Dispatch from Bloomington

I just returned from a whirlwind three-day trip to Bloomington, Ind. and the Indiana Daily Student spring workshops, where I presented two sessions: “How to Own idsnews.com” and “Packaging News for the Web.” I spent a lot of time working on idsnews.com during my undergrad career, and it was a privilege to be invited back to speak to the students.

That being said, I have mixed feelings about the success of my visit.

My goal was twofold: (1) inspire the staff to acquire a sense of ownership for their site and (2) provide training that would show them how to produce quality web packages. First, I was disappointed in the lack of interaction I had with the editor-in-chief and the managing editors. I had hoped that the management team would talk to me about their goals for the semester, but they didn’t seek me out. Perhaps the management team had to focus on putting out the first print edition of the semester; at any rate, I hope they eventually spend some time thinking seriously about how to improve their web product.

Second, it was apparent that the staff had barely looked at online features that were released on idsnews.com. For instance, we looked at a fall 2006 feature about Jill Behrman, a student who was murdered in 2000. The students, many of whom were on staff last semester, quickly noticed that the first sentence was incomplete—it gets cut off at the word “the.” I tried to impress upon the students the significance of shoddy work regardless of the medium and stressed that people were absolutely viewing this page and noticing their mistake. To that end, I explained that online readership generally trumps local readership, and that their stories are likely being read more widely online than in print. The coverage of this story had been a point of pride for that semester’s staff, so I was disappointed that the same level of scrutiny undoubtedly maintained throughout their print coverage had not been applied to their online product.

Hope did come from my interaction with people “on the ground”—designers, writers, photographers, and (to a lesser extent) desk editors. I was able to teach an hour’s worth of XHTML/CSS to one of the design chiefs, and if she does good work with what I taught her, the entire trip will have been worth it. Additionally, I showed about 15 staffers (none of them managing editors) how to use Soundslides; the students loved how simple the program was to use. At the very least, I expect to see more Soundslides packages on idsnews.com this semester.

The online journalism message should be delivered as both a warning and an opportunity. An incredible disconnect exists between the expectations of student journalists and the changing reality of professional journalism. Lack of new media experience is not something to be proud of. We need to keep reminding these students that new media isn’t something they can continue to ignore—they do so at the peril of their future careers and to the detriment of their current readers.

I love the IDS, and believe that they—like other college papers—will eventually come around to investing in their online product. I hope the students I talked to at the IDS will take the seeds of new media I tried to plant this week and run with it.

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