From live breaking news coverage to innovative digital storytelling, the Examiner continues to grow its audience and lead the way in delivering engaging online news in West Yorkshire.
In 2015 we were awarded Best Online Media at the O2 Media Awards for Yorkshire and the Humber — and we're striving to defend our title.
Here's 10 ways we're leading the way in local news:
Our audience continues to grow
Our audience
7.4m
2014/15
9.2m
2015/16
2014/15 was a record-breaking year for the Examiner, doubling our audience to 7.4m — and since May 2015, we've attracted another two million readers. We're on track to reach one million unique users in June, our highest monthly figure to-date.
We bring stories to life — and we love to go live
Our online content goes far beyond words and pictures to engage our readers, bring the news to life and make the most of the innovations our content management system provides, digitally leading the way in West Yorkshire. We also dominate live news coverage locally, covering everything from breaking news stories to important council meetings and elections. But it's not just about hard news — our live coverage and information guides during the Coca Cola Truck's festive visit to Huddersfield reached 12,000 people.
We're harnessing our online might to save our A&E
In January this year, it was announced that Huddersfield's A&E could close, forcing residents to travel to neighbouring Halifax to receive emergency care — a journey that could cost lives. We have stood alongside campaigners to save our local emergency department, and used innovative digital storytelling to rally the people of Huddersfield and send a message to hospital chiefs trying to close the A&E.
Our live coverage has outstripped that of any other news provider following the story — we've covered everything from the initial announcement to every key meetings and consultation event held since, using liveblogs, video streams and social media outreach to ensure the people of Huddersfield know what's proposed, what key figures are saying and how they can fight it.
We took to the streets of Huddersfield in the Examiner Battle Bus, using tracking technology, live video streams and continuous coverage to let our readers know where the bus would be in real-time during its two day tour.
We've worked closely with the Hands Off HRI campaign — providing live coverage of a 5,000-person march through the town centre and giving campaign leaders a voice through direct video appeals. We even filled out the consultation document live on Facebook!
We stood up for Huddersfield — and Channel 4 took note
We're proud to be a leading voice for Huddersfield — and so when a comedian mocked our humble town on television, we stood up for our community! Last Leg presenter Alex Brooker issued an apology on Twitter for his remarks after we vehemently defended Huddersfield, and even featured our story on Friday night's show after we caused a Twitter storm!
Here's how the story unfolded:
We made a humble train station moggy famous around the world
Our initial, light-hearted tale on a train station cat being made 'senior pest controller' was not only popular with our readers — but made Felix the Huddersfield Railway Station Cat famous around the world. We event sent readers into a spin on April 1 with an April Fool's joke that pretended the beloved cat had been poached to work in Leeds - which was shared by 3,000 worried Felix fans!
Ask Examiner lets our readers set the agenda
This year we launched Ask Examiner, a weekly interactive feature where reader submit burning questions they want answers to — and we deliver the information they want. Our readers vote each week for investigative stories covering everything from local council policy to Huddersfield's history.
Here are the questions we've answered so far:
We knew EVERYTHING about Huddersfield Food & Drink Festival
The four-day event attracts thousands of visitors each year — so we made sure the Examiner was a one-stop-shop for all the information and coverage people would be searching for. One of the most popular innovations was a gallery detailing exactly what was on the menu at each of the festival's 90 food stalls, and how much they'd have to pay for a pint, burger, or dessert. Our content delivered 284,000 page views to our dedicated Festival page.
READ MORE:
We brought Happy Valley to life
Filmed in Huddersfield and Calderdale, Happy Valley was more than just gripping TV - it was drama in our back yard. We worked with readers and viewers to map the second series' filming locations (see map above), ran a weekly episode blog, speculated on whodunnit and reviewed the series finale live - delivering an audience of 117,000 people who have viewed 248,000 pages in 2016. We've had feedback on our content from as far as Australia — one reader said: "We have just finished watching series two of Happy Valley, following each episode with reading your related review in the Examiner. Loved your writing, the humour, the insights, and the classical allusions."
Happy Valley
We've got real Yorkshire pride
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We love to celebrate all things Yorkshire — from our beautiful scenery, our most famous sons and daughters, our dialect, our food and our pride.
Last Yorkshire Day we even developed a tool that would allow a special pair of Google Glasses to be applied to readers' web browsers by downloading a unique piece of Examiner software - click here to download it!
We want to defend our title!
Last year the Huddersfield Examiner won Best Online Media at the O2 Media Awards for Yorkshire and the Humber — and we want to add to our awards shelf!
The judges said: The judges said: "The Huddersfield Examiner took a conscious decision to put the story, and their readers, first in a revamp of their on-line presence this year. Using live blogs, video and by constantly updating their web material the team has seen the number of website users double to an impressive 7.4 million."
Meanwhile, we were highly commended for the best website and newspaper team of the year awards.
