Baby names and a dog named Smudge brighten readers’ week
Most readers to edmonton journal.com last week were preoccupied with sadness; the various iterations of three adverse stories (the death of a toddler in a restaurant patio crash, a fatal Jeep demonstration, and coverage of the tornadoes that swept through Oklahoma) were the six most- read articles on the Journal’s website).
It’s not surprising; all three cases were unexpected tragedies, and our readers were seeking information and answers. Social Media Story of the Week: Smudge the dog (Facebook reach of 6,100+)
The natural antithesis to sad news, at least on the Internet, is a charming story involving a cute animal. Reporter Bill Mah’s profile May 22 of the retriever that has been hired to make the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald lobby more homey garnered massive acclaim on Facebook (the story with both the highest reach and vitality of the week, indicating a large audience that grew because of fan sharing) in large part because it led with an adorable photograph of Smudge lying down on the job. Online Project of the Week: Baby names infographic
My own moniker was given to 116 Alberta babies in 2012, but that didn’t even scratch the top 10. An online infographic of the 2012 top infant names was created by our data journalist Lucas Timmons. Compare and contrast the vast swaths of new Emmas and Olivias with their lesser-named cohorts, or go the other direction and feel thankful that there was only a single baby named Skeeter. Triumphant Returning Video Project of the Week: Goosecam (In the first 24 hours, audiences spent a collective 300 hours watching)
Proving you can’t keep a good goose down, Patience overcame her windstorm-destroyed home to erect a second nest, complete with a new clutch of eggs. Less than 24 hours after Goosecam 2.0 went live, it had regained its status as the longest-watched video on the Journal website. (Bird watchers observing Patience’s adventures tend to watch her on average for more than 10 times longer than they spend watching any other single video.)