Today, Ars embraces the age of moving images with the launch of Ars.TV, sponsored by Canon. To celebrate, we’re holding a science video contest and will provide the grand prize winner with a Canon EOS 7D. Not only does the EOS 7D shoot great video, it also happens to be a fantastic DSLR. The grand prize winner will also score a Premier subscription to Ars. A runner up will take home a Best Buy Gift Certificate worth $500 as well as a Premier subscription.

Deadline for entries is Dec. 25, so get to shooting.

Here’s a video that explains how to make a cool science video.

Print Friendly

Among the winners, CMS used:

• WordPress: 11*
• CollegePublisher: 4
• Drupal: 3
• Ellington: 1
• Joomla: 1
• Homegrown: 3
• Hand-coded HTML: 1

*The College Heights Herald recently moved to TownNews, but their site was on WordPress when they were judged, so they count as a WordPress site for statistical purposes.

Other notes: Two of the Drupal sites are from the same college news organization (the Daily Illini and the217.com), and both of Swarthmore’s winners were homegrown, but different organizations. The HTML hand-coded site was from Spokane Falls Community College.

I would encourage people not to read too much into the numbers. Good journalism is not CMS-dependent, as I’ve said before.

Below the fold is a screen shot with the CMS noted above each site. I added the CMS name – it’s not on the ACP web site.

Print Friendly

The collegiate Online Pacemakers were announced this weekend in Austin at the National College Media Convention. I am pleased to report that dennews.com, the Daily Eastern News’ web site, was among the winners (as was OUDaily, pictured above). Lots of good sites to check out for ideas and inspiration. Congrats to all the winners and finalists.

Print Friendly

uwemp and United Press International are sponsoring a National Student Journalism Contest with a $500 prize:

What matters to you most at this critical time in your life? Submit a 400- to 800-word article on one of the following topics:

• • A key racial, gender or sexual issue either on your own campus or at another college across town or across the country
  • A controversial national political topic about which you have strongly held beliefs and possible solutions
  • An influential role model in a passionate field of interest—anything from sports to music, business to politics and beyond

_________________

In a “reality TV” vein, the Washington Post is looking for “America’s Next Great Pundit” with the winner getting to spout their opinions on the Washington Post op-ed page along with the likes of David Broder, Richard Cohen, Charles Krauthammer and other beltway bloviators.

Use the entry form to send us a short opinion essay (400 words or less) pegged to a topic in the news and an additional paragraph (100 words or less) on yourself and why you should win. Entries will be judged on the basis of style, intelligence and freshness of argument, but not on whether Post editors agree or disagree with your point of view. Entry deadline: Oct. 21, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

_________________

As if to dovetail with those contests, here are some related items I’ve read recently relating to blogging.

Amy Gahran provides some good advice for potential bloggers: Don’t be boring.

Just don’t be boring, and focus on getting to the “so what” to immediately establish relevance.

Also, show some personality and a sense of humor. Conversation is this core of this medium, and people are more likely to engage with you when you act human and approachable.

This is one of the things that separates blogging from writing for print or other mass media: the personal voice and response. It’s hard for someone brought up on the “authoritative voice” of the traditional media writing style to break out of that style to write for a blog, but not impossible. It’s also a balancing act for a reporter to engage with readers in the comments section of a blog. I hate it when reporters write blog posts and have nothing to do with the commenters. It’s a time suck, but it builds engagement.

_________________

And the Atlantic has a story about The Rise of the Professional Blogger.

Benjamin Carlson argues that blogging has undergone a professionalization that limits the democratizing ability of this format of publication.

As the medium has become more popular, money has flowed in. And while no one would deny that blogging has lowered the barriers to self-publication by average citizens, the free-wheeling fraternal spirit of blogging has become increasingly subject to market disciplines. As a result, as Web critic Nicholas Carr told me, blogging has evolved to become “a lot more like a traditional mass medium.”

This is not really surprising, as anyone who knows the history of alternative music knows. Any medium gets co-opted by monied interests in their attempts to increase their credibility with different audiences.

Print Friendly

Photo by Flickr user cole24 used with Creative Commons permission.

Previously announced results are viewable here. There are still two categories to be announced, hopefully this week.

Judges were allowed to choose as many winning entries as they wished, and they could provide comments or not. I would encourage everyone to read through the comments, because there is some good advice in there for college journalists.

Thanks to all who entered, and thanks to the judges who participated as well. And congratulations to the winners.

Multimedia Journalist of the Year

Stephen Peters, The Shorthorn, University of Texas-Arlington
Comments: Stephen has demonstrated a commitment to and excellence in a wide variety of media such as podcasts, video and traditional text. The combination of approaches elevates his sports reporting and is the essence of multimedia journalism.

Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3

Runner-up: Catherine Cheney, Yale Daily News

Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3

Best Overall Multimedia
General Comments: Lots of content by lack of comments indicates that social media should be used more prominently. Don’t just rely on comments alone. Let users post to Facebook and other sites.

Top picks in order:
1. Mustang Daily, Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo
Great use of social media tools, clean layout, easy to navigate.

2. Daily Eastern News, Eastern Illinois University
Lots of content – easy to find. Excellent use of multimedia channels.

3. Mason Votes, George Mason University
Smart, clean layout. Not the best tag cloud (WordPress plugin, it looks like?) – hard to click on tags. Showing random XHTML code in some entries.

Print Friendly