NOLA.com Editor Says 'Times-Pic' Newsroom is Feeling Post-Katrina 'Paradig

NOLA.com Editor Says 'Times-Pic' Newsroom is Feeling Post-Katrina 'Paradigm Shift'
Mon Sep 12, 6:45 PM ET


NEW YORK As Hurricane Katrina's deadly gale-force winds bore down on New Orleans last Monday, dumping water that would later engulf the city, NOLA.com editor Jon Donley was hunkered down in the Times-Picayune's "Hurricane Bunker," listening to the police scanner and posting updates using the site's blogging software.

Before its offices were literally swamped with water, the Times-Picayune was inundated with frantic phone calls from city residents crying out for rescue. People trapped in their attics sent text messages to friends outside the state, who then used the NOLA.com blogs and message boards to post the addresses and locations of their trapped friends.

"It turned into a vital link for people needing rescue," Donley says of the Web site, which has received over 200 million page views over the past week and a half -- several times its normal amount. "Aids to Honore told us that his group was specifically monitoring our blogs for directions to trapped people, and they told us lives were saved because of ."

more...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ep/20050912/en_bpiep/nolacomeditorsaystimespicnewsroomisfeelingpostkatrinaparadigmshift

I do know this.

:shrug:

He also ran a chat room called Yatchat. He went by the name "Vampire"

normally a quiet "rip 'n' read" type paper content mostly to reprint wire service pieces, once in a blue moon it will take a bold editorial stand in favor of, say, motherhood, or apple pie.

It may say as much about N.O. as about the "Tipsy" itself that its best section is "Lagniappe" (a little something extra), the "lifestyle" section.

And today? People are actually turning to the Tipsy for news. Breaking news. News of momentous import. There's your paradigm shift right there.

I wonder if they'll ever know how many lives they saved with their blogs...

Pretty amazing that Honore's aides were monitoring the site for requests for rescue! :) Good job!! :applause: