Innovation in College Media

PBS’s MediaShift blog had some interesting insight to offer college newspapers in the wake of the New York Times’ predicted move to install a paywall on their site.

Specifically, the site urged student newspapers not to be lured into the promise of a paywall. While I’d say that’s sound advice, I’m not sure there is much legitimate . . . → Read More: PBS’s MediaShift blog offers advice to student newspapers

Abilene Christian University’s, The Optimist, will be the first student newspaper to publish on Apple’s much-talked-about iPad.  

From the Optimist:

Dr. Cheryl Bacon, chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, says students and faculty already are working to achieve the goal. A team of faculty and student researchers and developers from multiple departments at the . . . → Read More: First college newspaper to publish on iPad announced

It’s an easy trap to fall into for even the most well-intentioned newspaper Web site  – shovelware.

That’s shoveling a newspaper’s content onto a Web site during night production, refreshing the page only once daily — and it also happens to be my new media pet peeve.

News online should be fluid. Ideally, a news site should be . . . → Read More: Avoiding shovelware on your site

Popular news and blogging site The Huffington Post has announced it will launch a college news vertical on Feb. 15, tentatively. The vertical will feature aggregated news from college media as well as student blogs, according to Adam Clark Estes, citizen journalism editor for theHuffington Post.

Estes said  the news aggregator could help fill the void left . . . → Read More: The Huffington Post to Aggregate College News

It didn’t take Ryan Dunn, associate editor of Ohio University’s The Post, long to notice the absence of college media wire service U-Wire.

“We used to use (U-Wire) a lot for the opinion section, which I edit,” Dunn said. “We definitely noticed when we didn’t have that safety net for something to plunk into the section.”

U-Wire, . . . → Read More: Students Launch New Service in Absence of U-Wire

Web hosting service College Publisher recently re-revamped its Web site CollegeMediaNetwork.com as a content aggregator for CP’s vast network of college newspapers.

Rusty Lewis, College Media Network director, said after the company launched a new business-to-business site a year ago, CollegePublisher.com, CMN’s Web site was free to showcase “what the network of newspaper Web sites produced.”

Lewis said . . . → Read More: CP’s College Media Network Re-Launches As Aggregator

(Full disclosure, Jenna Staul attends Kent State University and has worked for the Daily Kent Stater and KentNewsNet.)

Student media leaders from the Iowa State University’s Iowa State Daily and Kent State University’s KentNewsNet gave insight into what makes their Pacemaker-award winning newspapers work, talking multimedia, collaboration and planning ahead.

KentNewsNet.com, Kent State University. Kristine Gill, Newsroom Coordinator.

Gill . . . → Read More: More Lessons from the Pacemakers

Photo by Flickr user cole24 used with Creative Commons permission.

I spent some time talking to winners of last month’s Pacemaker online awards to get their take on what makes a effective Web news outlet. If there was any consensus among these three student media leaders (the other two interviews from KentNewsNet and IowaStateDaily.com will be . . . → Read More: Lessons from last month’s Online Pacemakers