Want some insight into how the way we report the news is changing?

Take a look at what happened last night with one of the weekly newspapers under our Foothills Media Group umbrella.

The police chief vacancy in Canton has been a hot topic for months now, and we took some unprecedented (for us) steps for the selectmen's meeting last night when a candidate was finally to be named.

Reporter Kaitlyn Yeager set up a live-stream video of the meeting so readers could watch from home.

It was embedded into a story previewing the meeting, and under the video was a live chat that she moderated.

As the meeting happened, she reported live on what was happening via the chat, readers added their own information and opinions on the subject, and were able to ask Kaitlyn questions about what was happening.

Kaitlyn's story also included a survey asking residents their thoughts on the police chief search, for use in future articles, as well as a timeline graphic walking them through the process that led to last night's meeting.

A pretty radical change from the old method of writing a story - with no input or questions from readers - on newsprint the next day, or next week in the case of a weekly such as The Canton News.

These kinds of changes are possible, in part, due to a new culture of innovation in the company that Foothills Media Group belongs to.

Journal Register Company owns 19 dailies across the country and hundreds of non-daily publications such as The Canton News.

Kaitlyn is one of 15 employees that Journal Register has named to an "IdeaLab" team. Twenty-five percent of her time is freed up to work on new ideas and technology for us. She received an iPhone, an iPad and Netbook (which was used to livestream last night's meeting), is sharing ideas back and forth with fellow IdeaLab members, and is involving the rest of our staff as well.