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Indianapolis Star Factfiles

When I came back to The Indianapolis Star in 2000, I was eager to begin recreating the work I had done in Dayton -- and now I had a larger staff to help me do it. Most notably, Barb Hoffman had previously compiled lists and chronologies on the newsroom ATEX system. For example, there were ATEX files listing all previous Indianapolis mayors, police line-of-duty deaths, death penalty cases, etc. So we started by converting that resource to an internal website and then adding to it the more encyclopedic types of pages I had done in Dayton.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

BLACK HISTORY

 

PACERS 2000 NBA FINALS

PACERS 2001 SEASON

In Dayton, I was unable to get my work onto the newspaper's public server but as soon as I started building similar pages on the Star's intranet, the director of our online department (Bob Jonason) immediately saw the value we switched it to a public server.

The Star also had about a decade of its archive online, which individuals could subscribe to and pay $2 per article to download. I argued at the time that an archive that shows users nothing but a blank search bar is like a store with nothing on display in the windows nor even on shelves inside. Customers have to guess what might be inside. Does the store sell . . . shoelaces? No? How about furnace filters? Turkey sandwiches? With encyclopedic narratives like these, I reasoned, we're giving users a hundred links to choose from.



Sept. 11: The Day Everything Changed

On the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, we started work on a set of pages related to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on that day. One of those pages was a list of those who were killed, which included a handful of people from Indiana. We used the Associated Press list and kept ours updated as AP updated theirs.

I found these pages on the Wayback Machine, but my recollection is that there were additional pages on the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crashes.

THE TOWERS

THE HIJACKERS

THE PLANES

CASUALTIES

OSAMA BIN LADEN

AFGHANISTAN

Index and Timeline pages

Two of the entry points into individual Factfile pages. These examples are from about 2001, but they would have changed over time.

This was also during the period in which Gannett had taken all of its newspaper archives down because of a court ruling on how freelance writers were compensated.

FACTFILES INDEX PAGE

TIMELINES


Here are links, in no precise order, to all of the Factfiles for which I was able to find screenshots through the Wayback Machine.

INDIANA ASTRONAUTS

BAPTIST TEMPLE CASE

BEHRMAN ABDUCTION

TONY BETTENHAUSEN

ELI LILLY CO.

CONSECO

ECKART HOMICIDE

WRONG-WAY CRASH

SHANABARGER CASE

MICHAEL TAYLOR DEATH

STEPHEN GOLDSMITH

EVAN BAYH

DAN BURTON

MELVIN CARRAWAY

JACK COTTEY

MITCH DANIELS

ELECTION 2002

JOE KERNAN

RICHARD LUGAR

FRANK O'BANNON

ROBERT ORR

BART PETERSON

UNIGOV

GOVERNOR'S RACE 2000

GUS GRISSOM

STEPHEN HILBERT

1963 COLISEUM EXPLOSION

JOHN DILLINGER

CAROL JENKINS MURDER

SYLVIA LIKENS

U.S.S. INDIANAPOLIS

LEGISLATIVE ACTION 2001

DAVID LETTERMAN

INDIANA TORNADOES

AVIATION ACCIDENTS

CIRCLE CENTRE MALL

FIREFIGHTER DEATHS

INDIANAPOLIS MAYORS

POLICE DEATHS

OK CITY BOMBING

IRAQ WAR DEATHS

SCHOOL VIOLENCE

SIMON FAMILY

LARRY BIRD

BRICKYARD 400

COLTS HISTORY

COLTS 2000

COLTS 2001

COLTS 2002

COLTS 2003

HULMAN FAMILY

INDY 500 HISTORY

IU BASKETBALL 2002

BOB KNIGHT

REGGIE MILLER

PACERS HISTORY

ISIAH THOMAS

DONNIE WALSH

STAR/NEWS HISTORY

STAR-GANNETT MERGER

EUGENE C. PULLIAM

EUGENE S. PULLIAM

KURT VONNEGUT

JANICE VOSS

HERMAN B WELLS

WHITE RIVER FISH KILL

DAVID WOLF

 
 

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