Oregonian subscribers may have noticed a cool new option as they scrolled through their online newspaper lately.
I’m not talking about our website, OregonLive.com, where our reporters and editors deliver the latest news throughout the day along with fun and fascinating stories about Portland and Oregon that you won’t find anywhere else.
I’m talking about our snazzy digital version of the print newspaper available at theoregonian.com, that allows you to “flip” through sections and a trove of additional games, features and opinion content on your computer. It’s great to read every day, while you’re on vacation or on your phone as you wait in a check-out line.
The only drawback has been that fans of the online newspaper format don’t always see the real-time breaking news reports that appear on OregonLive.com. Now, they get the best of both worlds.
Online newspaper readers can check out what’s new with one click on the Top Stories tab, find their way to all the news that’s broken since we published the paper. Readers can skim through those latest stories in chronological order, or browse favorite sections by choosing tabs for news, sports, life and culture, things to do, opinion or deals.
Take Wednesday morning: When readers opened up the online newspaper – either from an email or the app — they would have seen an interesting story on the demise of Oregon’s wildfire map from our friends at ProPublica and an update from our reporter Mike Rogoway on the fallout in Morrow County after the state took action on questions his investigation raised in 2022.
But those pages didn’t capture the huge news that popped around 9:30 a.m. that morning and was displayed prominently on Oregonlive.com: “Portland Trail Blazers may be sold to Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon.”
That initial story, written by columnist Bill Oram was followed by regular updates as other reporters and editors from across the newsroom jumped in for an assist: Who is this guy potentially leading the purchase? Are any Oregonians being courted to join in the deal? How did we get here? And, what should this group of buyers know about Portland’s connection to its NBA team?
While those stories hadn’t yet hit the printed page, readers could find them by clicking into the online newspaper’s Top Stories feed at the top of the page.
In addition to the new live feed, the online newspaper also offers readers extras – stuff that I regularly hear that readers miss from our print pages. But with one click, they’re at your fingertips: TV listings, The New York Times Book Review and a half dozen types of crossword puzzles.
And, unlike the actual print newspaper, older editions aren’t going to be dropped into the recycling bin. Within one finger swipe, you can go back several months through our archives.
As with the online newspaper, stories in the live feed can be saved, easily printed and shared through numerous social media platforms and email.
Many read the online newspaper on a browser after it’s been delivered by email each morning. However, others download our app from the App Store or Google Play for Android devices, which is the recommend route for the best reader experience.
We’ll continue to work to improve all of our news products — OregonLive, the online newspaper and The Oregonian print newspaper – and we value the feedback you regularly provide on all of them. I’ve heard from many readers so far and love the comments, questions and ideas.
Here’s one of my favorite notes from the past few weeks:
A reader named John shared an email he’d received from a friend about an AP headline in our online newspaper: “Older adults are increasingly dying from unintentional falls.”
His friend had written “John, I think that their headline might be redundant. Aren’t all falls unintentional?” John added, “Laura, I believe my Virginia friend is correct. Who falls intentionally?”
Indeed, that read like medical jargon that doesn’t make sense to the rest of us.
Typically, journalists try to remove or write-around such jargon. And in this case, I think that headline would have been perfectly clear without it.
Interestingly, the story delved into a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that included a variety of definitions of a fall – an unplanned descent to the ground – including an “intercepted fall,” when someone gets help before they hit the ground. Still, for tracking purposes, the report explained, that counts as a fall.
Thanks for reading!
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