The Kirkland Reporter Online

by Cate Foster

Both Carrie and Matt emphasized the importance of the online content for the Kirkland Reporter. It is important to them to keep the community, not only informed, but also involved, in their local news. This is why they are committed to keeping the online content of the Kirkand Reporter current. They would like to see an increase in the number of visitors both viewing the site and making comments.

The Seattle PI site is, naturally, the most popular news site among the Sound Publishing websites. However, the Whidbey News-Times site is, surprisingly, the second most popular. Carrie explained that this is because of the military presence on Whidbey Island. The large number of military personnel deployed from Whidbey Island visit that site in order to stay informed with their own local community.

In March, the Kirkland Reporter had 68,077 page views. By comparison, the Seattle PI site had 363,341 page views, and the Whidbey News-Times site had 278,906. One way to attract visitors is to have great headlines. The most-read stories are linked with the PI website, which can lead to increased readership. Both Matt and Carrie noted that the Police Blotter, because of its "spicy" headlines, frequently gets linked to the PI site.

Another benefit of the website is that the printed version of the newspaper comes out much cleaner. Stories are frequently published online before they come out in the printed paper, which allows readers to catch mistakes that may have been missed. For example, Carrie said that in a recent story, a former employee of St. John Vianney Catholic Church was mistakenly identified as a priest. A reader let them know that he had actually been a youth minister. Because the reader caught the mistake online, Carrie was able to make the change before the paper was printed, thus allowing the correct information to be in the hard copy of the paper.