At least a few newspapers made adjustments to their print runs for Hurricane Gustav, but the real adjustments were online.
Dan Shea, managing editor/news at the Times-Picayune, told Editor & Publisher that 120 newspaper staffers were at the newspaper’s offices Sunday evening, and more than half stayed long past the (earlier-than-normal) print deadline to blog and cover the story for the Web. The newspaper’s Web site has free PDF versions of the print edition online. The Times-Picayune reported record traffic to the newspaper’s Web site (3 million page views Sunday).
And, taking lessons from Katrina, the newspaper created myriad easy ways to readers to contribute and help each other with information, practical advice and updates through the site NOLA.com. The site also hosted PDF versions of the daily newspaper and created a hurricane desktop application for quick updates. And, the newspaper purchased more generators after Katrina to keep the main office open for Web publishing – an investment that paid off, since the newspaper’s building has been without power since early Monday.
Clearly, the newspaper recognized the importance of the Web’s role in getting information out to people and prepared accordingly before Hurricane Gustav was even a tropical depression. Their efforts are worth checking out today and provide lessons for all newspapers.
At least two other Louisiana newspapers -- the Daily Comet in Thibodaux and the Courier in Houma -- faced a similar situation as the Times-Picayune: No power, a major storm and readers in need of local information. These newspapers also stepped up and kept their Web operations going strong, even when printing and delivering a paper proved impossible.
On the print side, The Times-Picayune published Sunday’s paper on Saturday morning for distribution Saturday afternoon as many residents were leaving town ahead of the hurricane. The newspaper held Monday’s edition in a warehouse until its delivery people returned, Editor & Publisher reported.
Non-newspaper efforts included NPR’s launch of an unbranded Gustav Information Center on the social networking platform Ning. Learn more about it here. And CNN’s Victor Hernandez talked to Poynter about how newer technologies are making disaster coverage faster and more accurate (read it here).