Turner Report marks 8,000th post

This marks post number 8,000 for The Turner Report, which will celebrate its fifth anniversary next month.

The Turner Report actually began in 2000 as an almost invisible website with a steady readership of about 25 people which updated infrequently for almost three years.

I had never heard of a blog when two of my eighth graders at Diamond Middle School started blogs and I realized how much easier blogging was than trying to maintain a regular website. And because I had promised my students that since they had to write every day, I would, too, the blog helped me keep that promise.

It evolved from me telling stories about the old newspaper days, and talking about books I had read or movies I had watched, to digging into public records and trying to keep my readership up to date on news that, for the most part, they will not receive anywhere else.

At first, the Turner Report readership was steady at about 35 to 50 unique visitors per day. In recent weeks, that average has been around 550 to 700 and the site has topped 1,000 often during times when major events have occurred in southwest Missouri.

The most visits The Turner Report has had, approximately 4,000 in one day occurred following the arrest of Rep. Scott Muschany, R-Frontenac, on charges of deviate sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl.