Get More and Faster Local News Online
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This is the third installment of a new series I am publishing every Monday, called “IF Onlineâ€. Each article will examine an aspect of our Idaho Falls area that has an online presence.
This week I will call your attention to local news websites. We know they exist, but do you know how they can save you time and keep you better informed?
If you only get one thing from this article, it is that you can skim the news online much faster than watching it broadcast. You also do not have to put up with annoying commercials by reading online.
Granted, I do not check sports news, but I can read all the news stories at all three local news channel websites, and get the weather forecast, in just ten minutes each morning. If I watched all three news broadcasts, it would take me an hour and a half (maybe 60 minutes with a commercial-skipping DVR/TiVO). If you read a story and actually do want to watch the video, most of the news sites conveniently offer videos of those stories, so you cannot lose.
I strongly encourage you to try checking the news stories online and skip the broadcast versions. You will be better informed for accessing more news sources, will save time, and will avoid several commercials. How often do you get more for less?
The Post Register is our local newspaper. You only get news teasers at their website for free, as they require paid subscriptions to access their news. It is almost always true that you will get more news from a newspaper than from television, and the PR knows this is their strength.
The PR’s website has been up since 1996, and in 2004 they added the Post Talk feature enabling comments on existing stories. I understand the paid online subscription offers the news stories in a digitized version of the newspaper that looks exactly like the physical newspaper layout.
Some features you can get for free from the PR’s site include the current day’s classified ads (great for job hunters), special reports like the infamous Scout’s Honor, and a Breaking News service. I finally remembered to sign up for that last service a moment ago, so I do not know if they just send you headline teasers or a paragraph of information they just got in.
KIDK News 3 (CBS Affiliate) freely publishes most of their news at their website. They recently got a long-overdue update to their website layout, and it is now one of the better-looking local news websites. It is a more pleasing design from their corporate headquarters, but it is running way too many scripts.
Scripts on KIDK’s site include vss2000.com, contextweb.com, imrworldwide.com, admt.com, googlesyndication.com, adbureau.com, shadowtv.com, clickability.com, tacoda.net, doubleclick.net, and of course kidk.com. At least two of those scripts have bad reputations for being hardcore spammers. Sheesh, everyone runs a few scripts, but this seems really excessive. I would like to see them cut a few back.
I wish KIDK’s stories were updated more often (sometimes running days behind broadcast), and I wish they had a proofreader. Stories are often published that look very unprofessional, with spelling mistakes and “…” areas where the reporter apparently was going to fill it in later.
KIDK did not respond to my inquiries for this article, but I remember when they released the redesign they claimed it would be easier for their reporters to publish their stories. Perhaps it is too easy, and the stories should go to a proofreader before hitting the website?
NBC Newschannel 6 (NBC Affiliate) also freely publishes most of their news at their website. Their website is the red-headed step child of the local news websites. It is most painfully obviously in need of a redesign update, and almost looks like a blog from 1999.
KPVI did not respond to my inquiries about their website. Due to their design problems, and their lack of archives, KPVI’s site is the one to skip for now when you are looking for online news. I hope they get an update soon.
Local News 8 (ABC Affiliate) also freely publishes most of their news at their website, without registration. Jim Nagy told me they are the only local station with a dedicated, full-time position overseeing their website updates. You should be able to find updates to their site throughout the day rather than at a certain time (like after the 10 PM broadcast). Their online news archives go back nine months, which is important because local news sites of television stations rarely bother with that important feature.
Jim said two exclusive features their site offers include VIPIR weather radar and the KIFI Cafe, listing “nearly every restaurant in Eastern Idaho and Western Wyoming”, and online menus for “several area restaurants”. I personally only care about the forecast, and I only saw eight restaurants listed in the “Cafe” listing. I suspect this is a paid service rather than a more useful free listing service.
There is also EastIdahoNews.com at http://eastidahonews.com. They offer quick news updates (I do not know where they get fed from) and quick information weather and local cheap gas prices. It is really offered as a service to feed off of Frank’s Riverbend Communications-suite of local radio stations. It can serve users as a quick recap, going over six current stories that are updated daily at 9 AM. They do not offer archives.
Next week’s article in the “IF Online†series will examine our local online classified ads.
What do you think of these Idaho Falls online news websites? What features or services would you like to see them offer online?
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Comments
Vote:
0 
0 “Breaking news” is usually a 1-3 sentence teaser.
For subscribers, the PR has a “Daily Stories” email service that you can customize to deliver filtered links to stories every day. Subscribers can click the “My News” link in the banner, and choose which type of news they want to get links to, from “local news” to “building permits” to “Community Calendar” to “opinion”, etc. It’s reasonably fine-grained - you can get soccer stories rather than all sports, or stories about the economy, education, INL, etc.
They then get an email just after midnight, usually, with links to all the stories in the categories chosen.
I still read the PR in print, but if I’m still up and on the computer when the email arrives (or if the paper hasn’t arrived by my customary 4 am wakeup), it takes me about five minutes to scan and read the stories of interest, then about 5 minutes with the physical paper looking for serendipity.
Vote:
0 0 I agree that the “breaking news” feature of the PR is a valuable public service. However, I, along with family and friends often get a chuckle out of items considered to be “breaking” news. One that comes to mind was the earth- shattering announcement last spring that Yellowstone Park was considering raising their entrance fees by a few dollars. WOW! I can see why that shocker couldn’t wait until the next day.
Vote:
0 0 I’m not sure where you found the link for the KIFI Cafe that you posted. When I click on the KIFI Cafe banner on the homepage I can then do a search by city or type of restaurant. It looks like hundreds of listings to me, not eight. I suspect as you did Joe, that the more prominent listings that first appear on the page are probably paying sponsors. But the “more useful free service” is only one more click away.
Vote:
0 0 1234 - Click the KIFI Cafe icon just one time. 14 restaurants, along with a menu and directions to their establishments will appear. It probably IS paid advertising, but helpful nevertheless.
Vote:
0 0 Then use the search function at the top of the page and search by either city or type of restaurant and hundreds of listings appear. They don’t all have menus but they do have addresses and phone numbers.
Vote:
0 0 Ok, I see it now at http://www.kificafe.com/kifi/city.cfm#Idaho%20Falls
There are only a few menus, and the rest is phone book information you would more likely think to look for at dexonline.com than your local tv station, but whatever.
I don’t know how I found the previous link, there is a link somewhere in the KIFI site that goes to that page which displayed the shorter info.
Vote:
0 0 KIDK.com’s numerous scripts running on their site almost got me into trouble at work!
I checked a few pages on a break, and my work’s monitoring system recorded over 200 hits from their site alone. While they understood KIDK probably doesn’t have 200 pages on their site and it’s probably impossible to actually visit 200 sites during a 15 minute break, I’m going to have to add Firefox’s NoScript extension to block those scripts at KIDK.com
Or you know they could try cutting out a few of those. Sheesh, all those scripts do cost KIDK.com visitors in their bandwidth. They ought to be a little more thoughtful to their visitors if they want them to return.
You can get the noscript extension here https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/722/ and block KIDK.com’s and other website scripts. You can re-enable them singly. Like here at IFz.com you would have to enable a few for like the chatbox, etc.
Vote:
0 0 Channel 6 updated their website finally, looking a lot better.
Vote:
0 0 Hilarious!
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Vote:
I said KIDK was bad at publishing stories that needed proofreading. I just read one at KIFI about a robbery at Smiley’s automotive that was just as bad.
Perhaps it’s worse at KIFI since this got published despite their full-time webmaster?