Discovery Prompts
Innovative Coverage

For the Vero Beach Press Journal and Scripps' Treasure Coast new media group, John Glenn's historic return to space was a local story.

As the Scripps paper nearest to the Kennedy Space Center, the Press Journal took the lead in handling photo coverage of the launch.

Meanwhile, TCPalm.com (the Web site for Scripps' newspapers in Stuart, Jupiter, Vero Beach, Ft. Pierce, Port St. Lucie and Sebastian, and television station WPTV in West Palm Beach) provided a tourist's-eye-view of space shuttle Discovery's Oct. 29 launch and events surrounding it.

The goal for the newspaper's photographers, says Jim Koenigsaecker, Press Journal presentation editor, was "to get different pictures than the Associated Press to help our newspapers look better than competing newspapers."

It was a cooperative effort. The Press Journal borrowed a telephoto lens from the Naples Daily News, a camera and telephoto lens from Denver Rocky Mountain News, another camera and tripod from The Stuart News and a trigger form Nikon Professional Service. Press Journal photography intern Steven Martine set up the remote cameras in advance, wrapping them in garbage bags and anchoring the equipment with bungee cords.

On launch day, Martine, one of the first photographers to arrive, produced unique sunrise pictures, as Press Journal staff photojournalist Kelly Rogers covered people watching from Vero Beach.

As the photos were distributed nationwide by Scripps Howard News Service, the Press Journal used them for page one and a double-truck spread on the launch.

Four "Web monkeys" at TCPalm.com went boldly where no Web site has gone before. At 2 p.m. Oct. 27, four Web developers headed for Cape Canaveral in a recreational vehicle on a mission called T-Minus4.

The RVnauts focused on showing Web site visitors what it's like for "normal" people to witness the historic launch first-hand. "With all the media saturation at the event, we really wanted to find a fresh approach that would suit the Internet," said David Johnson, TCPalm executive producer.

The site featured continual updates from the T-Minus4 crew, live video of the space shot, interviews with other tourists and live cameras. "With our live chats, bulletin boards, polls and constantly updated news and information, it was a real interactive experience," said Stephen Dana, director of online media at TCPalm. "We ended up making a profit on it."

Press Journal photographers Steven Martine and Kelly Rogers made thesepictures possible by borrowing equipment from Nikon Professional Service and Scripps' newspapers in Stuart, Denver and Naples.