Of earthquakes, Facebook & news

One lone news editor working a late shift on Friday, Nov. 14, along with a couple of sports reporters and some production folks, noticed a loud clunk in the Daily Inter Lake building just before his chair started rolling under its own power.

That was at one minute before midnight. The first thought that came into the editor’s mind was “earthquake.” The second thought was “no way.” The third thought was “I’d better check.”

At least one other person in the building confirmed that the walls had been shaking, and then two phone calls came through in rapid succession with reports from around the valley, so the editor did what editors do. He went into action writing a breaking news story with what little information he could find out in a hurry — at midnight.

The next day’s front page was already printed, so the news would not make it into the paper until the Sunday edition, but that did not matter. This was a story for the Internet immediately — for the Daily Inter Lake’s web page, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

By 12:08 a.m., just 9 minutes after the earthquake was reported, the editor had put up the first notice on Facebook, Twitter and then a breaking news story up at dailyinterlake.com: “Early reports just came in from several points in the Flathead Valley of an earthquake that hit right around midnight.”

Once that was out of the way, the editor turned to Google and started searching for real-time seismic monitors that could tell where the quake had been centered and how strong it had been. There had been a 4.0 magnitude quake in nearby Marion three days earlier, and that quake had not been felt in Kalispell, so this one was probably either bigger or closer or maybe both.

Sure enough, a seismograph station run by the University of Utah in Yellowstone Park confirmed that there had been a tremor almost exactly at midnight. The editor took a screen shot of the graph and posted it online at 12:25 a.m. He noticed at that time that the first post already had several hundred viewers and a dozen comments.

In addition to the facts, he now had local reactions! It was time to shape the story that would stand overnight until the daytime editor arrived to start work on Sunday’s paper.

The U.S. Geological Service reported that the earthquake had measured 4.5 on the Richter scale and was centered a couple of miles east of Whitefish. A locater map from the USGS was prepped for the Internet and a story was ready to go on our website by 12:30.

Then it was back to Facebook to post the last update of the night (early morning!) at 12:54 a.m. — again with the locater map and most recent details about size and location. By that time, more than 5,000 people had seen the original post and more than 3,000 had seen the second post. Comments numbered at least five dozen. People wanted their friends and neighbors to know they had lived through the Great Quake of 2014 (Northwest Montana style!).

Ultimately, those three posts on the Daily Inter Lake’s Facebook page (along with a subsequent post of a link to the story) accounted for more than 70,000 views, 500 likes, 650 shares, and 300 comments. That’s the most activity we’ve ever recorded on our Facebook page, and there was a similar surge on Twitter as well. It proved to the editor once and for all that the news business has forever been changed by modern technology. Social media is news happening now, the editor reflected.

By that time, it was quiet and dark in the newsroom, but there was still more work to do. After all, that lone editor had not been hanging around at midnight just because he loved the newspaper. He had work to do — work which had been interrupted at 11:59 p.m. by an earthquake, but which still had to get done.

So at around 1 a.m., I poured another cup of coffee, sat down at my computer and got back to work putting out the pages of the Montana Perspectives section, which — much like Facebook — depends entirely on a community conversation to be a success. 

I was probably a little giddy and it was hard to concentrate — partly because of the excitement, partly because I was exhausted at the end of an 18-hour shift —  but I buckled down and got the last guest opinions and letters on the page and headed out the door at 2:30 a.m.

I love my job.