How we keep you up to date in so many different ways
CAPTURING THE SPIRIT OF THE CITY AND REPORTING ISSUES THAT MATTER TO YOU
Continually updated with news, sport, features and information, and allowing readers to get in touch and have their say, sunderlandecho.com aims to be the buzzing heart of our hi-tech city.
In the past, once the final edition of the paper was printed, that was it.
Now the Echo can provide constant updates to big, breaking stories, and make sure the latest news is available to our readers – with news and sports teams working from early in the morning to late into the night.
Our website now attracts more than four million hits a month.
But it’s not just a one-way street. The issues we cover are the things that matter to you – we wouldn’t get very far if they weren’t – and the Echo’s website is as much about hearing from you as it is you hearing from us.
While the newspaper’s letters page remains an important element at the core of the Echo, the digital age provides many more ways for readers to interact with news titles and have their say on the things that matter to them.
Our own comments section and web portal, combined with online polls and social media platforms such as Facebook, twitter and Instagram, allow hundreds of you to get in touch every day – with many of your views, pictures, video and stories included in our coverage.
Our poll features allow us to canvass the views of the city on issues large and small, from opinions on individual news stories and issues to Brexit and the General Election – with thousands of you taking part.
This allows us to capture the feeling of the city and generate stories around issues that matter to you.
Of course, providing upto-the-minute news is at the heart of what we do, and continual advances in software and technology allow us increasing ways to relate these stories and relay them to you.
Graphics, picture slideshows, videos and even games and quizzes allow us tell you stories in a multitude of different ways – and get the news to you via social media, our smartphone app, and breaking news alerts.
Facebook Live video and live blogging allow us to capture events as they happen, covering everything from Sunderland AFC football matches, big court cases, elections and events such as Sunderland International Airshow.
Big events such as the Airshow are arguably where our online operation really comes into its own, with our online content, social media, live video, live blogging, and your contributions all coming together to bottle the magic of these important dates in the city’s calendar.
Essentially, our website and other online platforms aim to do what the paper has done for more than 100 years: keeping you up to date and providing a platform for debate, just in an ever-increasing number of ways.