Concord NH Patch Turns 6

CONCORD, NH — Today, Concord NH Patch turns 6. The site was launched at around 3 p.m. on June 17, 2011, which means that during 8.5 of the last 13 years, I’ve been writing, editing, broadcasting, and publishing news from the place I was born and raised (for at least most of my life). Dangerous and often dreary Granite State weather; drug busts, crashes, and bizarre and outlandish crimes; politics, business, and other stuff, too. There has been a lot of news in the last year, headlines that were often daunting, at times; watching parts of our city unravel while others have clearly improved.

But this is what the news business is about – seeing what is going on and telling people about it; often unfiltered and with little, if any, personal bias. And, in my case, as much as one person can get out to you (with a little help here and there, too, thankfully).

For those of us who are still able to work in this ever-changing, volatile business, we’re doing this for you, our readers, so you know what is going on at any given time. As always, thank you so very much. I’m so grateful that you read our stories, share our links, and offer tips about what you’re seeing in this community.

Site growth

Twice a year, in both late December and in June, I spend a bit of time looking at the previous 12 months and checking out where the site is at, data-wise. I have a lot of useful tools at my disposable that tell me what works, what doesn’t, and what readers are checking out. I'm constantly looking at it in real-time; but biannually, I check out everything.

At this time last year, as an example, the Concord site was averaging about 310,000 unique views a month. During the last year, it has grown to more than 335,000 per month, on average – or about 8 percent higher, which is very cool. Page views on the Concord site have also grown to more than 4.66 million or a 6.7 percent increase from the previous 12 months. The site’s Facebook page also cracked the 18,000 “likes” threshold earlier this month – doubling since this time in 2015, putting it in the Top 10 of all of the 1,100 Patch sites across America. Seriously? Wow! TY!

Watch this video!

Hot stories; cool accomplishments

Last year, the top stories from the previous 12 months had to do with UFO activity in the city, the New Hampshire primary results, amusing and depressing occurrences on Granite State highways, and people who passed away. During the past year, it was snowstorms, Powerball, Granite Hammer and other busts, and what to do with shredded chicken (and thank you, again, to Dana, for the still popular blog post from 2012 which helped more than 39,000 people this year find a cooking tip online).

In the past, I’ve highlighted other milestones, too – a number of New Hampshire Press Association awards including Best Website in 2012 and second place Best Website in 2013 as well as a right-to-know award. Blogger Paul Brogan was also named best blogger in the state in 2014. These awards came from peer groups outside of the region judging the work of NH journalists (The NHPA is a few years behind on issuing our most recent awards but we hope to get the org back up and running soon).

There have been other important stories, too: Concord NH Patch was the first news outlet in the state to eye the increased deaths in the Granite State due to the opioid crisis (an official, at the time, wondered out loud why it was taking so long for someone from the press to start asking about the deaths). These stories are now routine but Patch published them first. This outlet was the only news org to tell the community the true costs of and problems with the $90.8 million elementary school consolidation project as well as the multi-million dollar Main Street construction project.

The site has also published stories that made national headlines, like Mitt Romney’s son making an Obama birther joke (something Arianna Huffington mentioned in a column on the one year anniversary of AOL buying HuffPost, which was pretty cool), gun rights activists crashing the Mayors Against Illegal Guns rally (footage which was featured on a number of cable and network news outlets), and former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown being chased down by political tracker in a canoe (one political journalist suggested the picture be featured in a museum on modern American politics).

I’ll stop reaching around to pat myself on the back (because I don’t want to break my arm). But I will say that it has been a compelling and fulfilling six years of journalism and I’m so appreciative that you’ve all been along for the ride.

Thanks again for reading Concord NH Patch!

Best, Tony