Howard Owens of GateHouse Media has some interesting information on his blog about covering the devastating tornadoes in Greensburg, Kan. over the weekend.
GateHouse Media owns the Kiowa County Signal, a weekly newspaper in Greensburg. The company also owns the daily paper in nearby Pratt, Kan.
Owens wrote late Saturday, "The site ain’t great. The coverage ain’t great. But my boss thinks I should blog about this. We did pull off something today that a lot of newspaper staffs couldn’t do. It shows what great tools backed by a great staff can accomplish.
"In the space of about six hours, we went from a decision to migrate a site from one CMS to another, as well as fill in for a very busy local staff to get some initial coverage up of a breaking news story."
Owens has written a few informative follow-up posts since Saturday (here and here) detailing more about the newspaper staff's efforts in the wake of the destruction there. Owens also comments on the controversy surrounding some photos taken by Allen Detrich, who recently was fired from The Blade in Toledo, Ohio for allegedly doctoring photos.
Also check out this Editor & Publisher article about how fabulous the Greensburg staff was through it all.