Thread

The News & Record and the Mecklenburg Sun, weekly newspapers in two adjoining counties of southern Virginia, have launched a joint Web site at:

http://www.thenewsrecord.com

The site was built by the Virginia Press Association (http://www.vpa.net), but it is maintained by the newspapers’ photographer in his spare time. It makes extensive use of EE’s category system to organize all stories by topic and location (first county and then town). The stories are automatically and dynamically displayed on category templates to minimize the amount of time the photographer spends on the site.

The category capability also has been very useful in growing classified ad revenue and audience. EE is ideally suited for newspaper classifieds.

Audience and revenue have grown several hundred percent since the launch of the beta site for The News & Record and then the launch of both papers on the joint site.

Glad the launch was successful for you. I’m originally from Lynchburg, VA (family works for the News & Advance). Good to hear about the tech side of other VA newspapers.

Thanks for the note. I knew Joe Stinnett when I worked at Media General. I handled the company’s Virginia Web sites back then. Lynchburg has a good paper, and Joe’s a good guy.

Ah excellent! I’m Joe’s son, Patrick. Did you know a programmer, Adam Lake, when you worked at Media General? He’s the only other person I know who works/worked (not sure if he’s still there) with Media General’s Interactive department.

Sorry, Patrick, I didn’t know Adam. I worked there from 2002 to 2007—the good old days of online newspapers.

It’s an interesting coincidence that you ended up working with ExpressionEngine.