Paul Bradshaw recently wrote a blog post entitled “How to be a journalism student.” The posting caused quite a stir in the journalism education blogosphere, so I contacted Paul to arrange an interview. Instead of IM, the interview was conducted via Skype audio. In the interview, we talk about the inspiration for Paul’s post, some of the criticisms it received, how journalists are trained in the U.K., what sorts of things he’s teaching students these days, and future plans for his site: Online Journalism Blog.

Here’s a link to the complete interview: Paul Bradshaw (mp3)

By reader request, I’ve broken the interview down into smaller chunks and will be posting those later this evening.

A couple of the links mentioned in the interview:

The News Diamond and the 21st century newsroom, and Part 2

How to Be a Journalism Student wiki

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I finished an interview with U.K. new media professor Paul Bradshaw this morning via Skype, and I have about 30 minutes of interview. My question to the audience: Would you rather have the interview as a single long mp3 to listen to, or as smaller chunks – about 5-10 minutes in length?

I’m taking advice in the comments.

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Note: A while back, I asked readers for suggestions of who I should interview next for the weblog. Lots of great suggestions, and I’m finally getting around to contacting folks. One of the more popular suggestions was Derek Willis, who works with data at washingtonpost.com. This interview was conducted Thursday, Oct. 3, 2007 via Instant Messaging. 

ICM: First off, maybe you could explain for the audience what you do at WaPo.

Willis: I’m a database editor at washingtonpost.com, which technically is a separate company from The Washington Post, the newspaper. I work on finding and gathering data, do a little coding of database applications and generally try to think of cool ideas we can execute.

Most of the apps that I work on are politics-related, but I also try to do other stuff.

ICM: We hear a lot about database-driven journalism these days from industry folks. Is this a more concerted effort than in the past, or are we just hearing about it more?

Willis: Probably both, I think. Database journalism has been around for several decades and has a small but loyal group of practitioners, mostly at newspapers. But the Web has opened up the playing field in several ways, the most significant being that we’re no longer constrained by the limitations of a printed paper or broadcast.

So we’re hearing more because there’s more data that’s accessible, but this is not a new movement in journalism. Many of us doing this now owe a great deal to people like Elliot Jaspin, Phillip Meyer, Steve Doig, guys like that.

ICM: You wrote on your weblog the other day: “But until and unless journalism schools show that data has any sort of importance to them, most journalism students only will be exposed to the possibilities, but not the actual process, of working with data on the Web.” How are you personally doing that at GWU, for instance. And what are some ways college media advisers could use to get students interested in the subject?

Willis: In the class I teach, I try to make as much of the data we work with as local as possible, meaning the campus and its surrounding environment. In practice, that means campus crime data, student demographic statistics, even data on the academic backgrounds of faculty. Sports is a huge opportunity for this type of work – almost noone gets closer to student-athletes than other students.

So, for advisors, I’d suggest thinking about ways to collect, analyze and display data that’s important to the college community, whether that’s crime reports or a log of all of the football team’s plays.

ICM: And let’s suppose that a student gets hooked on database-driven journalism, but they have no (or very little) training in that area, any suggestions for where they could get started?

Willis: Sure. Realizing that walking into the school’s computer science department with confidence isn’t always the easiest thing to do, I’d say that there are plenty of academic disciplines that use data all the time. So if a student knows a professor who does survey research, that’s usually database-oriented. Or political scientists who study election results or voter participation – they usually deal with datasets.

But the easiest and probably best way is to just start. Start keeping some information in a spreadsheet. Pretty soon you’ll learn how to deal with issues and problems. Then you’ll outgrow the spreadsheet and start looking around for a more robust solution.

Free or cheap database software and hosting is abundantly available, too, especially on university campuses. It’s a matter of asking for it.

ICM: How do you keep ideas coming for database projects?

Willis: One of the best ways for me is to read the paper or listen to the news and ask myself, “How do they know that?” whenever something interesting comes up. Or a matter of conventional wisdom. If you’re arguing with a friend over whether the basketball team always shoots more 3-pointers in the second half, well that’s measurable.

There are these things that “everybody knows” – where not to park, for example – and these things are largely based on anecdotal evidence.

I like trying to find ways to test out anecdotal theories.

ICM: For those who may be curious, what’s a good range of the turnaround time on projects you work on – and how many people get involved.

Willis: It varies pretty wildly. Yesterday I got handed something and finished it off, except for design, by today. Other projects take a week or several weeks. Our congressional votes database took Adrian Holovaty and I three months, with Adrian doing most of the work.

Designers are usually the first “other” people to be involved, outside the original source of the idea. And then you’ll get higher-level editors involved depending on the significance of the project.

ICM: what lessons have you learned over your career that might help college journalists in general, or specifically those who may be pursuing a career in your area of specialization. Like, “wow, I wish I’d know that when I was starting,” kind of things.

Willis: I think the first is to never assume that you can’t do this stuff, that databases are beyond the capabilities of college students. You have as much right and responsibility to do it as any other journalist.

The other thing is that as a journalist, you need to find out about sources of data on your beat. This is not a specialty thing anymore. If you don’t understand how the people or institutions you cover are using data, you won’t have a complete picture of what they are doing, and you’ll be at a disadvantage when it comes to evaluating their performance.

The use of data is an arms race, and journalists cannot dismiss it as “that techie stuff” anymore. So on every beat, find out how data is being used and try to replicate what you can in terms of being able to use it yourself.

ICM: That’s a very good point that I don’t know everyone has grasped yet.

Willis: it’s very difficult to explain, because it’s not transparently obvious. But if you’re a sports reporter, you know that the teams are using data and video to evaluate their opponents. You know that political candidates are doing the same with theirs. You know that police agencies use data more and more to justify budgets and patrol areas. It’s an increasingly important component of decision-making.

ICM: As someone who’s worked in the industry and with technology for a while, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the news”paper” industry? If so, why?

Willis: I’m optimistic for the long-term, but the short-term scares me a little bit, because I don’t know that we’ve seen the worst in terms of layoffs and budget cuts at papers.

I do think that newspapers in particular have a large role to play in society and that we can continue it, with a few adjustments for this new environment we’re in. But as readers transition online, leaving a smaller but fairly stable paper readership, we’ve got to figure out how to support the creation of journalism – how to pay for the valuable stuff we do.

And given our industry’s track-record when it comes to innovation, that does cause me some concern.

ICM: Finally, I ask this of everyone I interview: What’s one project you’ve worked on recently that you’d like to point people to as a showcase of your work. Any “back story” that would explain the project?

Willis: Hmm. Even though it’s now two years ago, it’s hard for me to not say our votes database, because I’m extremely proud of that app. Not just because of the public service it provides, which was a major reason we did it, but because it essentially launched database journalism apps at washingtonpost.com.

The funny thing about the votes database is that Adrian and I were able to build it because no one else really cared about the data – we didn’t ask for permission because I had gathered the data and it didn’t fall under anyone’s responsibilities. So we worked basically alone on it and then, just before it launched, we showed it off to people at washingtonpost.com and at The Post.

And it continues to serve as an illustration of good web apps in that we’re never done with it. A few weeks ago I added a particular slice of votes (approval of the House Journal) because I noticed some interesting patterns there.

I’m really, really proud of that app, and very lucky to have a guy like Adrian make it work.

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I’m throwing this out to the audience: who would you like to hear from?

As you know, in the past, we’ve had the opportunity to talk to some people I consider “heroes” in new media journalism. While I have my own list of folks I hope to interview in the future, I want to hear from you. Who else would you like to see subjected to the ICM IM interview format? Drop a suggestion in the comments and I promise I’ll start rolling on trying to make it happen.

Previous ICM interviews:

Regina McCombs, startribune.com multimedia producer:

http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2007/07/06/icm-interview-regina-mccombs-startribunecom-multimedia-producer/

Will Sullivan, interactive editor for Palm Beach Post:

http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2007/06/27/icm-interview-will-sullivan-aka-the-journerdist/

Ryan Sholin, Santa Cruz Sentinel:

http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2007/06/06/icm-interview-ryan-sholin/

Mindy McAdams, professor at U of Florida:

http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2006/08/21/reinventinginterviewmindymcadams/

Howard Owens, digital media guru for Gatehouse Media:

http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2007/01/15/icm-interview-howard-owens/

Rob Curley, Washington Post:

http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2007/03/02/icm-interview-rob-curley/

Jennifer Carroll, Gannett:

http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2007/04/14/blueprint-for-gannetts-future/

Angela Grant, San Antonio Express-News video producer:

http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2007/04/03/new-media-skills-better-job-prospects/

John Siegenthaler, journalism giant:

http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2007/03/31/seigenthaler-on-new-media/

Len Witt, director of the Public Journalism Network:

http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2006/06/14/opensourcereinventionaninterviewwithleonardwitt/

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Editor’s note: I interviewed Will Sullivan, who runs the widely read Journerdism weblog and also works as Interactive Projects Editor at the Palm Beach Post. Part of the interview was conducted via GTalk instant messaging, and the latter part via e-mail after technical glitches hit our IM session. Thanks to Will for taking the time to talk with me. UPDATE: glitches with importing the text for the interview have been fixed (hopefully).

ICM: First off, you recently participated in the NPPA multimedia summit in Oregon. What were the main things you took away from the experience that might be of interest to our audience?

Sullivan: Well, beyond some technical things I learned, the big lesson for me was that fundamentally, the shift to multimedia has happened. I mentioned this in my blog, but the interest away from still to video/multimedia formats is here, and here to stay. Even in the Q&A session with Carolyn Cole, one of the greatest photographers alive today, about half the questions from the audience was about what she thought about multimedia and her experience at the Immersion Seminar [she was one of the students].

We concentrated a lot on video and audio slideshows, but there was a lot of interest in Flash and other advanced storytelling methods. It’s a very exciting time to be involved in the media and to see the shift happening is really energizing.

ICM: Generally speaking, you’ve been working in new media for a while and watching what’s going on in various newsrooms. You mentioned that the “shift” has happened. Do you get the sense that it’s happened across newsrooms, or more specifically in the photoj area, which is obviously most directly affected by online/multimedia?

Sullivan: Yea, absolutely, staffers young and old across the land are really getting into new methods of storytelling (video, graphics, online chats, blogs, etc.). Interns and younger reporters really help drive this, but I’ve seen a lot of ‘established’ staff really embrace the web. There’s always going to be people who don’t want to adapt but they are warming to it and starting to understand that the core business of news/information has rapidly changed in the past 5-10 years and it will continue to morph and accelerate at an unheard of pace.

So while we still have the chance and we have all have all these cool new tools and ways to tell stories in different forms on the Web, they’re jumping on board. It’s kind of a viral thing, but it’s really exciting to be a part of and hear about it happening in newsrooms across the country.

And in newsrooms where there are voluntary buyouts, those that don’t get into it tend to take the buyouts and move on anyway. So it works out for everyone.

ICM: Quite a bit of discussion lately about whether programmers should learn journalism, or journalists should learn programming. Care to weigh in on that? Were you a journalist first? or a programmer?

Sullivan: Well, learning programming certainly doesn’t hurt. I think there’s about 12 journalist programmers in this country that can basically write their own ticket anywhere — Holovaty, Davis, Waite, Willis, Dance, Tamman, Szymanski, etc. – because they are awesome programming ninjas.

If someone begins studying journalism and they already have that background, then embrace it. We really need that skill, more than anything right now. But we still need a lot of new skills.

Do I think all journalists need to know how to program Python? It wouldn’t hurt, but that’s a bit much. We need experts that specialize.

For students coming out of school right now (or soon) I think they need to understand the potential of some of these applications and development environments. If they really get into and specialize in programming, that’s awesome. They’re incredibly more marketable than the next grad that just writes or just takes still images.

I’d say the same thing about CAR reporting. Or Flash programming. Or video shooting and editing. Or design. etc.

The key is to understand and at least try all of the areas, but focus and become an expert in a couple.

It comes down to the core problem of newsrooms getting smaller and needing more multi-skilled workers.

For me, I was a programmer before a journalist, but it was a few years apart. I was kind of a nerd in school and really got into BBS (bulletin board systems) at an early age. (This is before the Internet existed publicly.) Once I entered high school and was dissatisfied with my experience working at the school newspaper, I started my own underground paper.

I also got into video with my friends as a teen, just messing around with an old video camera my parents had. All those years of just doing these things for fun/nerd lust really are paying off now.

The point is, while you’re in school: DIY! Get your hands dirty in everything. Play with it. Understand it. And then specialize in the areas that you really have a natural talent.

ICM: A similar discussion has revolved around another controversial topic – high-end vs. low-end video cameras and who needs to learn what in terms of shooting, editing, etc. We get questions from advisers often about what equipment they should purchase. What’s your advice in that area?

Sullivan: Buy the best gear you can afford and focus on developing good storytelling and editing techniques.

The current state of the Internet bandwidth is pretty prohibitive to publish extremely high end stuff and unless you have some broadcast TV partners or some means of distributing full quality, a lot of that detail gets lost in compression.

When national broadband speed picks up (as in, REAL broadband, like most developed countries have, not 256k dsl or choked cable internet), then that’s another story, but given the current telecom monopoly’s stranglehold, I don’t see that changing anytime in the next two to five years.

I don’t think TV is the video model we should follow but we can definitely learn a lot from them in the workflow / quick turn / editing realm. So students, embrace any chance you can get to shadow a TV shooter. I learned a hell of a lot the few times I’ve done it.

Don’t get me wrong though, if you can afford it, get the great gear. I do think eventually we’ll all need to move to high-end equipment but if it’s a matter of getting one awesome camera versus four ok cameras, go with the four and work on your technical skills. Those don’t really cost tens of thousands of dollars and usually end up costing you time and what could have been quality footage.

And then once broadband or products like AppleTV take off, you’ll be skilled and ready to do great high-end work.

So the issue I’m much more concerned about is the lack of proper training, editing and opportunities for people to take gear out and fail. Failing while shooting and editing is part of the learning process. We need to realize that and allow staff resources to be devoted to it. I’ve seen so much reporter video that is a great effort but shouldn’t see the light of day. I’ve also seen lots of ‘high end’ video that really needs a re-edit.

I’m concerned about the bad experiences and bridges we may be burning with our audience over chasing a few hundred/thousand (depending on your site traffic) hits. What if half of those viewers get bored and decide not to click on your videos anymore?

Our fundamental strengths as part of the ‘mainstream media’ is our brand and with that comes an expectation of reliability, relevance and quality.

ICM: What do you see as the biggest challenges facing news journalists now that the “shift” to multimedia has taken place?

Sullivan: The biggest (impossible) challenge seems to be learning and evolving as the medium is still evolving and growing. Like we spoke about with the ‘should every reporter be a programmer?’ conundrum, it’s hard to say which basket to put all your eggs in. We need to be nimble, relevant and interesting. We need to keep evolving.

ICM: What advice would you give to college media outlets who wanted to get “ahead of the curve” to anticipate the future, instead of following the industry?

Sullivan: I don’t exactly have a silver bullet. In general, focus on producing quality work, remaining relevant and interesting when/where/however the audience wants your content. Watch how people interact with newspapers, the Internet, TV, radio — every from of media — and use that information to choose your battles / stories / site features wisely.

If you really want to get ahead of the curve, I have a feeling once uniform standards are developed for mobile platforms that industry will revolutionize everything the way the Internet changed print/tv/radio everyone’s habits. So jump on that train and ride it.

ICM: You’ve made quite a name for yourself as a blogger taking a little different approach than others like Ryan Sholin, for instance. how did you arrive at the format you use, and what advice would you give to students who were looking to blog?

Sullivan: My blog format evolved out of basically trying to save my sanity. I started off in the traditional format, doing a topical posts daily, but I really got addicted to RSS feeds. (I currently subscribe to 986 feeds.) And keeping up on those at least semi-daily takes a lot of time. So I couldn’t do that, post links and the longer topical diatribes and make sure I had clean clothes and a functioning car at the same time. So now I do the digests and little bits of opinion/snark with sparse topical posts.

This summer I’m redesigning and restructuring my blog so I can be a better blogger (more transparency, more immediacy, more conversation, more resources). With the changes, I should be able to spend more time working on longer form pieces and at the same time, the links in my digests will hit the page/feeds immediately, instead of at 3 a.m. when I’m usually pulling things together.

My advice for students would be to be yourself when blogging, link often and read a lot of other blogs. Be careful about what you say too; it will very likely come back to haunt you.

ICM: Any other advice you’d like to give specifically to college journalists as they prepare for their careers?

Sullivan:

• Embrace every opportunity that’s humanly possible in college. Work at the college radio station. TV station. Newspaper. Start your own paper. Start your own blog or online publication. College is your best chance to experience everything, learn and fail without loosing a job or dignity.
• Embrace the “DIY” mentality in every aspect of your life. Make things happen if the current media environment isn’t your cup of tea. Bootstrap it and create your own publication/product.
• Always be generous with your gratitude to people who help you out along your career path. It will come back to help/haunt you if you don’t.
• Always be generous helping people out along your career path. It will come back to help/haunt you.
• Speak up in the newsroom. If the old boss man (or boss woman) is really out of touch, tell them (nicely). Your generation is more connected to the media than any before and will save journalism.
• Take business, entrepreneurship and marketing classes.
• Defend net neutrality, democracy and the freedom of information like your life depends on it. Because your livelihood does.
• Volunteer and get involved with one of the dozens of journalism organizations. It’s a great place to learn and I hate to say it but it’s a great chance to network, which will get you jobs. (I’m not a fan of the “X got a job because he knows Y” formula that runs rampant in most newsrooms. X should get the job because he’s way more skilled than Y. But if you’re equally skilled and X knows someone, they’ll always get the job over your paper resume. So get involved and share your skills with everyone else.)
• Buy YourName.com and put up a basic website. Even if it’s totally lame and basic. Just do it. And link to Journerdism.com and CollegeMediaInnovation.org
• Acknowledge that you may not ever work for your ‘dream paper’ or that they may be a very different animal by the time you get there. (I paraphrased this from something Rich Gordon, one of my Medill profs and a really cool guy, once said. It’s very true.)
• Always have a back up plan in case the ship sinks.
• Floss regularly.

ICM: Finally, what’s one project you’ve done lately that you’re proud of and would like to point people to as an example of your work?

Sullivan: The most recent project is, “Walks with Angels,” a story about two Haitian girls that came to the U.S. to get relatively common surgery they couldn’t get in their homeland. It’s a series of audio slideshows peppered with explanatory infographics. Throughout this project we battled with trying to make this a relevant, interesting story and not just ‘another story of a sick kid in a foreign country.’ The girls’ similar story arc and surprise really ending helped drive the narrative and made it pretty interesting.

It was quite a challenge, especially working without using voice over, when most of the audio recorded was in Creole with a translator doing the translations live (while the story is being reported and photos being taken she was translating). Our team — Uma Sanghvi, Dianna Smith, Jennifer Podis, Justin Gilken, Steve Lopez and Margaret McKenzie — did a stupendous job though and we’ve received a lot of great feedback from the community. There’s also been a flood of donations to help other children in this situation.

Here’s the link: PalmBeachPost.com/angels

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Ryan Sholin is a grad student at San Jose State University (working on his thesis at this point), and a multimedia journalist at the Santa Cruz Sentinel. While at SJSU, he worked on the web site for the Spartan Daily. He’s been blogging about the changing face of the news business for as long as we have, and was an early reader and supporter of our efforts.

Last week, he caused quite a stir in the mediasphere with a post he wrote on his weblog: 10 obvious things about the future of newspapers you need to get through your head. I took the opportunity to contact Ryan for an interview, conducted via Instant Messaging last night.

ICM: You generated a lot of buzz around the ‘net with your “10 obvious things” post. What prompted you to write that post at this point in time?

Sholin: Well, there’s always newsroom cuts popping up these days, but with big announcements from the SF Chronicle and cuts taking effect at the LA Times and rumors of more cuts at the Mercury News, the handwringing and woe-is-me talk about the newspaper business just hit a fever pitch in my neck of the woods last week.

I started brewing that list up, just really out of frustration at having to repeat the same arguments over and over. It’s all stuff that’s been said before.

ICM: What do you make of all the feedback you’ve been getting about that post?

Sholin: The large majority of the comments, links and emails have been positive, mostly sort of cheering me on, or at least calling attention to the post.

A few reporters from papers like the Chronicle have written and said I was on the right track, which makes me feel good — I’m not trying to demean the work of a lot of journalists that have been at this a lot longer than me; I just want them all to understand that the business — and the craft — is changing, with or without them.

ICM: Which brings up my next question. You were blogging about these things in grad school, and now out in the professional newspaper world. Have you noticed any changes in your newsroom since you’ve been there related to new media ways of thinking?

Sholin: As in all things, there’s a finely tuned ratio of talk to action. I can tell you that I imagine it’s easier for me as someone in the role of a change agent — an evangelist for things like multimedia in the newsroom — than it is for a reporter on deadline writing dailies.

When I was a reporter, both in school and at an internship last summer, it was hard to imagine producing content for the web as well as writing on deadline.

ICM: Are more people starting to do that, or is the web still a focus of a relatively few specialized personnel?

Sholin: I think it’s different at every paper. At the Mercury News, the photographers are really leading the charge at multimedia, and they’re doing amazing work, but in places like Bakersfield, handing out inexpensive point-and-shoot pocket-sized video cameras to reporters has worked wonders. It’s really a new world right now, and not every approach is going to work for every paper.

We really need to use the resources at hand — I think that applies to college papers as well. If you’re using College Publisher, the delivery system is there. You don’t need to develop anything yourself, just find the right balance of audio and video equipment to reporters and photographers, and get creative right away.

ICM: Which nicely segues into my next topic: college media. you just mentioned some advice for college media, but I wonder if you could expand on that some more. Could you offer some general advice for advisers, and then some practical advice for student journalists as well?

Sholin: Heh, you want the short version? I think the best thing advisers can do right now is to read about what’s going on in newspapers as far as multimedia, interactivity and data goes. Get a handle on what is possible, and then find the piece of it that you’re most comfortable with. Not every print adviser is going to jump into Soundslides, but they might see a database project built off public records and say “Hey, I did stuff like that when I was reporting; I can teach that.” Don’t try to take on everything at once.

For students, it’s very much the same piece of advice — get out there and find the work that appeals to you the most. Then learn from it. Critique it, pick it apart, think about what you might do differently, and when you start picking up new skills, put them to use out in public — don’t be afraid to fail. There’s no right answer to how to do this job yet.

ICM: Ok, last question, and I’m going to turn it around a little bit. In your opinion, what’s the worst thing a college newspaper journalist could be doing right now to prepare for their career?

Sholin: Yikes. I’m not going to say that “just” writing stories is the worst thing a student journalist can do, because I know how hard that is, with or without advisers and editors breathing down your neck pitching multimedia. What I will say is that ignoring the changing craft is the worst thing you can do right now.

If you walk into a major metro newspaper right now with five clips and a smile, they better be some pretty amazing clips. I mean, I want to see the president of the university taken down by your investigative reporting if all you have is text on a page.

Your college paper experience is your chance to try anything you want. Try out something outlandish, work at the edges, and you’ll have something to show for it when you’re through.

ICM: OK, anything else you’d like to add for our audience of advisers and student journalists?

Sholin: Mostly it’s that number 10 from the list I made: There is incredible journalism being done out there. Changes in the business and newsroom staffing changes and Google and Craig haven’t stopped journalists from doing amazing work. Find yourself a favorite piece of online journalism, get in touch with the journalists who reported it, and you’ll find out how passionate online journalists are about the mission of newspapers and the craft of reporting.

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