Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Final week helps February web-traffic numbers



Big numbers for two essays in a sexual assault commentary special section and a breaking story about alleged financial malfeasance at a campus club helped theorion.com reach 100,000 unique visits in February.

Page views almost doubled (to 52,032) and unique visits more than doubled (to 8,590) the day the three pieces were uploaded to the web (Feb. 25). The following day, visits were still at 7,771 and page views hit 37,580. Visit- and page-view averages for the month were 3,579 and 22,435, according to analytics provided by bluehost.com, The Orion's web-hosting service.

The top stories of the month were:
1. Club president allegedly steals $10,000 - 8,927 page views
2. Men are survivors of sexual assault too - 7,115
3. Date rape still a hidden scourge - 5,219
4. Study break: Jupiter ascending review - 4,846
5. Press pause: Eminem's Grammy tells us one thing - 4,732

Monday, March 2, 2015

The Orion wins more than a dozen awards

Sasha Walters, Monica Fitch, Editor-in-Chief Lindsay Pincus, Katherine Feaster and Adviser Mark Plenke with plaques and certificates awarded this weekend.

The Orion and theorion.com were honored with 13 awards this weekend at the Associated Collegiate Press/California College Media Association convention in Universal City. 

In the ACP best-of-show competition, the paper took ninth place among weekly papers at the convention. Theorion.com placed third among all large schools in the best-of-show website competition. Papers from as far away as Boston and Miami competed.

In the CCMA annual contest for California student media, the newspaper took home 11 awards:

3rd place - Best Newspaper (Weekly)
3rd place - Best Overall Newspaper Design (Weekly) 
3rd place - Best News Series (Weekly) - Mozes Zarate for Creek Curve fatal accident and follow up
1st place - Best Newspaper Column (Weekly) - Zachary Phillips for “In the Closet: A Fate Worse Than Death”
2nd place - Best Sports Photograph (weekly) - Emily Teague for photo of a Chico State long jumper.
1st place - Best Newspaper Page/Spread - Arturo Cabrera for “Living Legend”
1st place - Best News Video - Eric Walker and Emily Bertolino for “Distressed Downtown: Homelessness in Chico CA"
Honorable Mention - Best Non-News Video - Jessica Brown and Courtly Cerrito for "Fine Arts class makes metal artwork”
Honorable mention - Best Online Ad - Ernesto Rivera - Download The Orion’s new app
What's significant for me:
• The Orion's strength in the photo and video categories.
• The lack of awards in news, always a strength in the past and probably the reason for the third-place finish in the best-newspaper category.
• Third place in the ACP national competition is the paper's best ever and indicates growing excellence in the digital edition. I think the addition of outstanding web video stories and a cleaner design this spring were major reasons for the judges' decision.

Congratulations to everyone on the staff this year and last for a great showing!