Labor Day Special: What Central Massachusetts Cares About

Monday, September 02, 2013

Tracey Minkin, GoLocalWorcester Features Editor

While Central Massachusetts takes a hard-earned break from work (and enjoys the official final day of summer), GoLocalWorcester presents the big stories of the year thus far that have captured the imaginations and passions of the region.

It's been a record year for GoLocalWorcester, with record-breaking days of reader engagement and sharing throughout the summer. The notion that summer is a time when folks don't "care" about news and information seems as antiquated as the beautiful costumes at Old Sturbridge Village--what our readers' behaviors tell us is that you want news all year long, and you value stories that bring you local issues as well as regional views of Central Massachusetts's towns, schools, artists--even its celebrities!

Worcester's health code violations sets all-time record

The most persuasive evidence of this was as recent as last week, when GoLocalWorcester unveiled its painstakingly researched set of stories on Worcester's restaurants with the worst health code inspection scores. A story featuring the 50 lowest-scored individually owned restaurants, a survey of all the chain restaurants' performance, as well as articles on the public health implications and the lack of transparency at the state level, were read and shared by record numbers of readers. All of this happened in late August... when traditional media would have assumed that everyone had checked out and didn't care about news.

How wrong that is. GoLocal's health code stories provoked unprecedented traffic and has already prompted political action. Further, GoLocalWorcester's new, interactive health code violation map allows readers to get right down to the street level and click on their local restaurants and check their health code scores. When GoLocal began this investigation, the only way to find out what a restaurant's violation status involved rifling through overstuffed file folders at an office in downtown Worcester. After hundreds of hours of painstaking research, tabulation and programming, GoLocal's interactive data-rich map puts crucial public health information into the hands where it belongs--yours.

Look for more projects like this from GoLocal in the future.

Central Massachusetts celebrities + more people

Some of GoLocalWorcester's biggest stories this year have featured you, our readers. Whether we are naming the most fashionable or biggest celebrities from the region, you let us know with your engagement that you love reading about your neighbors in Central Massachusetts. Enjoy today's revivial of those wildly popular stories featuring all kinds of fantastic residents of Worcester and Central MA.

Communities, schools + hospitals

When GoLocalWorcester endeavored to examine, assess, and rank the region's bread-and-butter issues--cities and towns, high schools, local colleges, and hospitals--you showed us you cared with extraordinary readership and sharing on social media platforms including Facebook. See today which of those GoLocal rankings captured the most attention, and enjoy revisiting the question of how your town, your school, your college, or even your local hospital--performed up against its peers.

Most of all, enjoy the coverage. It's all Central Massachusetts, all the time.