Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is making big progress

Today’s New York Times published an editorial titled “Kentucky’s Egregious Death Penalty,” calling on the state to abolish capital punishment.

Since 2009, I’ve overseen the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty‘s online presence and am on its board of directors. Here are KCADP’s blog posts that highlight Kentucky’s progress towards eliminating capital punishment, beginning with the American Bar Association’s findings from its two-year assessment of the state’s death penalty, which it released in December 2011:

• American Bar Association–’Two year assessment of death penalty procedures prompts call for suspension of executions in Kentucky’
• ABA President, two former Kentucky Supreme Court Justices: ‘Suspend Kentucky executions’
• Almost 2,000 people tell Kentucky’s governor and legislators to abolish the death penalty–-here’s what they’re saying
• Kentucky legislative committee hears testimony for first time ever on a bill to abolish the state’s death penalty
• Kentucky ‘Senate Judiciary Committee Discusses Abolition of Death Penalty’
• Kentucky prosecutors: ‘Ky. capital punishment unfair’
• Lexington Herald-Leader slams legislature for failure to reform Kentucky’s broken death penalty
• Diverse group speaks at hearing on execution regulations
• Murder victim’s brother speaks out against death penalty before U.S. Vice Presidential debate
• Kentucky Commission on Human Rights urges General Assembly, Gov. Beshear to repeal death penalty

To read more about my work with KCADP, please visit my consulting page.

Photo: Courtesy Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

The badge does say ‘Be it known’

Louisville.com has its second-best month ever

Louisville.com (me = editor-in-chief) just finished its second most successful month ever, bested only by last May (a month when Kentucky Derby-related traffic usually gives us a huge spike).

Visits in February 2012 increased 53 percent compared to February 2011 and 22 percent compared to January 2012 (and for those of you not familiar with the Gregorian calendar, February is also a shorter month). Thanks to the site’s writers and readers!

What excites me most is that this growth is not the result of a few articles striking search engine gold, but rather steady traffic day in, day out—which means we should be able to maintain it.

Read more

Read ‘The Deerslayer,’ in which I kill, take a photograph, model, and, yes, write for Louisville Magazine

Available at fine Kentuckiana newsstands, the March 2012 issue of Louisville Magazine features “The Deerslayer,” a 3,000-word, six-page feature I wrote about my first time deer hunting.

• Download a .pdf of the article here.
• Read the article on Louisville.com here.

A full-page photo I snapped from my blind is on page 44. And, yes, I’m the sexy fella—both of them, actually—pictured on page 43 and at the beginning of this post. Sad confession: all of the props are mine.

Normally in my blog posts about my articles, I provide background about the pieces. I’m skipping that here, however, as that info is in the article itself. If for some reason you’re craving more though, watch the video of my hunt from KET’s Kentucky Afield.

Thanks to

• Louisville Magazine’s Kane Webb and Josh Moss for their constructive edits, and Suki Anderson and John Nation for making me and the layout look so damn sexy
• Jon Gassett, Tim Farmer, and Nathan Sangster with the Kentucky Department of Wildlife Resources for their trust in putting a gun in my hand, and Mark Marraccini for answering my questions
• Robin and Ellen Gassett of Licking River Outfitters for their hospitality and letting me hunt at their Garden of Deerden
• my wife, Margaret, for coming up with the article idea in the first place

Photo: Courtesy Louisville Magazine/John Nation

Louisville.com site visits up 50 percent in 2011, 79 percent since I became editor in 2010

In 2011 site visits to Louisville.com increased 50 percent compared to 2010. Traffic was up 79 percent on the year compared to 2009 (I became editor-in-chief of the site on Jan. 1, 2010, working just 20 hours a week as the site’s only paid editorial employee).

Site visits to Louisville.com, 2011 (blue) compared to 2009 (orange), select to enlarge

A big thank you to the site’s readers, writers, interns, and owners!

According to compete.com, Louisville.com is now the city’s most visited independent website, trailing only the sites for the local newspaper and TV stations overall.

The raw data, via Google Analytics (according to the 2010 census, the population of Louisville/Jefferson County is 741,096 people).

2011

1,194,066 visits
926,712 unique visitors
2,753,479 pageviews
2.31 pages per visit
00:01:59 average time on site

2010

798,643 visits
590,941 unique Visitors
2,136,804 pageviews
2.68 pages per visit
00:02:31 average time on site

2009 (before I was hired as editor)

665,561 visits
517,337 unique visitors
1,995,714 pageviews
3.00 pages per visit
00:02:27 average time on site

For what I’ve done to help achieve this grown, check out my editing page.