December 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – November 2008 was one of LifeSiteNews.com’s most successful months in its 12 year history, with the website’s traffic ratings taking a steep upward turn, clocking a record-breaking 1,000,000+ pageviews.
It seemed fitting that such a month ushered in LSN’s first ever key supporter social and planning event – an intimate night of fine Italian cuisine, wine and conversation. On Wednesday evening the LSN team and some of LSN’s closest Toronto-region supporters reviewed the accomplishments of the past year and planned for the future of the world’s most widely read international life, family and culture news service.
The event, held at the elegant Sette Mezzo Italian restaurant in Toronto, exceeded the expectations even of its planners. LSN editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen said afterwards: “What an incredible night! I can’t thank enough those who came out and offered us their time and their energy. I know that I, for one, walked away energized and extremely optimistic about LSN’s future. Indeed, we’ve already begun the process of implementing many of the excellent suggestions we received from those who attended.”
The primary purpose of the event was for the LSN team to interact with and seek the advice of the site’s readers and supporters, and to present to them LSN’s own ambitious plans for the future – both immediate and long term.
After dinner and a short keynote speech by famed author Michael O’Brien, the floor was handed over to the dinner attendees, who offered their thoughts on everything from website design, fundraising, and how to increase the LSN’s reach. (To read about O’Brien’s talk, see: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08120408.html)
“The trouble-shooting at the end was amazing,” said one attendee about the event. “I was also impressed by learning so much about how many hits are on the site, about how popular it’s become.”
Many who attended agreed that the time is propitious for LSN. Following U.S. and Canadian elections in which the mainstream media in many cases abandoned even the appearance of objectivity, the need for high-quality alternative media has become strikingly clear.
LifeSiteNews.com currently stands at the forefront of the effort to counteract the mainstream media bias with principled and professional original reporting, and the numbers are showing that people are indeed increasingly turning to LSN for their news. “It’s clear that we’ve only begun to realize the full potential of LifeSiteNews,” said editor Westen. “With the help of our regular readers and supporters, our news service is set to grow exponentially in the next few years.”
During dinner LSN managing director, Steve Jalsevac, and director of marketing, Tim Waggoner, gave a general presentation about the origins of the news service, its growth, and its plans for the future. They emphasized the increasing popularity and influence of LSN, as well as its uniquely international nature, while highlighting the pressing need for greater resources to carry LSN into its next stage of development.
In particular, they pointed out that there is a need to employ more journalists across the globe, as well as more web designers and programmers to expand the functions and aesthetic appeal of both the website and the daily news e-mails. There are also plans in the works to tailor different versions of the website to people who access it from various geographical regions, and to offer Spanish and French versions of the site.
Another feature which has been in much demand, and that Jalsevac said LifeSiteNews hopes to implement as soon as possible, assuming the availability of resources, is a LSN blog, which would allow readers and writers to interact, and for readers to comment on individual stories. And finally, the LSN team plans in the future to incorporate original audio and visual content into the website.
“Wherever we go,” said Jalsevac during his presentation, “we are stunned by the reception we receive. We hear from pro-life and pro-family leaders all the time that they completely depend upon us for their news, that we are the first place they go to for their news.” He concurred with Westen, however, that the full potential for LifeSiteNews to influence the culture and provide principled news reporting has barely begun to be realized.
With the moving words of author Michael O’Brien still prominent in the minds of many of the attendees, the evening concluded with a prayer by Father Bernard Pinsonneault, asking for the grace of God to be poured out on the pro-life and pro-family cause.
In his address O’Brien had emphasized the spiritual nature of the battle between what he called (quoting John Paul II) the civilization of love, and the culture of death, and he encouraged those present to engage in the battle “with the spirit of a child.”
We must “begin every act, every word, every initiative in the pro-life movement on its knees,” said O’Brien. “We must begin everything on our knees.”
