Miami U. consulting: the update report

Friday morning, I met with the webmaster, editor in chief, and business manager of the Miami Student. Friday afternoon I spoke to a room full of student journalists. The message was always the same, although they had different questions: You need to increase your web presence.

For the webmaster: Think about how to make the web site more attractive, adding web-only features (video, audio, source documents, hyperlinks) and push for reporters to turn those in with their stories.

For the Editor in Chief: Promote the web editor, who should be on the same level as the managing editor. Require section editors to take charge of their section on the web site. Look for ways to cross-promote the web product in the print edition.

For the student journalists: Start learning web skills, start collecting multimedia during the story reporting process. For editors, take ownership of the web site.

The last thing I told the students was this: The web site is everyone’s responsibility, just like the newspaper. Start treating it that way if you want to work in the 21st century.

All in all, I think it was a good day of consulting. I’m preparing a “road map” for the Student that will hopefully help them move forward on those things. As always, the intensity of interest among some students was heartening. I hope to highlight some of their efforts in the coming days.

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