October 20, 2010 in blogging, College Media
Congrats to Dan Reimold, College Media Matters blogger, for an appearance on ABC’s Nightline this week. You can view the episode (sadly, they don’t allow embedding) here.
Maybe I’m just cranky, or I’m just burned out on the breathless reporting that exemplifies so much of “investigative journalism” on TV, but the story itself seemed to be the result of a lot of nostalgia for a past that never existed.
July 16, 2010 in Academics, blogging, College Media, Student voices
Brian Manzullo, late of the Central Michigan University Central Michigan Life student newspaper, has written a thought-provoking blog post with the enticing title: Three things I dare journalism students to do before they graduate. Hey, it’s a dare, right? So I’m going to piggy-back on Brian’s post and propose that j-profs engage in these activities as well. This post is specifically *not* geared toward administrative staff or students involved in campus media on the student services side of the spectrum, although the thoughts could be adapted to serve those readers as well.
1. Propose major curriculum adjustments to your journalism school – and get support:
Some of my own thoughts: I’m sick of seeing online media as an option, or a track, in the journalism degree. Online media should be a requirement. Media law should still be a class, but it also should be taught to various degrees in other classes. Social media should be taught, but as a universal topic (because who knows what we’ll be using 3-4 years down the road). Experience at a student newspaper or internship should count as credit.
I’m happy to say that Eastern Illinois University‘s journalism department overhauled part of its curriculum two years ago to require all journalism students have a basic class in multimedia reporting. I agree with Brian’s sentiments there. In fact, I’d say any journalism school that isn’t requiring a course in multimedia reporting at this stage of the game is doing a disservice to its students.
If your journalism department doesn’t require a course in multimedia reporting (at least hyperlinking, blogging, audio and video-based reporting), you need to be pushing for that requirement.
Unfortunately, academic bureaucracy moves slowly, so it may take a couple of years for the course and curriculum to be approved. But every delay puts you that much more behind the curve.
Brian’s second point hints at integration of skills into other classes. This is more problematic, as there are several hurdles that must be overcome. First, many classes are already packed with material. When I taught beginning newswriting, we never finished covering all the topics that were covered in the textbook. Adding multimedia/social media skills to that mix will be a challenge. Also, professors may not feel comfortable with the software/terminology or what constitutes “good” work in these areas.
At Eastern, we have a campus technology center that provides tutorial classes for students across campus on some basic computer programs. If you’re tasked with trying to integrate “new” media into your class, you might check and see if your campus provides similar opportunities. This fall, I’m requiring my multimedia students to attend a tutorial class on basic Final Cut Express skills, for instance.
For a basic writing class, instructors could – at the very minimum – require students to submit a certain number of hyperlinks to related content with all of their stories.
Other ways to integrate new media into another class can be as elementary as creating a class wiki, or requiring students to write blog posts, or following certain politicians or celebrities on Twitter and study the ways these individuals use the platform.
2. Form a news startup online and compete with the student newspaper:
This is a bit more tricky for some professors who also serve as advisers to student newspapers (like several of our faculty at Eastern). When do you stop encouraging students to innovate and explore new avenues of coverage and start cannibalizing your other media outlets?
Joe Gisondi, a colleague at Eastern, had an interesting twist on this last year in his sports reporting class. Rather than compete with the Daily Eastern News by having his students do stories about Eastern athletics, he set up a site specifically for the local high school. The students got to experience online sports coverage in a way that didn’t directly compete with the campus sports writing staff.
Obviously, on a larger campus, with more j-students, an online site that competes with the campus media outlets might be much less of a conundrum. Either way, engaging students to think like entrepreneurs is a good thing. And crossing the professor/student divide to collaborate on such a project can have myriad intellectual benefits for all parties involved.
3. Form a network of students that meets regularly to discuss readings and projects:
It’s simple: Get a group of awesome young journalists together (and maybe a professor or two, if you’re so inclined) and think of a good time during the week where everyone can spend one to two hours in a room together.
I would amend Brian’s proposal a bit and suggest that you form a network of forward-thinking journalists (professors and students) to meet regularly and discuss readings and projects.
I have benefited tremendously from my interactions with the CoPress gang, for instance (at one point they were meeting weekly on Sundays). And at times, I’d like to hope that I’ve challenged their thinking enough that they considered some things that you might not see from a student’s perspective.
This could be a problem if students use the time to complain about professor so-and-so’s lecture style, or a class project deadline.
But if the focus is really on improving the educational environment, and growing through the inclusion of different, challenging ideas, then I think both professors and students could benefit from a group like Brian suggests. Brian also has some great suggestions for different activities that could be included in such a group.
We’re all in this together
At times, I get disheartened when I see blog posts like the one I’m responding to, because I get a sense that students think journalism professors are all about hindering the progress that could be made if only the students could shake things up. There is – undoubtedly – some of that. But I’ve experienced the opposite effect at times as well – students who are too set in their print/tv/radio ways to really embrace the myriad ways the Internet can improve journalism.
It’s not an either/or proposition. I know many journalism professors who are earnestly working to better j-education, just as are many students. And I tend to think we’d get farther if we could work at this together to break through whatever barriers exist in the minds of other j-profs, j-students, or j-pros.
Are there other things j-students and j-profs might be doing beyond those listed above? Please feel free to comment.
June 10, 2010 in blogging
While most people think college professors and student media advisers(and k-12 teachers) spend the summer lolly-gagging around doing nothing, that’s not usually the case. After a school year spent in the trenches of teaching, grading, advising, attending committee meetings, presenting workshops, attending conferences, and doing all sorts of other things, summer is a time to catch up on some of the niggling affairs of professional life that get put off during the school year.
So here’s a list of some things that you can do over the summer to prepare for the new year. Some of these are directly related to “work,” but others are meant to provide a little extra inspiration for the new year. This is really more my own list of resolutions, but it might be useful for others as well, so take it for what it’s worth to you.
So there you have it. Eight things you can do this summer that will likely make your return at the beginning of the new school year a new adventure.
I sometimes tell my students that the beauty of the academic world is that you go to class for 15 weeks, struggle through the material, and then it’s over. You get a fresh slate next semester. The “real” world doesn’t work that way.
Any other suggestions for summer projects? Leave a comment.
March 8, 2010 in blogging
Here are a few links to some “meta” discussion specifically about blogging – blogs about blogs – that I’ve come across recently. And all were recommended by one blogger.
They contain some excellent advice and tips if you are interested in the topic, or looking for ways to improve your own blogging skills.
Via John Haydon
Also, Problogger.net
January 21, 2010 in blogging, Links
Housekeeping: I’m in the midst of heavy revision of my dissertation draft, so posting will likely be light over the next few weeks unless something big breaks.
Reminder: Feb. 1 is the deadline for applications for the Spring 2010 CICM internship. $500 stipend. Work from anywhere. Write about the future of college media.
Via Doug Fisher, journalists and PR experts scrum over how to handle a press conference about new USC football coach Lane Kiffen when he left U. of Tennessee after one year. I especially like the point where the PR guy says, “just remember, you’re in our building.” The University of Tennessee is a public institution.
Updating Flash Journalism (Part 2) – Mindy McAdams details some of the steps a journalist should take if she wants to learn Flash CS4, since Mindy isn’t going to be updating the excellent Flash Journalism. Worth a read. And here’s a link to Part 1.
The Right to Link – Jeff Jarvis takes down Rupert Murdoch’s silly campaign to exsanguinate the Internet by disallowing links to News Corp. web sites.
Linking is not a privilege that the recipient of the link should control – any more than politicians should decide who may or may not quote them. The test is not whether the creator of the link charges (Murdoch’s newspapers will charge and they link). The test is whether the thing we are linking to is public. If it is public for one it should be public for all.
It is always baffling to me how journalists want to wrap themselves in the mantle of a free press when it benefits them financially, but refuse to practice the sort of openness they preach about for elected officials. You can read more at right2link.org.
Mark Johnson: Failing faster – Daniel Bachhuber sums up a talk given at ICANN about experimentation and innovation. This summary should be familiar to readers of this blog:
There’s a difference between innovating and creating. Innovating is trying new things. Instead of covering the council meeting and writing about it, bring an audio recorder, a couple of microphones, and try to tell the whole story without using your own voice. That’s innovating. Creating, however, is about developing a routine that makes you prepared to produce. Technique isn’t creativity. The people who know all of the ins and outs of Photoshop, but can only produce within the scope of the assignment aren’t creative enough.
Too often in the day-to-day grind of producing a newspaper, the routine becomes preparation to produce what you’ve produced in the past. Even if what you’ve produced is “new” media. The challenge is to incorporate fresh ways to tell stories into your routine.
Notes on the Cleverness Economy – Ryan Sholin uses the humorous aspects of Twitter to make a point about the news business today. And it’s a really good point:
“Breaking News” is the treadmill. It’s the “flow” that keeps your audience engaged, coming back, checking your site or your blog, turning on the TV, visiting your national news site on their phone first thing in the morning to check if anything has blown up overnight, subscribed to your hyperlocal blog’s e-mail updates, checking their RSS feeds to see what’s new. And that’s crucial to building and engaging online news consumers.
But it doesn’t last. The stuff that does last? The most obvious answers include investigative and enterprise reporting, but I think there’s room these days for great infographics and data visualizations, too. For example, I’ve gone back to this New York Times piece on the 2008 Democratic primaries more than a few times over the last year, sometimes for political reference, and sometimes just to demonstrate the sort of displays of information that interest me these days.
Recommended: Find the balance, online producer, between churning out a steady stream of content and taking time to build something of lasting value beyond the next few hours.
I’d say the same applies to bloggers, educators, students, etc. Writing a quick hit blog post is relatively easy to do (I’m doing it now!), but there should be content that explores the boundaries and implications of what’s going on in your area of expertise as well.
What we won’t learn from the New York Times’ paywall – Steve Yelvington is one of many who have or will be commenting about the new effort by the Times to get blood out of the Internet turnip (see here for links to other discussion). Yelvington is usually pretty lucid and informative, so his take is worth a look. While it’s nice to discuss the effort of the “paper of record,” the implications for smaller newspapers are less than you’d know if you just read journoblogs all day.
From an unpaid intern: Are unpaid internships a necessary evil? – Chris Dunn posits the question based on a discussion over the fall break about the issue.
My take: No. SATSQ (simple answer to simple question).
The businesses who offer unpaid internships are taking advantage of the marketplace to get work done for nothing. Free work that they wouldn’t expect from a “professional.” Part of the problem with American society in general is that we don’t value labor enough, and free internships don’t help. I realize broadcasters have been using free interns for years. But that doesn’t make it right. I should expand on this thought sometime.
January 17, 2010 in blogging, College Media, General Media, industry news, innovation
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that upstart student blogs are challenging their more established newsaper counterparts.
The article takes a look at how fledgling blogs at many universities are causing headaches for campus broadsheets — scooping stories, attracting online readers, and not to mention wooing advertisers.
From the Chonicle:
… (Student blogs) are challenging student newspapers in Web hits, says Daniel R. Reimold, a visiting assistant professor of journalism at Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore, who studied nearly a dozen online student news outlets for a 2008 College Media Review article. Readers devour these sites. College officials fret over them. And competitors carp about their edgy methods, which sometimes include a publish-it-now-correct-it-later approach to campus rumors.
Davis Shaver, a sophomore at Penn State, scoops the 200-staffed Daily Collegian, from the comfort of his PSU dorm room with his blog Onward State, which has a staff of 20 and touts itself as “one of the quickest and most informative places for Penn State students, faculty, staff and alumni to find the news that matters most to them.”
The article also discusses the success of NYU Local, a blog launched by senior journalism major Cody Brown and the more established North by Northwestern, founded in 2006.
This is not a universally applauded procedure. Rossilynne Skena, editor in chief of the Collegian, reads Onward State daily and says the competition makes her paper better. But she holds her staff to traditional standards like avoiding anonymous sources, preventing reporters from covering groups to which they belong, and vetting information before printing it.
“Bloggers can post anything,” she says, and they easily retract errors. “For us, getting something wrong is very egregious.”
Maybe so, but campus newspapers could take a few cues from their Web counterparts. As the Chronicle points out, few student blogs survive their founders’ graduation, but it’s certain that campus newspapers aren’t used to the competition. That competition could be what’s needed to help campus media thrive.
December 28, 2009 in blogging, career talk, Community, General Media, industry news, internships, social media
As student journalists master the different ways social media can be used to report news and strengthen a publication, tools such as Twitter, Facebook and personal blogging can play an important role in nabbing a job or internship.
Think of it this way — it’s a bit more complicated than just sending out a resume and hard-copy portfolio.
New media guru David Spinks says college journalists on a job search must develop a social media strategy to help separate themselves from droves of others on the prowl for a particular position. Spinks serves as the community manager for Scribnia.com, an online platform for both bloggers and readers, as well as the co-moderator of young professionals Twitter chat #u30pro.
“Social media provides a huge opportunity, ” Spinks said. “It provides an opportunity to build those connections that you wouldn’t have otherwise.”
A personal blog or portfolio site is a must-have for any aspiring journalist entering the job market. (Check out 10000words.net’s list of outstanding journalist portfolios).
“A blog has many values — you can write about anything, but it’s all about how you engage and connect with readers,” Spinks said. “It allows you to establish yourself and tell people about who your are.”
“It’s the differentiator between you and everyone else,” Spinks added.
Blogging frequently and with specific headlines to enhance search engine optimization is one key to attracting readers, but be sure to ask for reader feedback and to enable commenting on the site to create a dialogue.
A personal blog or portfolio site can serve as the corner stone to the online image that new journalists must shape, said Spinks.
“It’s really important that you shape a that image of yourself — that image that comes up when people seek you online,” Spinks said. “It’s up to you personally how you present yourself. Part of blogging and social networking is showing more of your personality and being more transparent. But then there’s the saying that you shouldn’t have anything online that you wouldn’t show your mother.”
Spinks advises that job seekers not to overlook the networking aspect of social networking, using sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to build relationships.
“You should purposely seek out those relationships,” Spinks said. “When I was out looking for a job after college I would seek out the people who worked for the company through social networking before I applied, before I sent out my paper resume and cover letter.”
For more professional new media tips check out Spinks’ blog at davidspinks.com or the #u30pro Twitter chat at 8 p.m. EST on Thursday.
October 2, 2009 in blogging
This post is a round-up of links to the sites Amy Webb mentioned in her session at ONA. I’m updating it as the links come along. This is a session about “10 tech trends.” The numbered items are the trends. She then mentions certain web sites or apps for the iPhone.
1. Real Time Web
Livestation – live tv stations (UK only right now).
Flock – social media web browser.
SamePoint – social media real time search.
SocialMention — social media real time search
Robo.to - 4-second video updates.
2. Light blogging
Tumblr – “light blogging” platform
Posterous – “light blogging. send updates via e-mail.”
3. Personalization
Pandora – music suggestion engine.
Bing – MS search engine.
CustomTimes – NYT customized application.
Interactive TV (iTV), Widgets
Set-top TV boxes with ability to use widgets built-in.
5. Identity Recognition
Midomi – music recognition software
Picasa – 3.5 update allows you to batch recognize people in your photos.
Face.com – recognition of photos without you identifying them. Creepy.
6. Augmented reality
living sasquatch – 3d example of augmented reality.
Yelp Monocle for iPhone
Wikitude – sends info to your iPhone using wikipedia content for the place you are in.
Robotvision – Augmented reality using Bing search.
7. User-Generated Sensor Data
8. MobiLife
#9: Geolocation 3.0
#10: The Internet of Things
Amy ran out of time, but provided a convenient page with all of the links listed above and more. Click here.
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September 30, 2009 in blogging, innovation
Paul Conley is one of my favorite media bloggers because he’s so honest. Unfortunately, he’s so busy that he doesn’t post as often as he used to. But when he does, the thinking is insightful. Like this post that he wrote a week ago: Is the Revolution Over?
Paul writes:
For a decade or so now the world of journalism has been one of ceaseless change and challenge. Consider, if you will, just some of the major technologies and practices we’ve adopted: external links, blogging platforms, mobile delivery, slideshows, podcasting, database reporting, RSS, email newsletters, Webcasts, Twitter, Facebook, search-engine optimization, etc.
Think, too, of the cultural changes we’ve made in our working lives as journalists: comments on articles, Creative Commons licenses, open-source software systems, user-generated content, revenue-sharing compensation plans, aggregated content, standalone journalists, etc.
It’s been a madcap series of never-ending developments. It’s been glorious and exciting. But I think it may be over.
Be honest. What was the last new development in journalism/publishing that you were truly excited about?
Twitter? Sure. It’s wonderful. But it’s hardly new. It launched in 2006! And it caught fire in 2007.
The iPhone? Yea. I love mine too. But it’s already more than two years old.
Read the whole thing.
Last weekend, I was talking with Mark Briggs and Robb Montgomery at the APME NewsTrain workshop, and we all noted the way that the discussion around the news industry online seems to circle back on itself every so often (oh, it’s micropayments! Again? commenters are so mean! meaner than six months ago when this conversation cropped up?).
Such circular discussions hint at the phenomenon Paul is talking about above. I don’t think the well of innovation is necessarily running dry, and I’m sure there are some pretty cool new software and hardware toys out there that will influence journalism of the future. But I’m also hopeful that some of the pace of change will slow down a little so journalists (and everyone, really) can get a better handle on the tools they have just received.
The next decade of news “innovation” may be spent more on perfecting the use of the tools that have recently been invented than with learning tools that haven’t been developed yet.
Of course, tomorrow I’m traveling to San Francisco for the Online News Association Convention, where I’ll be looking out for specific new tools or software that truly push the boundaries instead of remixing the now. Look for further updates as the weekend progresses.
September 30, 2009 in blogging, contests, industry news
First up, the contests:
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:
_________________
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.
