Ten members of the Perry chapter of Kiwanis International shared a noon meal Tuesday and heard about the progress of ThePerryNews.com, Perry’s only locally owned news service.
After a Hotel Pattee lunch of pork roast, cheesy potatoes and wild rice, Kiwanis Secretary Doug Wood introduced ThePerryNews.com editor Jim Caufield and sports editor Jeff Webster, who briefly described the online newspaper’s origin and development.
The visitors described the news gathering process and shared their circulation numbers, which have grown from a few hundred in February to more than 60,000 visits to ThePerryNews.com website in May.
“It’s really catching on,” Caufield said. “Perry had a daily newspaper years ago, and it looks like there’s still an appetite for one.”
Webster explained the relation between ThePerryNews.com’s website and its Facebook page.
“A lot of people still get to our stories by clicking through from the Facebook posts,” Webster said, “but more and more people are coming straight to the website. When we show these numbers to advertisers who understand social media, they just about drool.”
The news gatherers also shared their vision for ThePerryNews.com.
“It looks like the ThePerryNews.com is establishing a solid place for itself in the local media mix,” Caufield said. “Consumers of local news seem to want reports that are both detailed and timely, and that’s what ThePerryNews.com brings to the marketplace.”
The members of the Perry Kiwanis in attendance thanked the journalists for their presentation and wished them continued success in their new media venture.