I’ve added three new plug-ins to the site based on some browsing through the CoPress WordPress plug-in wiki page recommendations. I hope these plug-ins will add to the usability of the site. Please leave a comment or send me some feedback if you like or dislike them.
Expanding Text: This is a plug-in that uses Javascript to hide certain content on the front page, and allow you to click and show the content if you want to read the full content of the post. The key here is that the plug-in expands the post on the front page, so the browser doesn’t have to load a whole new page with the full text of the post.
Print Friendly: This plug-in allows you to reformat the text in a format that doesn’t waste paper when you want to print out a blog post for future reference or handouts or whatever. Often, when I print out a blog post on someone’s blog, the header, footer and sidebars get printed as well as the actual content. This wastes paper with stuff you don’t need or want in the printed version. The button is at the bottom of the post.
Twitter Tools: I’m trying this one out to see how it works. This is supposed to integrate Twitter into your admin area of a WordPress site, so Twitter will be updated when you publish new content. It also shortens URLs using bit.ly, adds hashtags, and excludes categories.
Finally, just a reminder: At the bottom of each post is this button:
This button allows you to suggest edits, grammar and spelling corrections to the post author using Editz (formerly known as GooseGrade). Feel free to use it if I make a mistake. I will regret the error.
Last week, I was able to talk via Skype with Dan Reimold of College Media Matters. We talked iPad, the ACU iPad app, and some news about CICM itself. hope you’ll listen. We’re thinking about continuing this, so let us know if you think we should keep talking or just shut up and blog.
Housekeeping note: I’ve changed the format of the blog back to an earlier template. Those of you who’ve been reading for a while will notice something familiar. While the Mimbo theme we were using was a pretty good magazine-style theme, there were some bugs, and until I find a magazine theme I like better, we’re reverting to a traditional blog-style theme.
Tonight, I get to find out what is “The Future of Journalism.” I’m excited! I’ll let you know what I find out soon. In the meantime, here are some curated links to tide you over:
Recently, I was on a plane flying back to St. Louis from a two-day workshop at The Daily Toreador at Texas Tech. (I say 2-day – thanks to the airlines and the weather, it was a little less, but that’s a story for another time).
Thinking back on it, I just realized the feeling I usually get when I do these workshops – it’s like opening Pandora’s box. Because I never just talk about audio or video. I always walk through all the other free and easy to use online tools that are available to tell a story online.
I’m so used to seeing all these tools and seeing possibilities to use them that I guess they almost seem mundane in a way.
but when I unpack them in front of a group of students who have never seen an online timeline, or known how easy it is to create a map or edit a piece of audio, I get a glimpse of the magnitude of the vista that is out there for some young journalist who wants to explore online storytelling. It can be intimidating.
That’s why I always repeat the advice I first gave several years ago – pick one thing and learn how to do it well. Don’t worry about the entire river, just find one current to surf for a while. After you’ve got a handle on that, then move to something else.
Everyone will settle on something different, but the crucial part is to get going.
This weekend, I’ll be in Phoenix for ACP’s National College Journalism Convention preaching the multimedia gospel again.
Please welcome Dave Hon, online editor for the Griffon News, as the Spring 2010 CICM intern. You can read more about him here. I look forward to his contributions over the remainder of the semester.
Flickr photo Creative Commons licensed via adpowers
The pitch: How would you like to learn new media skills while having a positive impact on the college media environment? Join us for a semester of new media opportunity as the intern for the Center for Innovation in College Media for Fall 2009.
Who you are: A bright, dedicated college journalist who wants to help lead the discussion of how technology and online media can improve college media. Internship is open to international students as well (i.e., those outside the United States).
What you’ll do: Help maintain the Innovation in College Media weblog by producing relevant content that highlights what college media are doing in a changing media environment. The possibilities for editorial production are limited only by your imagination and energy. Some of the possibilities:
Podcast interviews with media movers and shakers.
Reviews of college media online initiatives.
Maps and databases of college media online sites.
Live video streams of conferences and/or interviews.
Round-ups of relevant new media writing.
And more.
Skills: Social media savvy (Twitter, friendfeed, etc.), video and audio (soundslides, mogulus or ustream), blogging (WordPress), college journalism (worked as a college journalist, familiar with college media environment).
Location: Wherever you are. I operate from Charleston, IL, Chris Carroll operates from Nashville, TN, but you can operate from anywhere you have a computer and Internet access.
Start/End Dates: Start date is Feb. 8. End date is end of May, 2010. Hours: As far as hours, it’s really open-ended. You can do some awesome work with minimal hours, or a lot of hours and a minimum of ROI (return on investment). Seriously, it’s all up to you. My goal is for you to succeed.
Pay: We don’t have a lot of money, but we can offer a $500 stipend and a heckuva recommendation letter from yours truly when you’ve finished the race. We’ll make a badge available as well that you can post on your blog or web site. About the site: ICM is part of the non-profit Center for Innovation in College Media, and is read by numerous college journalists, advisers, and industry folks.
How to apply: Send a copy of your resume and a 250-word essay (or post on your weblog or web site, even better) explaining what ideas you have for the site to me at scmurley@gmail.com. Include links to any multimedia you have produced in the past.
Be forewarned – I will be posting a poll for readers to vote on who is the best potential intern (results will be viewable only by me). However, the ultimate decision on the intern is made by the CICM directors. The winner’s name will be posted after they have been notified and accepted the internship.
Editor’s note: This is a re-post of something I wrote in 2007. I was following some referral logs yesterday, and came across a post by Len Witt about students who want to be great writers. We’ve had a lot of readers come and go in the past three years, so I wanted to repost this for our new readers. As far as I can tell, this is still reality. And be sure to follow the conversation in Len Witt’s subsequent post. The comments are actually civil and thought-provoking.
Meranda Watling posted a comment on an earlier post that I wanted to highlight:
I’ve heard peers say they didn’t get into journalism to blog, to take pictures, to come up with multimedia, to do whatever. They want to write. The other stuff “isn’t that someone else’s job?” or today, another reporter (23-yo recent grad) commented, “why don’t they just hire TV reporter to do the video?” *sigh* Me? I want to hand them a white towel and tell them to surrender now and get out before they get left behind.
I have a confession to make: I was one of those kids. When I was in college – John Tisdale, journalism professor at TCU can attest – I didn’t learn photography because “I want to be a writer.” I focused on editing, writing and gathering information. I neglected the business aspects of the news media. I diligently sent photo requests to the photo department in my first job.
But after I got out of college, I spent time working at a small-town newspaper, where I had to learn how to lay out pages using QuarkXpress. I learned how to take and develop photographs in a darkroom (back when we had to use film). I delivered the papers and collected the change from the racks, and drove the pages to the printer in another town 40 minutes away.
I didn’t do this because I was some kind of “new media guy,” but because it kept me employed. It paid the bills, and made the paper successful. I learned a valuable lesson then – the most versatile journalist has the most job security. It’s served me well over the ensuing years. When the FW Star-Telegram special sections manager wanted volunteers to learn HTML, I was the only one who signed up. When photography was transitioning from film to digital, I was learning all I could. When they needed someone to run the offset press during grad school, I raised my hand.
A wise professor in my Ph.D. program once remarked that the last words he would hear from an employee was “that’s not my job.” I think that’s the right mindset for journalists in the 21st century. It is your job, damnit. Stop acting like a prima donna. If you’re going to be part of the solution to the challenges facing journalism, then you’re going to have to learn to do some “extra” things. Is that going to suck at times? Sure. But you can either buck up and help save journalism or you can whine and join the ranks of the unemployed.
Print (or broadcast, for that matter) isn’t always the best way to tell a story. And that’s what it all boils down to: telling stories.
Updated content: Based on the subsequent discussion, I should qualify that being willing to expand your “toolkit” doesn’t mean you shouldn’t focus on one aspect of your skills. Be the best writer/photographer/designer you can be. But don’t be defined by your unwillingness to try and learn new skills.
Flickr photo Creative Commons licensed via adpowers
This was a very hard competition to judge, but Jenna Staul is our new Intern. She should be posting a welcome message later today, and we look forward to her contributions to the site. For those who didn’t win, we encourage you to come back and apply again. I wish I had the money to fund all of our applicants.
Alright, as I promised, you the faithful readers of the ICM weblog get to have some input into the intern application process. Here is a list of the intern applicants with their application essays. You get a vote, but you don’t get to see the vote (because I’m trying to be cognizant of the applicants’ feelings) and the final decision still rests with the CICM leadership. Poll is at the bottom of this post. So here goes – in no particular order:
Jenna Staul – Kent State University (Click the link to read her essay)
Sarah Wyland, University of Tennessee – Knoxville
Essay:
As someone who is interested in online journalism, I believe I would have a lot to offer Center for Innovation in College Media. Some ideas I have for the CICM site include even more utilization social media such as Twitter and Facebook and including more photographic material by using sites such as Flickr, as well as blog posts on new ideas in media I gather from both my studies and my experiences. I am an avid user of Twitter and Facebook and also use Publish2 for my website, www.countrymusicnewstoday.com so I feel like I have a lot of knowledge on social media.
The University of Tennessee offers me many opportunities to learn more about what is happening in the media industry, particularly the movement towards online content. I would like to blog about the information I learn not only from attending panel discussions offered by Tennessee’s journalism program but also about information from my classes. For example, I am currently enrolled in a class on online journalism and the information I am learning is brand new in the media world, something I feel would be beneficial to other college students entering the media field. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was a recent topic we discussed and that is not a topic that is widely taught to my knowledge – this class was the first I heard of it.
Podcasting and audio slide shows are two particular areas I am interested in working with. Ideas I have for podcasts include, again, topics from classes and panels, but also information I find. I am often the first in my circle of friends to find and try new media and I have recently discovered some new sites I would love to share with others.
I would really like the opportunity to work with CICM. I believe that I not only have a lot to offer but have a lot to learn. This would be an excellent opportunity for me to develop my skills as an online journalist and I appreciate the chance to apply for this internship.
Lance Conzett, Belmont University
Essay:
The problem with many industry blogs is that they’re on the outside looking in. Because I’m currently the editor, and have previously been the online editor, of a student newspaper, I can discuss the issues affecting college media because I’m constantly having that conversation with faculty advisors, fellow journalists and practically anyone else who will listen. We’re dealing with how to manage an online product with a print product, how to engage an audience, how to promote multimedia use and creative storytelling without burning out writers, and countless other factors on a daily basis. Granted, the paper that we work on is small, but it doesn’t matter what size the media outlet is—we’re all having the same problems. I think that being able to bring those conversations to the blog would help ground discussions of innovation.
In addition to accounts of what we’re doing as a student media group (successes and failures), I’d be happy to continue to share new media innovations and how they can be applied in a campus setting. For instance, I just ran across Vuvox today and am trying to figure out how it could perhaps be used for future stories. I have no problems with using the newspaper I edit as a Petri dish for cutting edge technologies; I would be doing it anyway except with the CICM internship, I’ll be able to share the results with the blog’s audience.
Ryan Thomas, Bridgewater State College
Essay:
I can contribute my passion for the media-based arts to the website with my particular bent for being rather skeptical about what headlines the mainstream music industry. I support human-based music consisting of manually operated instruments (as well as the talent behind such) and strongly believe the industry, currently geared and advertized as being more visually appealing than sonically, is losing its authenticism by the wheel-barrow full(if it had any to begin with). But more so lately, good-sounding music seems to be pushed with forceful intent to the back burner (I defy Rolling Stone labeling Lil’ Wayne, in his shamefully unironic cover issue, as a musical genius, alongside every other hack dubbed as such by their excessively loose- lipped editorial staff). I would like to provide the dissenting voice of the lesser heard and underappreciated listener of rock that need not rely on heavy gimmickry and adherence to popular conformity.
I am an active spectator when it comes to keeping up with entertainment news (especially in music); I like to know what I’m consuming should I decide to slug down everything the entertainment industry excretes at the same rate as my gluttonous college peers (I typically don’t have so competitive an appetite). As a guitarist and writer, I am prone to such an obsession. I seek quality in every detail. I, hence, am actively involved with media on a daily basis from a dichotomous perspective: as auteur and voyeur.
I would like to be an intern for your website as it appeals to my interest in such matters and developments associated with media technology, and experience is in no short demand as I bait myself before an over-stuffed job market. I keep up with and am familiar with most contemporary platforms for online interaction (Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, etc.) as a 21-year-old senior at Bridgewater State College and English Major; I realize my interest in journalism, especially in these modern times of economic depravity, requires me to be so tech-savvy for fear of the newspaper’s mortality. Thanks for the consideration.
With the success of our first intern, Lauren Rabaino, it’s time for another round of the CICM internship program.
MAJOR UPDATE: Because I will be at the ONA Conference this weekend, the deadline is extended until Monday, October 5.
Details:
UPDATE: Just so we’re clear, this internship is open to international students too.
The pitch: How would you like to learn new media skills while having a positive impact on the college media environment? Join us for a semester of new media opportunity as the intern for the Center for Innovation in College Media for Fall 2009.
What you’ll do: Help maintain the Innovation in College Media weblog by producing relevant content that highlights what college media are doing in a changing media environment. The possibilities for editorial production are limited only by your imagination and energy. Some of the possibilities:
Podcast interviews with media movers and shakers.
Reviews of college media online initiatives.
Maps and databases of college media online sites.
Live video streams of conferences and/or interviews.
Round-ups of relevant new media writing.
And more.
Skills: Social media savvy (Twitter, friendfeed, etc.), video and audio (soundslides, mogulus or ustream), blogging (WordPress), college journalism (worked as a college journalist, familiar with college media environment).
Location: Wherever you are. I operate from Charleston, IL, Chris Carroll operates from Nashville, TN, but you can operate from anywhere you have a computer and Internet access.
Start/End Dates: Start date is toward the middle of October. end date is middle of January.
Hours: As far as hours, it’s really open-ended. You can do some awesome work with minimal hours, or a lot of hours and a minimum of ROI (return on investment). Seriously, it’s all up to you. My goal is for you to succeed.
Pay: We don’t have a lot of money, but we can offer a $500 stipend and a heckuva recommendation letter from yours truly when you’ve finished the race. We’ll make a badge available as well that you can post on your blog or web site.
About the site: ICM is part of the non-profit Center for Innovation in College Media, and is read by numerous college journalists, advisers, and industry folks.
How to apply: Send a copy of your resume and a 250-word essay (or post on your weblog, even better) explaining what ideas you have for the site to me at scmurley@gmail.com. Be forewarned – I will be posting a poll for readers to vote on who is the best potential intern (results will be viewable only by me) with the winner posted here in the future.
Housekeeping note: I’ve changed the format of the blog back to an earlier template. Those of you who’ve been reading for a while will notice something familiar. While the Mimbo theme we were using was a pretty good magazine-style theme, there were some bugs, and until I find a magazine theme I like better, we’re reverting to a traditional blog-style theme.
Recently, I was on a plane flying back to St. Louis from a two-day workshop at 
Please welcome Dave Hon, online editor for the 
