Specialist coverage of Suffolk prostitute murder trial causes record surge in web traffic

Specialist online coverage by Ipswich Evening Star and East Anglian Daily Times of the trial of a man charged with the murder of five prostitutes in Suffolk, led to the sites gaining record web traffic.

Readers hungry for information about the fate of Steve Wright, who was eventually found guilty of all five murders and jailed for life, caused page impressions to surge at the papers as news of their live coverage spread.

The papers supplied blanket coverage of the trial by stationing two reporters at the court, who alternated between watching the proceedings and filing live updates to the web, allowing the Archant titles to compete with national news providers.

The live updates section - part of a special section dedicated to the trial that also featured video coverage, interactive maps and timeline of events - alone attracted more traffic than usually seen across both newspaper websites on their busiest days. Short form live updates then became the basis for daily round-up stories for use online and in the print edition.

The specialist coverage of the trial took place against a backdrop of uncertainty for staff at the two papers, as they feared for the safety of their jobs.

"Staff at the Star and the Anglian have taken to doing online coverage. It was a big demand on them to be doing constant updates throughout the day," James Goffin, Archant Suffolk web editor, told Journalism.co.uk.

According to internal figures, the number of daily unique visitors to the sites doubled during the trial coverage, with frequency of visits also increasing.

Monthly viewing figures peaked in January, with the Evening Star recording 118,630 unique users and the East Anglian Daily Times posting 139,848, Goffin said.

Unique user numbers for February also showed a significant rise with the EADT recording 115,248 and the Star posting 120,222 unique users.

Before the trial began, in December, the Star site recorded 80,612 and the EADT 104,783 monthly users.

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