Monday, October 27, 2008

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.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good job Randy. When you hear from the critics, you always know you are doing good. Critics hate the truth and usually make it known.

Jason said...

Congratulations, Randy. Your blog is one of the shining beacons of blogs in SW MO.

Busplunge said...

Congratulations. The Turner Report was, along with Chatter, one of the first blogs I started following.

Congratulations on your 8,000th post and best wishes for many more.

Jim Lee
busplunge

GCook said...

This blog is one of the only blogs I read regularly because it is everything I aspire to be as a fellow blogger. Congrats on 8000 posts!!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, hearing from critics lets you know you are doing good. Nice grammar. Randy hates any criticism or opinions other than his own. He feels the need to lash out with petty remarks because he isn't intelligent enough to respond appropriately to differing viewpoints. He likes to call them "personal attacks" if others express their views about him even though he does it on a daily basis.