Megan Taylor points out a series of posts by Mark Luckie at 10000 words focusing on college media web sites.

Here are the three posts:

Online Student Journalism: Best of the Best

Online Student Journalism: Outstanding Use of Multimedia or Social Networking

Online Student Journalism: Best Site Design

I encourage you to go check out the sites Mark highlights, because there’s obviously some good ideas in there (and some of the site designs he highlights are indeed very good).

But I will quibble with the way he ranks the sites. I don’t disagree, for instance, that the Florida Alligator is a really good online journalism site. Or, for that matter, any of the other top 7 school news sites he chose. But I wonder how many sites he’s looked at. I’d also note that he doesn’t mention *any* college TV or radio news sites. That’s a glaring omission.
Unless it’s a contest, I’m very loathe to “rank” schools about which ones are “best” in online news. For one thing, there are 2,000 student media organizations in the U.S. I guarantee I haven’t looked at half of their web sites. Have you, Mark?

For another thing, everyone has shortcomings. Is the site that produces great video better than a site that has high quality podcasts or mashups? Is a site that has a nice mashup better than a site that produces interactive Flash multimedia? Hmm. I don’t know.

The point I think I’m making is that I don’t like ranking with no methodology. We’re supposed to accept the 10000 words‘ edict about the top 7 college media sites because … well, … just because. Show us your work, Mark, or take out the rankings. I’ll happily post 7 sites that I think are doing good things online without ranking them. Here ya go:

Connect2Mason

InsideVandy

SFSU Xpress

UNC Daily Tar Heel

Temple News

Nevada Sagebrush

Kent State NewsNet

Only one of those (InsideVandy) was on Mark’s list, but I’d put them up against any of Mark’s grouping.

Again, I’m not against any of the schools he listed. But I’m also not keen on ranking them. We’ve seen what kind of damage that sort of thinking can do with the BCS. Let’s not start with college news sites.

A lighthearted audio slideshow from Katie Anderson, who will be graduating from Eastern Illinois University in a few days. Anderson spent the semester doing an independent study focused on multimedia. She’s got a job as an education reporter at the Jacksonville Journal-Courier .

heh.

via Mark Hamilton

I didn’t blog about the last time Richard Koci Hernandez’ Multimedia Shooter web site was hacked and taken down. It may have happened again, and this time, it looks like Richard’s throwing in the towel for good.

I’m walking away this time with my head held high. It’s been fun. I’m closing the blog doors for good this time. There’s not enough Jack Daniels or Red Bull to get me back this time. Sorry for on again off again nature of the blog lately.
Thanks for the support through the hacks. This is a great time for me to step away from the blogosphere. Good Night and Good Luck, see you in the real world.

This is sad news, indeed. I was actually using MMS this Tuesday to find some good multimedia to show to my advanced online reporting class. It’s a resource that will be sorely missed. Until Andrew DeVigal’s Interactive Narratives 2.0 is back up and running, it’ll be hit and miss on finding multimedia from around the country and the world.

h/t Mark Hamilton

Taking a break from hardcore journalism/new media stuff …

For the past seven months, I’ve lived without a TV. I watch shows online, using hulu, thedailyshow (which has CONSTANT problems), and the various networks - MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, etc. Mostly, it hasn’t been a problem finding content - I should give props to the NCAA for livestreaming their basketball games. Yes, their blogging policy for working journalists is STUPID, but at least they get some of the Internets.

And now, South Park Studios has opened up an archive of online material (here’s a TechCrunch post about it). I guess this was news this week, although I watched at least one episode online last week. (I suppose this is where I should mention that these are uncensored episodes, so it might not appeal to all sensibilities).

Now if we could just convince the higher ups to let Law & Order episodes show up online.

Albert comments that the Daily Pennsylvanian will be livestreaming a Hillary Clinton speech this morning at 10 a.m. EDT. You can watch the live video (using Ustream.tv technology) at this link. You may recall that the Spartan Daily at SJSU streamed a press meeting last week.

Ustream’s software is free to use, and appears to work even within College Publisher’s system. My biggest question is what kind of traffic does this kind of effort generate?

Unfortunately, I won’t be near a computer this morning at 10 a.m., but if you’re online, check it out. Might be worth considering for some future event on your campus.

Kyle Hansen mentions that the Spartan Daily at San Jose State will be feeding live video of their meeting with SJSU President Don Kassing from 3-4 p.m. (pacific) today. Check it out if you get the chance. I’m curious what service they’re using. There are several live video services out there now. Perhaps Kyle will drop by with a comment.

The editor of the Sacramento Bee is fending off criticism about the state employee salary database the Bee has put online. This is not the first time public employees have objected when their salary information has been put on display for all the world to see. But it’s instructive. “Public” information gains a whole new meaning when it’s “worldwide.”

FWIW, I think any newspaper or media outlet that is going to put the salary data about public employees online should be willing to put its own salary data online. How much does the editor of the Bee make? How much does a beginning reporter make? I imagine the beginning reporter salary would be a bit sobering.

But the newspaper is a private corporation! You say. So? The newspaper traffics in the language of public trust. We wrap ourselves in the First Amendment every chance we get. We’re supposed to be the watchdogs. Let’s act like watchdogs and be transparent about our own conflicts of interests, economic details, etc.

That goes for college media too. If you’re going to be outing the budget for the SGA, then you’d better be prepared to out the budget for student publications.

Some things you might want to read:

Pep Talk - Robert Niles posts some positive news to counteract all the negativity out there in medialand. The market for good journalism — engaging, relevant, accurate and enduring information — lives. What the market is rejecting is the half-baked, lazy and boring reporting that doesn’t stand the test of time — the sort of reporting that understaffed and under-trained newsrooms too often have delivered over the past generation.

 Angry journalists can be a good thing - Maurreen Skowran posts a number of initiatives journalists are taking to help save the industry. Navigating between the past and the future deserves both experimentation and analysis. Newspaper readership has been studied for decades. But we also need to examine what factors make comparable newspapers sometimes perform vastly differently online.

Journalism may fade in NU name game - Eric Zorn highlights the name-game going on at Northwestern U.’s famed Medill school. Personally, I don’t find anything sacrosanct about the name “journalism,” but some of the alternatives are so vague as to be useless.

College High Five of the Week: Tennessee Journalist - Pat Thornton highlights the differences between two media products at the University of Tennessee. I’d rather see the current student media produce experimental projects. But if the student newspaper isn’t going to step forward, perhaps it’s time for more online media products. College is a time for experimentation, pushing the boundaries, discovering new things and not being afraid of failure (it’s a lot less costly to fail in college than it is after graduation). If there was ever a place for journalists to take risks and try things that may not work, it should be in college media. College is the perfect time for failure.

Mashup Fun - Jack Lail details how he put together a homicide map for Knox County using an XML file and Yahoo! Maps.

Exclusive: Charting 4-year circ decline at major papers - E&P posts some grisly numbers, but wouldn’t this be better in a chart?

Angela Grant was one of our key presenters during the CICM workshop. Here’s what she had to say:

I ’m really impressed at how Bryan Murley, Chris Carroll and Ralph Braseth of the CICM planned and organized this conference. They decided they would create an experience where the students would actually learn by doing.

What this meant is that we taught them how to shoot video on Thursday, and then gave them story assignments and sent them out the door to actually shoot video. On Friday we taught them how to edit video and then allowed them to use their day to edit what they had shot. They finished up on Saturday and we critiqued their videos.

You know, in 20 years in journalism, I don’t think I’ve ever been as humbled as I have been to the response to the CICM workshop. Chris Carroll really organized an exceptional experience for the people who showed up.  Check out the video/audio stories here.