We are several years into the ‘instant this, instant that’ information age. It seems like every five minutes, a story either breaks, is reversed or updated because of what the news gathering agency learned.
There’s good and bad in this, of course. The good is because there are so many vehicles to use, people can learn about something that may be of some interest to them. That can be through Twitter, Facebook, text message alerts or Instagram, not to mention the traditional news web site. Plus, with so many entities competing for the same story, the race to be first takes priority.The bad is having information overload to where people have lost track or have their facts mixed up. Plus, being first doesn’t always being right.There isn’t a perfect answer for this. But this is where we are as a society.Still, our sports department wanted to make sure you knew we are going to be using our social media and online products with much more regularity. You can find us on Facebook through a simple search for our edition name, and our Twitter account is NETarrantNews. If you have been following us on these, you have noticed how the activity has picked up. Recently, we made the decision that with nine public high schools in our coverage area, fans needed more than just what they read in the standard Wednesday print edition. That once-a-week hit just wasn’t enough to satisfy.In mid-January, we started when Carroll quarterback Kenny Hill started to look at other schools and then transitioned to some of the major boys and girls basketball results that shaped the playoff picture. We then provided covered Keller Fossil Ridge 2014 defensive back Nick Foster committing to TCU, followed by high school playoff matchups and playoff results.But we also broke a little news when we shared that Northwest girls basketball coach Wayne Parker had resigned and that a search to find his replacement would begin immediately. By the way, you can probably look for the new coach to be named by the end of March.Moving forward, that’s the way this is going to look. There will be other breaking news that we’ll put online that could be followed by a story on the web site that you won’t see in the print version.We started doing that on National Signing Day, when we provided an overview of that event. We also did that with the girls bi-district round of the basketball playoffs as we led with Grapevine.We’ve also tried to create some flexibility. When we did the girls basketball coverage with Grapevine and Colleyville Heritage in the print edition, we did a feature on the Lady Panthers but alerted our readers to check out the site for Grapevine.We did that for Northwest and Byron Nelson boys basketball on their bi-district playoff efforts. And depending on how the Carroll girls did Tuesday, we may have something to offer if they advanced to the Region I tournament.Now, we’ll be a little more live with our outlets when it comes to covering the postseason. On top of that, the websites will often carry longer versions of our print-edition stories -- there’s no space limit online.If you haven’t taken part in our online offerings before, we invite you to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. If not, you’re only getting a portion of what we do.It’s our way of connecting more with our readers and our schools.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
