Published: March 06, 2008 05:44 pm      

Publisher’s Notebook: People are searching for trusted sources of news

As high-speed Internet becomes more accessible across the country, more and more people are getting news and entertainment from their computers. They get their news by doing a Google search, scanning major news sites such as CNN, subscribing to various news feeds or logging onto community bulletin boards.

They even become reporters themselves by starting a blog. After all, it’s very easy to become a blogger. All they need is an opinion and a computer. It’s also easy to become an editor of a community bulletin board. They just have to sign up for it, without any formal training or experience such as that required of a newspaper editor.

But getting news strictly from the Internet can be dangerous. There are no rules or ethics to guide these new producers of news. It’s kind of like the Wild, Wild West. There are good guys, bad guys, outlaws, marshals, liars and cheats.

There are even a few that will shoot you in the back.

That’s why it’s important to get your news from a trusted source on the Internet — the local newspaper Web site. Newspapers have been providing reliable, balanced news coverage for decades. Their stories are produced and edited by trained professionals. The journalistic creed that made newspapers a trusted source still encompasses the new form of electronic delivery.

There are those who believe that newspapers are a dying business, that they will be overtaken by the Internet. I don’t hold that belief. I believe that newspapers must embrace electronic delivery of their product, yes, but as long they continue to be the primary source of trusted local news and commentary, they will survive.

I believe that people will grow weary of all the information overload available on the Internet. They will tire of people spouting off their opinions or blasting each other on blogs and community bulletin boards and will search out trusted news sources. In fact, studies have shown that number of bloggers is beginning to decline.

And what is a blogger anyway? It’s a person that reports and comments on the news, but the person wouldn’t have anything to report or comment on unless they read about it first in a newspaper.

This is why we are putting more and more resources into our Web site at sentinel-echo.com. We are transferring 184 years community news coverage to electronic delivery where people across the globe can trust what they read about the residents and events in London, Kentucky.

There are no anonymous posts on our Web site whose sole intent is to slam and hurt another individual. There are no unsigned letters, editorials or columns. There is no gossip, second-hand news or half-truths. All information is moderated before it ever is posted online.

More and more people are relying on sentinel-echo.com as their trusted news source for London and Laurel County. The number of unique visitors to our site has tripled in the last year, approaching 3,000 per day. Web sites can spout all they want about hits and other measuring criteria, but it’s the number of unique visitors that log onto the site each day that is primary indicator of a Web site’s usage.

We are also averaging close to 9,000 page views per day, which means that our 3,000 unique visitors are browsing to at least three pages of our Web site during their visit.

These numbers make sentinel-echo.com the most-visited Web site of any in the southeastern Kentucky area from all the counters I’ve seen and the information I’ve gathered about other sites.

Of course, these numbers are just a third of the 9,500 people who purchase The Sentinel-Echo each day it’s published. The printed word is in no danger of extinction yet.

We’re continuing to add new features to our Web site regularly, such as Legacy. com and Monster.com. All our obituaries are handled by Legacy.com, which means people can leave notes of condolences, order flowers, etc.

As of Jan. 1, all our help wanted ads are placed on Monster.com, the premier job search site on the Internet. This is a tremendous service to our classified ad customers.

And another trusted source of information.