Image by B.K. Dewey via FlickrMark Luckie recently wrote about how the iPhone will revolutionize journalism. You may remember our coverage of Abilene Christian University’s iPhone initiative and the challenges it presents to student media.

Luckie argues that the rise of the smartphone is going to put more pressure on reporters and editors.

This means even shorter deadlines for reporters, and even quicker turnaround on blurbs that can be posted to the web immediately. It also means consumers will be more receptive to mobile video which, on the iPhone’s predecessors, had to be viewed on a screen the size of a postage stamp. The phone currently has built-in YouTube access for those videos hosted on the video sharing site, but it puts a greater demand on Apple to create Flash compatibility on the phone so news sites can provide video in a central location.

In the past, I’ve argued that student media outlets need to begin equipping reporters with laptops and wireless cards so they could file from location, even when there isn’t WiFi access. Now, it might be a better idea to give reporters a smartphone. However, annoyingly, the iPhone doesn’t have an accessory keyboard that makes typing easier.

And convincing college print journalists to think about publishing to the web first is still a challenge, since print readership remains strong on campus.

For more on the iPhone 3G, Mindy McAdams has been blogging here and here.

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Image via WikipediaThis is almost a week late, but I wanted to chime in on the topic of this month’s Carnival of Journalism, hosted by my good friend Doug Fisher of the University of South Carolina (USC of the East).

This months’ Carnival of Journalism features the following topic:

 What changes will need to be made in national and international legal systems to help the digital age, and especially journalism in the digital age, flourish? We talk a lot about hyper-local journalism, innovation, the journalism entrepreneur, etc. But we don’t often talk much about the legal issues still hanging in the background out there…

The biggest legal issue, IMHO, is not related to intellectual property (copyright, fair use, etc.), but freedom of expression.

The crux of the problem is that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution is somewhat unique in its recognition of freedom of the press, as interpreted by U.S. courts. In terms of prior restraint and defamation, especially, the U.S. legal protections go well beyond those provided for the media in other countries.

So, for instance, a blogger or news outlet located in the United States could be sued for hate speech or defamation or prejudicing a jury in another country. See this International Herald Tribune article for one example of how laws differ from country to country.

This wasn’t so much an issue in the past, but as Doug notes, the Internet creates a virtual world of ideas without boundaries. So whose jurisdiction wins?

Honestly, I don’t know the answer to the question. It is buried deep within my U.S. Bill of Rights-loving bones to assert that the answer to speech that offends is more speech that asserts the truth, not the heavy club of the law. But there is also a realization that other countries and cultures disagree about that ideal.

As intellectual property law has been more or less standardized among developed nations, the result has been a benefit for those with monetary interests in tighter controls, not greater freedom for the average citizens.

It would seem that a similar scenario would play out in the arena of free expression were we to attempt such a standardization of free expression across the globe.

Journalists should fight efforts to curtail freedom of expression, whether through enhanced hate speech laws, defamation laws, or laws relating to prior restraint. While the fight to secure such rights has been long and hard in the U.S., the globalized environment we live in will require further vigilance to expand those ideals, and ensure U.S.-based journalists don’t end up on the wrong end of legal rulings around the world.

It’s official. After months of beta testing and questions, College Publisher is finally rolling out the new 5.0 release. Among the first is the Daily 49er at Cal State-Long Beach. Colleen Donnell, editor-in-chief, writes:

I’d like to officially welcome you to the new Daily Forty-Niner website. It’s been in the works since winter but thanks to a wonderful group of people including staffers, advisers and the team at College Publisher, we’re running live. I couldn’t be more excited. We are the first school to launch with CP5.

For history’s sake, I should note that Boise State’s Arbiter has been the “beta” school for a while, so they were working out the kinks before the 49er came along. Also first out of the gate with the new system is the Kansas State Collegian.

The Daily Eastern News is scheduled to get upgraded this month, so I’ll have more to say after we get a look at the whole enchilada.

The Daily 49er Editor’s Blog “blog” doesn’t seem to have a permalink for the comment above, which means I can’t link directly to Colleen’s comments.

Image by Andrea Alessandretti via FlickrMeranda Watling explains how the news business is changing via an anecdote. Read it and learn from it, journalism students.

That story that broke at 4:30? It came in via an e-mail tip. I actually “broke” the news about 4:40 p.m. I had quickly confirmed the gist of it and wrote two paragraphs to post immediately. Because the editors were in the daily budget meeting, I had another reporter read over it, and then I had a copy editor post it asap so I could begin chasing the sources who were leaving their offices at or before 5 p.m. After I reached those sources, I wrote into the online version and updated. When my editor got back he swapped it out and posted it in the No. 1 spot online.

I went to my board meetings armed with notebook and pen — AND a laptop, Internet card and my Blackberry. I continued to report and write during the meetings. On my drive between the two meetings? I made calls on the A1 story.

When I got back to the newsroom around 8:45 p.m., I made a few more calls and banged out the A1 story and then two more about the meetings I’d covered. All before the 10:30 print deadline. I made cop calls, and half-way down the 10-county list we heard a shooting over the scanner. I went there and called in a Web update from the scene.

That is a sampling of what “newspaper” reporters are expected to do today, at least at my newspaper.

Two weeks from now, I’ll be in Georgia at the Management Seminar for College Newspaper Editors, and you can bet Meranda’s post will be among the topics of discussion. College newspapers still struggle with integrating that kind of mindset into their process. Maybe the experiences of a new reporter will help convince them that they need to embrace this stuff wholeheartedly.

via Howard Owens

Colin Mulvaney writes about how to not lose viewers with the opening of your video. I’d say that crafting a great opening to a video is akin to writing a great lede for a story, just with lots of fancy equipment and computers.

The post has lots of good examples of each possibility.

Andy Dickinson follows up on a previous post by expanding his comments on Fair Use in the United Kingdom, more commonly known as Fair Dealing.

So it seems that there is a lot more to law than just contempt and libel. Perhaps that hour you set aside to teach yourself soundslides or play with Twitter might be better spent having a chat to your Photographers, your subs and lawyers.

Fair Use is a vague territory, without a lot of case law to give direction on what is and isn’t acceptable (see this publication from the U.S. Copyright Office about Section 107, the Fair Use section of copyright law). As a Supreme Court justice said once about obscenity, “I know it when I see it.” That said, there are more and more options for content creators who want to find audio, video, writing, and photographs to use without fear of legal repercussion. The most comprehensive of these is the Creative Commons, which we’ve discussed before.

Flickr, for instance, allows you to search through all of their photos to find photos that are licensed through CC for use by others. It’s a handy tool, and one that should be understood by every beginning journalist.

Image via Wikipedia
If you are not aware of all Internet traditions (see here for a full explanation of the latest meme), Brad Reed of NetworkWorld has a fancy slideshow and some explanatory text to help you out with Silly Internet Traditions: A Concise History.

 In honor of the Internet’s uniquely dense brand of insider humor, we’ve decided to examine and explain each of the most famous Internet traditions of the past decade.  While this guide may not help you speak fluent 1337 overnight, it will at least help you understand why Chuck Norris is seemingly held in such high esteem nowadays…

The Dancing Baby, LOLcats, Chris Crocker, and others make the list. Check it out for a good laugh, or a primer. If you don’t know about Godwin’s law, now you can know when to invoke it.

I’m always surprised when I mention something like the Ceiling Cat and students look at me with blank stares. It’s also fascinating to see how viral videos and Internet traditions take off and develop beyond what anyone would have imagined (Icanhascheezburger.com, where I got the image below, is a site solely devoted to LOLanimals)

Just remember, all your bases are belong to us.

more cat pictures

Image via WikipediaMindy McAdams comes through again today with a post titled The Survival of Journalism: 10 Simple Facts.

Let’s see if I can condense them down (although it’s worth going over there and reading her entire post):

1. Free content isn’t wrong.
2. Newspapers ≠ journalism
3. Journalism  = $$$$
4. Citizen Journalism won’t replace “Big J” Journalism
5. NewsPAPER is a fading delivery format.
6. There’s no monopoly on trust on the Internet
7. The next generation will not read newspapers.
8. Democracy fails without a strong fourth estate.
9. No, we don’t know how we’ll pay for it yet.
10. Don’t count on newspaper companies to be the first to figure out No. 9.

Agree or disagree, Mindy suggests these 10 postulates should be accepted as given, so we can skip over those “ground rules” when discussing the future of journalism.

Of course, I think Mindy’s points were summed up poetically by another great mind:

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Interactive Narratives, the multimedia database site begun by Andrew DeVigal many moons ago, has relaunched with a spiffy new interface, new multimedia stories, and even a Facebook fan page.

Welcome to Interactive Narratives 2.0, a site designed to capture the best of online visual storytelling around the country and the world. Unlike the original IN, submission to the database is open to the membership of Interactive Narratives. And members can also rate and make comments on individual entries. A sort functionality allow users to list those interactives focused on their preference or craft. Our goal is to highlight rich-media content, engaging storytelling, and eye-popping design in an environment that fosters interaction, discussion, and learning.

Interactive Narratives has the best database for this type of material out there.  With IN 2.0, we’ve retained the ability to search past multimedia stories from the original database. Now, it will only get better with the community contributing to this knowledge base. IN2.0 will truly be a gathering place for multimedia storytellers. It’s not just a place for professionals but also freelancers, students and citizen journalist. The site will go beyond the critiques. The site will go beyond collecting the blog postings into one space. Interactive Narratives will gather those storytellers that care about the high-standards of their narratives.

I agree with Andrew. IN is one of the best resources I’ve found for examples that I use constantly in classes and consulting work. And now that it’s back with the backing of the Online News Association, it’s worth visiting often.

Via PaidContent, the Center for Social Media at American University has published a “Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video.”

More and more, video creation and sharing depend on the ability to use and circulate existing copyrighted work. Until now, that fact has been almost irrelevant in business and law, because broad distribution of nonprofessional video was relatively rare. Often people circulated their work within a small group of family and friends. But digital platforms make work far more public than it has ever been, and cultural habits and business models are developing. As practices spread and financial stakes are raised, the legal status of inserting copyrighted work into new work will become important for everyone.

Definitely worth a read as you deal with online video and what’s appropriate use.