Provides up-to-the-minute reports on the recent tornadoes and the arrest of NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak

The Orlando Sentinel newsroom recently launched the new AM Team to provide the latest news and information on OrlandoSentinel.com early each weekday morning.

“We are transforming our newsroom for the way audiences consume news, Editor Charlotte H. Hall said. “The AM Team is a major step towards a news operation able to cover breaking news online around the clock. The team of 15 reporters, visuals journalists, editors and Web producers begins arriving well before dawn to ensure complete coverage throughout the morning on OrlandoSentinel.com. By the time consumers go to OrlandoSentinel.com in the morning, a fresh report awaits them.”

“For a paper our size, this is a significant commitment of resources to Web publication,” said Associate Managing Editor/Online, Anthony Moor. “We’re specifically targeting the morning timeframe when newspaper newsrooms are just gearing up but Web sites are seeing their highest traffic of the day.”

Senior Online Editor John Cutter added, “By shifting schedules and changing a few jobs, we now have a large news team that’s able to bring users timely news about what happened while they slept – and what is happening throughout the morning and early afternoon when we know most people visit the site.”

The new OrlandoSentinel.com AM Team provided online users with expanded coverage and visuals of the early-morning tornadoes that killed 20 people on February 2. Page-views that day topped 2 million with 200,000 unique visitors. Photo page-views accounted for about 700,000 of those and video streams were at 57,000.

The AM Team also provided essential coverage as the story about astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak unfolded in the morning hours after OrlandoSentinel.com broke it the previous evening. Page-views the morning after the story broke were nearly 2 million with 400,000 unique visitors.