New advertisements appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat this week touting our numbers for April on Tallahassee.com:
12,057,606 million page views, up from 7,843,192 million a year earlier.
617,672 unique visitors, up from 523,925 a year earlier.
23,159,390 total usage minutes, up from 16,705,808.
More people viewing more pages and staying online longer.
Those numbers not only make Tallahassee.com by far the largest local news Web site in the region, it ranks among the best for a market our size in the nation.
On Monday, 48,552 unique computer addresses accessed Tallahassee.com, viewing 525,998 pages. And more than 80 percent of those readers came from Florida, Georgia and Alabama, in that order, most overwhelmingly from the greater Big Bend.
Sure, we draw some from outside the market, but that’s the nature of being in the capital city with two major universities. Even those who don’t live here have strong local connections.
Those numbers are real close to the circulation of the print edition of the Tallahassee Democrat, which, yes, has seen some relatively minor slippage in circulation sales with the bad economy this year. But for the year ending in September 2008, our circulation, as reported by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, was actually up for the weekday newspaper.
How many daily newspapers can say that?
This is to say we’re here and we’re still working hard to be your best source of local journalism and information. More newspapers need to start telling their success stories and quit dwelling on the negative.
Our readers are tough to please and that’s exactly how we like it. They get on us when an out-of-town newspaper eight times our size “beats” us with a story or one of the drive-by, drop-in broadcast stations posts something a couple minutes before we do.
But overall, day-in and day-out, we are your best source for local news.
I’ll tell you why: The journalists and other professionals who work hard every day to bring you the best in local coverage in the Big Bend.
Let’s start with state government: Bill Cotterell, Jim Ash, Paul Flemming and Stephen Price comprise one of the largest and most experienced news teams covering the Capitol and state government.
Cotterell, Flemming, Mary Ann Lindley, Mark Hohmeister, Meredith Clark and Gerald Ensley provide a strong and diverse group of opinion writers with deep insights into the issues that matter to our region.
Our local news team with Rebeccah Cantley, Byron Dobson, Jeff Burlew, Jennifer Portman, Dave Hodges, Angie Taylor, Doug Blackburn, TaMaryn Waters, Will Brown, Amanda Nalley, Iricka Berlinger and Matt Gilmour has experience and broad knowledge of the community.
Our features and entertainment staff give the newspaper personality that is uniquely Tallahassee, people like Mark Hinson, Katie Schardl, Kathleen Laufenberg and Sharon Rauch.
Along with our sports staff and photographers, these are the names you know: Jim Lamar, Steve Ellis, St. Clair Murraine, Corey Clark, Jeremy DeLuca, David Saez, Aimee Sachs, Glenn Beil, Mike Ewen and Phil Sears.
Our copy editors, obituary clerks, news assistants, systems, digital and data desk teams are the names you don’t know as well, except maybe our Calendar Girl, Lyssa Oberkreser, who is something of a celebrity in the community.
Just so that you do know, here’s some of their names, too: Africa Price, Soni McKenzie, Julia Thompson, Bjorn Morton, Michael Baggett, Susan Beason, Joni Branch, Stephanie Calkins, Joe Chaves, Patrick Ennis, Debra Galloway, Martha Gruender, Chris Harris, Forrest Hyden, Susan Ledford, Megan Lewis, Casey Moore, Serena Moyle, Jane Parrish, Lori Roberts, Mike Stella, Helen Schwarz and Holly Taylor.
Even that does not include everyone, such as part-timers, interns and other support staff, plus freelancers and other contributors.
I would put our team in every department up against any news team in the capital or similar-sized community in the state. They are talented and care deeply about the communities we cover.
I’ll tell you this much: Those folks represent more than 60 good reasons that our numbers are strong and growing and our future is still bright.
Here’s how to follow this blog:
On Tallahassee.com, where you can comment and join in the conversation.
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