A day in the life of a big local story

It’s been 11 days since Newark’s larger-than-life ex-mayor Sharpe James was found guilty in a complex fraud case involving sales of city land to his former mistress. But I can’t stop thinking about it, because more than any other story that has come along since we got into the business of real-time news, this one showed how radically our world has changed — and how we’ve changed with it.

Here’s a look at how the day unfolded:

10:01 a.m. — First word of the jury verdict arrives in the newsroom, via e-mails from two reporters inside the courtroom with BlackBerrys. (Built-in redundancy to protect against tiny keyboard typos.)

10:02 a.m. — Our continuous news desk posts the story in our news blog, making sure it follows SEO best practices involving length and the use of keywords. This post becomes our main lead, and we add to it throughout the day, while reporting newsy developments as separate entries in the blog.

10:03 a.m. — The headline on our story is delivered to followers of NJ_News on Twitter, with a link to the full post.

10:12 a.m. — A pre-produced multimedia package goes live, offering context about James’ legacy and the scandal that ultimately brought him down.

10: 15 a.m. — The editor of our opinion site NJVoices.com posts an short entry seeking reaction to the verdict. This is followed quickly by pieces from some of our other regular contributors, who have their own blogs on the site (in the style of Comment is Free or the Huffington Post).

10:22 a.m. — There are 20 comments on the news post, but the discussion is just getting started. By day’s end, there will be 166 comments on the news story and another 19 on the original NJVoices post. A rollicking debate also breaks out in our Newark forum.

10:30 a.m. — Pictures and video clips start landing and are incorporated into the online coverage throughout the day, including this video overview.

11:00 a.m. — We have our regular morning news meeting, reviewing the coverage so far and planning the remainder of the day.

12:09 p.m. — A staff reporter who covers the local blogosphere offers a roundup of what’s being said about the story by local bloggers.

1:35 p.m. — Two of our columnists who are working the story join the editor of NJVoices in our video studio for a 5-minute discussion of the verdict and what it means. They’re in at 1:35, out by 2:10.

3:30 p.m. — At our afternoon news meeting, we do another review of the online coverage, then plan the nuts and bolts of the next morning’s newspaper.

9:30 p.m. — Final deadlines for the paper, which benefits greatly from all the fast footwork during the day and adds several more layers of context and analysis to the story. The print product includes an oped page that harvests the most interesting commentary from online, and a link to our archived James coverage.

There’s lots of stuff I’ve leaving out, of course, but you get the idea.

What struck me most as all this was going on was how smooth it was, and how quickly we’ve adapted to the world of multi-platform news and the conversation it sparks. Granted, we had time to prepare for this one, but I have no doubt we would have responded similarly faced with the unexpected.

And so, on this cool spring morning in April with full benefit of hindsight, I choose to be optimistic about the future of newspapers.

(NOTE: I’m proud to be participating, along with other bloggers from around the world, in the Carnival of Journalism. The party is being hosted this month by Yoni Greenbaum.)