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Breaking earthquake story on local news website 'within five minutes'

Readers of the Grimsby Telegraph could see breaking news on the website thisisgrimsby within five minutes of today’s earthquake.

In the hours that followed, editorial staff updated the web with a series of breaking news stories.

Reporters went out and about with video camera and video journalists – travelling to the epicentre in Market Rasen to film people in the early hours. Footage was on the site within hours of the quake.

By 11am more than 70 comments had been posted.

Staff worked through the night and in addition produced five pages of coverage in today’s paper, which prints at 8.45am.

They even tracked down the actual epicentre – a field near Market Rasen – and found the farmer who owns the field to get a picture of him.

Editor Michelle Lalor said: “This was a truly remarkable response from the news team in Grimsby and just shows how we can react to be at the centre of a major news story – our digital and print coverage has been first class”.

Comments

jason hartley (27/02/2008 13:43:56)
sthelens mersey shook, I was on the pc chair down stairs surfing the internet and my brother michael was upstairs on his bed and about 5 10 mins later micheal come down to me and asked had i just shuk his bed and i replied no oo thats weird the p.c table shook and i thought it was me. We setled the conversation bye sayin it must have been a ghost. A day later i phoned my girlfried and asked her she had the same she was in bed and her bed shook she was kakin it all night.

jeffers (27/02/2008 14:44:53)
Can you explain why you constantly highlight as “news” newspapers’ reactions to breaking stories when those reactions should be second nature? Your website has become a forum for people to pat themselves on the back for simply doing their jobs.

º¤ø,¸¸,¤ºDAVEº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º (27/02/2008 14:52:35)
I’m not sure how many local papers have reporters and photographers out at 1am mine didn’t did yours?

chris (27/02/2008 15:05:39)
Firstly, I agree with a couple of other commentors – Why do you need to a quote from a newspaper editor trumping up how good their news coverage was when that is their job? and i can only think of one instance where national press were up at early hours to track a major breaking story! That was the tragic Diana car crash – Read Morgan’s book The Insider and it has it in there!

Patrick Astill (27/02/2008 15:07:39)
Re: Jeffers above. A pat on the back for a job well done. Not a problem for me. Would new launches and having scoops followed up by the world’s media etc also be second nature and not worthy of mention?

emmy (27/02/2008 15:13:46)
Sounds like jeffers got thrown out of bed the wrong side by the earthquake!
Yes, in one way it is statement of the obvious that newspapers SHOULD have reacted to cover the story – but I’ve still found it interesting to read who did what and how.
We’re a naturally nosey and competitive bunch and if HTFP wasn’t telling us this morning how various newspapers covered the story who else would?
It is a chance for papers to ‘crow’ if they think they did a good job – but the opportunity’s equally open to everyone.
‘Dave’ who commented first seems to be saying that not everyone had reporters out, so we can also come on here and comment if we think our papers missed an opportunity.
Wonder who had the erathquake news last? Anyone brave enough to say?
Thanks HTFP for the ‘add a comment’ functionality too I’m looking forward

Philip Dalling (27/02/2008 19:02:09)
I have no problem at all with editors giving staff a pat on the back for what was obviously a job very well done.
Having looked at several web sites, which mirror the coverage in the hard copy editions, I do believe the coverage was a little over the top.
It really all does seem to have been a case of `small earthquake, no-one injured (I think there actually was one person.
Stripping out the first three pages?
I liked the comment on the Derby Evening Telegraph website, re the fact that apparently 370 people phoned the local police.
“What did they expect the police to do, arrest the earthquake”. That is not a frivolous comment, as the police themselves commented that there was nothing they could do.

Lucy Wood (05/03/2008 10:30:27)
I’m the news editor at the Grimsby Telegraph and I have absolutely no problem with being congratulated in public by my boss. My team were exemplary – bearing in mind we were all asleep when the quake happened, and 20 minutes later, we were out of our beds and on the streets reporting.
It’s nice to have recognition for our hard work in today’s complaining society.
In fact, I would venture we were the among the first news outlets to break the story – we certainly broke it at the same time as Sky, who has a fully-functioning 24-hour newsroom.
For a local newspaper with just 10 reporters to cover an area wider than London, to react in the way we did is simply second-to-none.
And to those of you who don’t understand why stories like this are published on this website – are you aware it is a website for the industry, not for news?