By Benjamin J. Marrison, The Columbus Dispatch
Before noon on Wednesday, Dispatch Washington bureau reporter Jessica Wehrman got word that President Barack Obama would speak at Ohio State University’s commencement on May 5.
As the only central Ohio news organization with reporters in the nation’s capital, we typically hear these things first.
At 1:09 p.m., as soon as the White House made it official, the story appeared on Dispatch.com. We posted it on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/columbusdispatch) and sent it out as the top item in our afternoon newsletter. (Sign up at www.dispatch.com/newsletters.) And that was only one of the big stories that we first told you about on Wednesday using Dispatch.com and our mobile applications.
Earlier on Wednesday, at 12:19 p.m., we reported that Ali Salim, a Northeast Side physician, had been charged with drugging, raping and murdering a pregnant woman whose body was found in the back seat of her car in Delaware County. Our newsgathering partners at WBNS-10TV posted a bulletin five minutes before we did. (We had the news but were a little slower in getting it posted.)
And at 3:16 p.m., higher education reporter Encarnacion Pyle broke the news that Ohio State would hold tuition flat next year. Others reported this later that day or the next morning.
Those were the most notable stories, but there were many others. By 4 p.m. on Wednesday, more than 100,000 people had visited Dispatch.com. That’s a lot of eyeballs.
