Sometimes we newspaper people yearn for the good old days.

Back then, reporters and editors strolled into the newsroom between 9 and 10 a.m. They knew they had all day to put together their stories and hand them off to page designers and copy editors, who had until midnight to finish.

Then came thenewstribune.com.

The highest traffic time on our Web site is between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., and our online readers aren’t looking for yesterday’s news. They have an appetite for the morning’s breaking news, plus weather and traffic updates.

In the past few years, we’ve had to disrupt the sleep patterns of an increasing number of our journalists to serve those readers. The upside is that finally we’re able to compete with our broadcast peers in real time, rather than collecting information we can’t publish until the next day.

Our first move to accommodate this change came about three years ago, when we had our police reporter, Stacey Mulick, begin work about 7 a.m. Recently, we asked her to begin even earlier – 5:30 a.m. – from home, where she checks in with her sources and posts stories on the Web site even before she gets to the office.

Stacey also has the authority to deploy a reporter or photographer to the scene of any early breaking news. That was the case in October when a car drove into the Harbor Inn building in Gig Harbor shortly after 6 a.m.

A few months ago, we added a home page editor to the early morning lineup. Her shift begins at 6 a.m. While the reporter writes stories, the editor searches the state and national wires for other news updates, monitors competitor Web sites and edits the reporter’s stories.

The editor also adds links to stories that connect readers to previous stories we’ve written on a topic or to another Web site for additional information. She watches which stories are most popular with readers and moves them to more prominent positions on the home page. Often it’s a posting from one of our blogs that’s deserving of a wider audience.

By 8 a.m., the managing editor and the photo editor have arrived, and the group huddles for a news meeting. They make sure the early news is covered and strategize on how to keep the home page fresh through the day, knowing many of our readers will be back at lunchtime. Ideally the group can predict which stories and photos will be ready to post by midmorning and midafternoon.

If there’s no breaking news, the home page editor can pull a photo and a story from another section of the Web site – sports or business or SoundLife – to mix things up on the home page.

We’ve also added a mojo – or mobile journalist – to our morning mix. His top priority is to rove the South Sound looking for a story he can post early in the day from his laptop. He can break news from the field while the police reporter works the phones and oversees coverage from the office.

We just moved veteran local news reporter Mike Archbold into that mojo job. He was invaluable last week in providing coverage from the scene of the car that went into the Green River with two boys inside, and from the flooding that hit our area Wednesday and Thursday.

By noon on Wednesday, for instance, Stacey and Mike had posted 20 local flood updates. At the same time, our home page editor was posting stories about flooding outside our region, tips for reporting flood damage and a map showing flooded rivers. The total package was much more focused on South Sound flooding than coverage on television, radio or other local Web sites.

Our goal is to continue strengthening our early morning online report – even if it means getting up earlier to do it.

If you have ideas for content you’d like to see in the morning or if you have a story idea for Mike, please e-mail us at newstips@ thenewstribune or call us at 253-597-8688.

Karen Peterson: 253-597-8434

karen.peterson@thenewstribune.com