in comments below: “I was incredibly impressed when I clicked on to the site last week. The TV sites in the market were… not good. The Sun site was vibrant, fresh, clean and simple. I noticed they just revamped - and clearly the new architecture and design were built for this type of story. I took away several good ideas from the Sun here — and it’s one of the better local newspaper sites I’ve seen.”
Yes, that’s a massive 16×9 video player of the fire.
18 Comments Add your own
1. Don Day | January 28th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I was incredibly impressed when I clicked on to the site last week. The TV sites in the market were… not good. The Sun site was vibrant, fresh, clean and simple. I noticed they just revamped - and clearly the new architecture and design were built for this type of story. I took away several good ideas from the Sun here — and it’s one of the better local newspaper sites I’ve seen.
2. Brink | January 28th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Unfortunately for them, it turned out to be much more exciting visually than in reality.
Good TV story.
3. Cory | January 28th, 2008 at 11:51 am
So I was wondering why the home page was so clean and news-forward, and then I realized…
THERE’S NOT A SINGLE AD ON THE HOME PAGE
4. Cory | January 28th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Wait, there are no ads serving anywhere. Must be some kind of issue with the new launch…
5. Don Day | January 28th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Well Google has a million ads on its home page… so we should too.
Oh wait.
6. Contrarian | January 28th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
That’s just dumb.
Google has small text ad on some pages, nothing at all on others.
And a massive number of users. Far more than any local TV site will ever have.
But you want us to try to operate like Google, huh?
You going to make up the lost revenue for us out of your pocket?
7. Safran | January 28th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Their use of video is just stunning, and is another example of how newspapers can really kick TV’s butt in video. Amazing, but true. Click on my name for the Sun’s excellent video of an implosion of one of the old Vegas hotels from November.
16×9 video. HUGE player. It looks good fullscreen.
Why don’t TV sites offer video like this?
8. Contrarian | January 28th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
It doesn’t look as good as my big HDTV on the wall.
Until the newspaper produces and distributes in that medium, it ain’t kicking TV’s butt in video.
9. tdc | January 28th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
i get tired of lugging my “big hdtv” around the world.
my laptop does just fine.
10. Contrarian | January 28th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I’m sure it does.
However, suggesting that newspaper websites’ video kicks TV’s butt is a little unrealistic.
11. Josh | January 28th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Contrarian: “It doesn’t look as good as my big HDTV on the wall.”
Did you see the download 720p option?
12. Contrarian | January 29th, 2008 at 5:03 am
My HDTV is 1080.
13. Safran | January 29th, 2008 at 5:25 am
My Maserati does 185…
14. Brink | January 29th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Didn’t you lose your license?
And now you can’t drive?
15. Safran | January 29th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Yes. But I’ve got me an office, gold records on the wall…
16. Z | January 29th, 2008 at 9:14 am
I’ll just leave you a message.
Maybe you’ll call.
17. W | January 31st, 2008 at 4:22 pm
This is the same thing Curley’s comrades have stamped out each place they’ve been. Little things change - in this case the most noticeable is the video, which is nice but kept buffering for me. Smaller video that didn’t buffer would be just fine.
18. Brandon Mount | February 5th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
What is so great??
The events search is at the bottom of a huge long list of events, and the current implementation does not allow for user submitted events.
as well this calendar placement is really weird… (note it’s appearance at the bottom of column 2.)
Basically this is a web 1.0 newssite with hd video and flash photo galleries.
There is no UGC, you can’t even post your own photos? I am sure the ugc will come as the site evolves but they should have launched with those features.
Maybe it is really hard in Ellington to do user submitted multimedia?
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