After Deadline
Advertiser always open when it comes to the news

By Sandra S. Oshiro
Advertiser assistant managing editor for new media

News never sleeps.

A newspaper can be put to bed, its pages printed, rolls of freshly inked newsprint bundled up and sent off across the state. Yet even as this is all happening, news breaks out anew.

The Advertiser delivers up the latest on our Web site at www.honoluluadvertiser.com. As quickly as a story can be written and edited, it can be put up on our site.

On a typical weekday, Honolulu Advertiser.com undergoes two major updates. Most local news stories that you find in the morning paper are on our site between midnight and 2 a.m. New local stories from our afternoon edition are generally posted by noon. When a story develops between these updates, a reporter writes up a short, online version of the news. Such stories usually appear under our Breaking/PM News banner.

If you prefer the latest headlines delivered to your e-mail box, you can subscribe to our free e-news headline alert service. These subscribers were among the first to know of the USS Greeneville's collision with the Ehime Maru and of June Jones' car accident.

Our Web site has led to changes in how we think and operate in the newsroom. It presents its own set of ethical and journalistic challenges. Where once we had one edition and one deadline to meet, we're now producing stories for two editions and a Web site that is "on deadline" all the time.

I often say that The Advertiser has morphed into a wire service with elements of radio and television thrown in even while our core product remains the newspaper.

As our deadlines accelerate, decisions by necessity are made on the fly. With this increased demand for speed, the chance for errors and misjudgments inevitably increase.

If there is an upside, it is that we do not have to wait to correct the mistake. We will quickly post a correction on both the online story and in our corrections section.

But even in the fast-moving world of the Web there is this constant: Whatever goes on our site is subjected to the same journalism standards that apply to the newspaper. The paper's mission statement applies online, too: to be diligent, truthful, accurate and fair. And to provide a voice for all.

If you have questions about the Web site, we are just a click away.