Bullits (December 24, 2002

Hello on the ‘Net’

As some may have noticed…make that MANY surely have noticed…this little newspaper is now on the Internet. Surely hundreds—dozens maybe?—have noticed those little plugs: “Check Us Out on the Web at www.themonticellonews.com.”
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That’s where we are on the Internet, our own web site. As those of you who “surf the web” have probably discovered, there’s nothing real elaborate on our Internet site. What is there includes, for openers, highlights of what’s in our latest edition. And some of it is there before the paper is printed.

Obituaries, for instance, can be posted on the web site shortly after we’re notified of a death. Sometimes notification comes after the deadline for the print edition and readers don’t get word in time to attend a funeral or otherwise pay their timely respects. Now they can check it out on the web.

We’re also trying to update the Community Calendar between editions, so that an organization could publish, on the web, a notice of an event on short notice. More significantly, perhaps, we can update stories between editions. If, for example, a jury is out on a newsworthy court case on a Wednesday after the deadline for a print edition, the verdict can be published on the web on, say, Thursday or Friday.

That doesn’t mean we’re going to be like a daily newspaper, with an entire new edition every day. Face it, somebody’s got to do this stuff. A little newspaper like this one doesn’t have a seven-day-a-week staff. Indeed, just keeping up with we all try to do for one issue a week often spreads our folks pretty thin.

In fact, editor Kathy Mudd and her minions have been looking to go on the web for some time, but just lacked the time and resources needed to manage even a relatively uncomplicated web presence. To the rescue came Jon Loveless, local advertising exec, radio newsman and computer whiz.

Jon is the acting “webmaster” who did all it takes—and it’s more than you’d think—to get the News “on-line” and who is managing the nuts and bolts of design and updating. He’s working with the editor and staff to keep the web site lively and interesting—we hope.

To that end there are features on the web you won’t see in the print editions. And everything in the print editions isn’t automatically on the web. The idea is to have the two compliment each other to provide better service to our readers; not that you have to be a subscriber to read what’s on the web. And, yup, it suits us just fine if people who see us on the web get an urge to subscribe to the paper. Hey, this isn’t supposed to be a non-profit organization.

That’s why the day will come when advertising is offered on the web site. Classifieds, for one thing, could be reproduced on the web site to reach a larger audience. And a little surcharge would help pay the freight. You don’t get space on the Internet for nothing.

We’re happy to be there, and hope to make our site one you all will like to visit. Let’s just get corny and say, “It’s the place to be in 2003.”