Share memories of GM in Janesville
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on December 7, 2008 - 12:13 a.m.
We're inviting people to share their memories of the GM plant.
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Tough times hit hard at Gazette
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on October 31, 2008 - 10:16 a.m.
I laid off two friends last week. That’s an awful thing to do, and it kind of sums up the news business these days. Times are hard, very hard, and drastic, unpleasant measures are needed. The tidal wave of trouble that has been on the horizon for years is crashing ...
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Let's discuss people in poverty, not attack
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on August 24, 2008 - 2:04 p.m.
I took down the comments on our main story in the poverty series Sunday because too many people seemed intent on tearing down the woman whom we profiled. The same thing will probably happen Monday and Tuesday. That’s too bad. A discussion on the causes and effects of poverty could ...
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Poverty series something special from Gazette
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on August 21, 2008 - 9:24 a.m.
Local news is the biggest and most important niche for the Gazette and other papers. Within that local niche, however, are many types of news – ranging from the winners of the bridge tournament at the senior center to the major issues confronting the community. We try to cover them ...
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Criticism of "Hammy" coverage hard to take
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on July 22, 2008 - 10:17 a.m.
Now wait a minute. We take criticism all of the time, and we let most of it slide. But this is simply unfair. The Janesville Gazette and gazettextra.com made a special effort to provide coverage of the funeral of bar owner Mark “Hammy” Hamilton. We sent a reporter and photographer, ...
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We're working on strategy for E Edition
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on July 11, 2008 - 4:07 p.m.
In my blog last week about the Gazette’s improved Web site and how it might affect print circulation, several commenters asked if they could subscribe to the E Edition and not get the print edition. The answer is yes … and no. For those who don’t know, the E Edition ...
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Web numbers surge; does print suffer?
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on July 3, 2008 - 4:34 p.m.
We knew June would be a big month for gazettextra.com, but we were surprised when the numbers came in. The biggest? More than 4 million page views in June. We had approached 3 million a month several times since we redesigned the site in October, and we had hoped to ...
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New printing plant is cool; come see for yourself
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on June 18, 2008 - 3:28 p.m.
Some say the future of our business is digital. That might be true, but we’re not giving up on the printed product just yet. Not by a long shot. Bliss Communications is so confident that ink on paper will be around for a while that it built a $22 million ...
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Led by GM, big news keeps flowing
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on June 11, 2008 - 5:25 p.m.
News ebbs and flows. If you stay in this business long enough, you see the cycles over and over. In Janesville, the news has been flowing like crazy lately. From a newspaper’s standpoint, that’s good. Unfortunately, much of the news has been far from positive. GM’s announcement last week that ...
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Touching posts show value of comments
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on June 2, 2008 - 5:57 p.m.
We regularly get e-mails and messages from people who question the value of the comments we allow after stories on Gazettextra.com. They see the comments as forums for anonymous people to post incendiary opinions, assassinate the characters of people in the news, or get into spitting matches with others that ...
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No EPpy, but we're still good and getting better
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on May 20, 2008 - 5:07 p.m.
Well, Gazettextra.com didn't win an EPpy last week in Las Vegas, but that's OK. As I wrote earlier, we were excited to be one of five finalists in the prestigious awards sponsored by Editor & Publisher and MediaWeek. The Las Vegas Sun took the award in the category in which ...
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Local sometimes gives way to national, world news
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on May 7, 2008 - 5:16 p.m.
The Gazette is more than six months into its added emphasis on “local matters,” and I think most people have adjusted. We still get occasional complaints from people who don’t like national and world news in the second section, but not many. And I hear regularly from readers who appreciate ...
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Redesigned Gazettextra.com posts big gains
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on April 30, 2008 - 5:47 p.m.
If you're reading this, I suspect you are to some degree a fan of Gazettextra.com. You're not alone. Our Web guru, Jonathan Lindquist, recently compiled some numbers to show the increase in traffic since we launched the redesigned Gazettextra.com in October. And they are impressive. A few of the more ...
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Local connections pay off in GM story
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on April 28, 2008 - 5:15 p.m.
We knew something big was happening at General Motors, but we didn't know exactly what. And nobody would tell us for sure. That's a tough spot for the local newspaper. Particularly with deadline approaching and no official announcement planned until well after the press was scheduled to roll. But that ...
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Scheduled meeting turns into "big" hospital story
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on April 10, 2008 - 6:03 p.m.
About two weeks ago, Paul Pitas of Dean Health System in Madison e-mailed me to set up a meeting at the Gazette with Dean CEO Craig Samitt. Pitas said Craig would be in Janesville today, and he'd like to meet with me to talk about health care in the area. ...
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Gazette team performs under trying conditions
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on April 9, 2008 - 5:59 p.m.
In my weekly column for the Sunday Gazette, I wrote recently about a typical day in the life of the newsroom. Well, today was anything but typical. We arrived this morning to find our computers didn't work. Oh, we could get to the Internet, and e-mail was fine, but we ...
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Front-page typo: I hate when that happens
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on April 3, 2008 - 4:58 p.m.
How does that happen? A mistake in big type right on the front of the newspaper? Well, we're human, and we proved it today with a typo on our lead headline on the front page. Instead of reading "Contract ratified," referring to the new Janesville teachers contract, it read "Contact ...
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Blogs are different than news stories
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on March 31, 2008 - 5:42 p.m.
The introduction of our redesigned Web site in October brought blogs to Gazettextra.com for the first time. Since then, we've added a few blogs, and we now have a good mix - ranging from my comments on us and our policies to Gina Duwe's blog on Evansville to our newest ...
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Prostitution arrest photos attract attention
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on March 25, 2008 - 5:28 p.m.
Why did we use the photos of the nine women arrested for prostitution at Screamin’ MeeMees last week? More than one reader asked that question, and one even suggested it "bordered on criminal" for us to expose the women's photos and personal information. First, let's deal with the addresses. We ...
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Rape arrest generates passion, comments
Posted by SCOTT ANGUS on February 27, 2008 - 5:53 p.m.
Wow, we've gone into new territory on story comments again this week with the arrest of serial rape suspect Michael Huber. We're four months into the comment feature, and we're still learning new things and struggling to deal with the free flow of opinion on our site. After Huber's arrest ...
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