Five students blogged, shot video and stills, created slide shows and wrote newspaper stories for Newsplex's coverage of Biker Week.

Newsplex, Media General team up to cover Biker Week 

by Randy Covington

Myrtle Beach, S.C., is known for its sun, sand and in mid-May, motorcycles.  The annual Biker Week celebration brings an estimated 300,000 motorcyclists to the resort.  For participants, it is an opportunity to roar around helmetless in beautiful weather, buy motorcycle parts and souvenirs and generally have a good time.  For news organizations, covering the celebration can be a lot less fun.

Biker Week is big.  Not only are there a lot of participants, but the events are spread out over a large geographic area.  The story has several dimensions.  Much of it is featurish.  But two years ago, 15 participants died.  Plus the NAACP has gone to court to challenge a Biker Week traffic plan they view as discriminatory.

To cover Biker Week 2005, Media General, which operates the Morning News in Florence, S.C., WBTW TV in Florence as well as Media General Interactive, turned to Newsplex.  A group of Florence professionals went through six days of Newsplex training with five students from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications - Allyson Bird, Caroline Love, Laura Frawley, Nicole Johnson and Mary Pinckney Waters. Then they joined forces to report on the 2005 Biker Week events across media.

The students blogged, shot video and stills, created slide shows and wrote newspaper stories.  The professionals also worked across media, as their schedules and deadlines allowed.  The result is a rich, multiple media experience that you can see by visiting their Web site. 
 
Traffic was strong for the Biker Week Web site.  Early reports indicate more than 80,000 page views for the site.  The reviews are also positive.  "We gave our news consumers numerous choices on ways to get content and it resulted in increased coverage in print and on the Web," said Harry Logan, regional editor of the Morning News.  "We hope we learn from this so that we can work closer with our Web site and television partners in the future on both projects and breaking news."

Visit the full Bike Week Web site>

Quick links to some of the features filed by Newsplex participants:

My Very First Bike Week Experience - by Mary Pinckney Waters

Female biker aims to put women in driver's seat - by Allyson Bird

It helps to know the shortcut - by Randy Covington

Blog photos - by students