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KGW.com 2012 Home Page

www.kgw.com

KGW.com News Coverage

3 Dead in Clackamas Mall Shooting: In December, when a costumed gunman opened fire at a crowded, popular Portland shopping mall during the Christmas shopping season, KGW.com used its website, mobile alerts and Twitter and Facebook to alert and inform our audience.

Woman Missing for Days Was Murdered by Neighbor: A massive three-day search for a missing Gresham, Oregon woman ended with the tragic discovery of her body in a local park. A neighbor in her apartment complex who attended her church was arrested and confessed to kidnapping her, sexually assaulting her, and then murdering her and dumping her body.

Rare Elephant Born at Oregon Zoo: Oregon is home to the largest Elephant exhibit in the U.S., so it was big news when one of its residents gave birth to a healthy 300-pound baby. KGW.com coverage included raw video, photos and news of the first steps of the Elephant calf, and a partnership with the Oregon Zoo to involve the public in selecting a name for the new baby.

2012 KGW.com Digital-Exclusive Local Election Coverage

For the 2012 Presidential Election, KGW.com created a Social News Desk and engaged with our audience throughout the evening, asking questions of viewers and users via Twitter and Facebook, and sharing audience reaction via our Social News Desk.

While NBC Network covered our TV broadcast channel during the key hours from 8 p.m. to Midnight, KGW was the only local TV station in Portland to devote its main broadcast studio, anchors and broadcast journalists to Digital-only continuous live streaming coverage online, and on our mobile and tablet apps.

Anchored from the main KGW Studio, the four-hour online-exclusive coverage included live reports from all the key local races, a panel of political analysts in our studio to provide context and meaning, and continuous audience engagement shared from our Social News Desk by our social media reporter.

• 4 hours of continuous live-streamed digital-only coverage of local elections online and mobile
• Live field reports from 6 local election campaigns throughout the night
• In-studio panel of 3 political analysts providing context to the results
• Social News Set created to create real-time audience engagement with coverage
• Social anchor incorporated audience feedback, comments and questions via Twitter, Facebook
• Real-time results for all local election races provided on KGW.com and on the KGW News mobile app.

Helicopter Crashes during Mt. Hood Rescue - 10th Anniversary

On May 30, 2002, three climbers died while attempting to summit Mt. Hood, but the tragedy could have been far worse. A rescue helicopter dispatched to aid other injured climbers crashed into the side of the mountain and tumbled 1,000 feet, ejecting its crew and sending parts flying.

KGW was broadcasting live during the rescue and caught the entire event on video. Ten years later, the reporter who was in the KGW helicopter tracked down the airmen involved, including the first interview with the pilot, to find out how an even greater disaster was averted.

• Link: Mt. Hood Helicopter Crash, 10 Years Later
• File Video: Rescue helicopter crashes into mountain
• Pilot gives first interview since crash
• Crew describes rescue from their viewpoint

KGW Investigation Uncovers Bank Foreclosure Violations

An investigation by KGW revealed violations by Bank of America in Oregon in their handling of home foreclosures and loan modifications. KGW worked with the Oregon Associate Attorney General to document the bank's violations of the National Mortgage Settlement suit, and to compel Bank of America to repair the credit records of affected Oregon homeowners damaged by the bank's errors.

• Link: KGW investigation exposes illegal Bank of America foreclosure practice
• KGW investigation led to formal apology by Bank of America
• Victim of bank errors had her credit record repaired
• Web links provided for Oregon homeowners with foreclosure problems
• FAQ on website answering questions about DOJ settlement with banks over foreclosures

Rachel's Challenge Anti-Bullying Education Campaign

Rachel Scott was the first victim killed in the Columbine High School Shootings. Her essay against bullying became the inspiration behind Rachel's Challenge, a program that encourages service and good deeds.

KGW joined forces with local schools to bring Rachel's anti-bullying message to local teens and their parents. The year-long campaign was built around a website, which included monthly online profiles of teens helping to combat bullying; a calendar of events; an interactive feature to nominate a Hero of the Month; a downloadable school curriculum; and, bullying help and resources for parents and teenagers.

• Link: Rachael's Challenge on KGW.com
• Help resources for teens, parents and teachers
• Feature stories on local teens working to stop bullying
• How you can get involved links
• Interactive feature to nominate local teens making a difference
• Community calendar of events combating bullying
• Facebook and Twitter pages to follow for news on anti-bullying efforts

Straight Talk: Hyper-local Political Coverage

The KGW.com Straight Talk page offered weekly in-depth coverage of local political issues impacting Oregon and Southwest Washington. Features included on-demand interviews with community leaders, original commentaries by local liberal and conservative political activists, a weekly topical engagement poll question and a regularly updated Twitter feed. 

Link: Straight Talk 

Community Initiatives

KGW combined its on air and online resources for three major initiatives to give back to the Portland community: the KGW Food Drive in the spring, the KGW School Supply Drive in the summer, and the KGW Toy Drive in winter.

Online web microsites provided education about the community need related to each of the issues of hunger, education funding, and poverty. These specially created web pages also facilitated community contributions and community empowerment, including online donations, checklists of needed items, an events calendar with donation opportunities, and tools to help community members become involved in collecting for these causes.

KGW Great Food Drive

• Link: KGW Food Drive
• Results: 600,000 meals donated, the equivalent of 775,350 pounds of food distributed to local families in need. 

KGW School Supply Drive

• Link: KGW School Supply Drive
• Results: Supplied 13,822 children with a total of $345,557 in school supplies contributed.

KGW Great Toy Drive

• Link: KGW Toy Drive
• Results: More than 60,000 toys collected and distributed to needy families through local service organizations. Using KGW's website, more than 475 local businesses and organizations opted in to participate as Toy Drive collection sites. 

KGW.com Mobile Applications

KGW.com significantly increased its service to the mobile news audience in 2012. In addition to its News, Weather and Traffic apps, KGW created multiple niche mobile apps: a hyper-local Vancouver News app for the region's second-largest city; a Portland Events app featuring local events; an Oregon College Sports app; apps for both pro sports teams, the Portland Trailblazers and the Portland Timbers; and an Oregon Ski Report app. 

KGW.com also significantly expanded its tablet-optimized app, including the addition of live streaming video on both smartphone and tablet. By the end of 2012, 40% of the consumption of news content from KGW.com was happening via a mobile device. 

Social Media

KGW.com used social media platforms Twitter and Facebook to discover and report news, and to engage with its audience. KGW used its social platform reach, with more than 20,000 Twitter followers and more than 40,000 Facebook fans, to reach its audience on the go during breaking news and weather events, to get their reaction to news stories, and to solicit news tips and user-generated content, turning news into a conversation.