Online storm coverage claims Pullitzer attention

In honour of the recent Pullitzer prize round in the US, the Beatbloggers talked to three newspapers who stood out because of their smart internet coverage.

Here’s one of them:

Eric Berger | The Houston Chronicle

The Houston Chronicle was a finalist for the breaking news award. The Chronicle was recognized for its outstanding Hurricane Ike coverage.

It’s coverage featured live, daily chats with science writer Eric Berger about the oncoming storm, continuous updates and coverage on Berger’s SciGuy blog, around the clock updates on Chron.com, information after the storm struck (including a database of which areas of Houston had power restored), a map of Ike’s damage, video reports, a dedicated “Ike’s Answers” blog and much more. It’s hard to imagine a more complete package of information and reports from a news organizations.

This is what the Pulitzer committee had to say about the Chronicle’s hurricane coverage, “For taking full advantage of online technology and its newsroom expertise to become a lifeline to the city when Hurricane Ike struck, providing vital minute-by-minute updates on the storm, its flood surge and its aftermath.”

Berger said to me in an e-mail, “during the hurricane my blog had about 3.5 million page views and the daily live chats I did drew up to 14,000 viewers each time. One of my bosses remarked that it’s not every day a science writer could fill a basketball arena. Additionally, the comments from readers during and after the storm were tremendously positive and heartwarming.

“I also got great feedback from the director of the National Hurricane Center and storm forecasters who got what I was trying to do in terms of translating their work into meaningful real-time information for people on the ground. So while the Pulitzer recognition for what we did is nice, I’d already received this amazing feedback from critics who matter most to me, the readers and forecasters.”