Saturday, March 31, 2007
Weather
In his excellent presentation, Daniel Reimold introduced us all to Ron the Weatherblogger. Ron is found on the site Spartanedge.com, an online only publication at Michigan State University run by and filled with content by students. Ron is just one of the examples of the popular blogs that SpartanEdge boasts. There's something about his friendly introduction that makes me really interested in what he has to say. In his posts, be sure to check out "SpartanCast: The forecast with that special edge."
Speaking easy, sort of
Daniel Reimold of Ohio University just spoke about his college's cutting edge news site, SpeakeasyMag.com. Well, it's a news site of sorts. The site provides heavy competition with the college's traditional newspaper, The Post, but I wonder if it should really be considered competition.
SpeakeasyMag.com provides content that students want, and now The Post is struggling for staff members. Can you guess where they've all gone?
Before Reimold's spiel I thought that sites like SpeakeasyMag.com with blogs, multimedia and interactivity could partner with the traditional news sources, but they may just be too different for each other.
I can see it all now: students approach editors of the traditional papers, ask for change, new ways of networking and communicating, but ultimately get rejected. The traditionalists are busy and many can even be considered afraid of change. The events at Ohio University can only prove that this sort of attitude will result in nothing but suffering for those folks.
Reimold talked about the ease and convenience of publishing for students who work for SpeakeasyMag.com: they can complete their work when the mood strikes them or when they can fit it in around their busy schedules. There are no set times for when to write, design or edit: it happens right as the mood strikes (or as the schedule allows).
This has been great for students, but they are suffering socially. Reimold said that students admitted that they wouldn't be able to recognize their colleagues in person, despite the fact that they know their names, beats, e-mail addresses, AIM screennames and writing styles.
From personal experience at the traditional news source here at UT, I know that the camaraderie experienced with other reporters isn't something to miss. It's a little unhealthy to completely nix human interaction, don't you think?
SpeakeasyMag.com doesn't have a common meeting place and only meets once every week or two. It's amazing to think that a site that feeds to a community as specialized and small as a university can have a staff that is, ironically, a little disconnected.
The students communicate constantly using as many media as "humanely" possible, except of course the traditional face-to-face mode. Apparently that's on the outs.
SpeakeasyMag.com provides content that students want, and now The Post is struggling for staff members. Can you guess where they've all gone?
Before Reimold's spiel I thought that sites like SpeakeasyMag.com with blogs, multimedia and interactivity could partner with the traditional news sources, but they may just be too different for each other.
I can see it all now: students approach editors of the traditional papers, ask for change, new ways of networking and communicating, but ultimately get rejected. The traditionalists are busy and many can even be considered afraid of change. The events at Ohio University can only prove that this sort of attitude will result in nothing but suffering for those folks.
Reimold talked about the ease and convenience of publishing for students who work for SpeakeasyMag.com: they can complete their work when the mood strikes them or when they can fit it in around their busy schedules. There are no set times for when to write, design or edit: it happens right as the mood strikes (or as the schedule allows).
This has been great for students, but they are suffering socially. Reimold said that students admitted that they wouldn't be able to recognize their colleagues in person, despite the fact that they know their names, beats, e-mail addresses, AIM screennames and writing styles.
From personal experience at the traditional news source here at UT, I know that the camaraderie experienced with other reporters isn't something to miss. It's a little unhealthy to completely nix human interaction, don't you think?
SpeakeasyMag.com doesn't have a common meeting place and only meets once every week or two. It's amazing to think that a site that feeds to a community as specialized and small as a university can have a staff that is, ironically, a little disconnected.
The students communicate constantly using as many media as "humanely" possible, except of course the traditional face-to-face mode. Apparently that's on the outs.
Is hyperlocality really the answer?
For the first time in months I have been able to step back and wonder just how great hyperlocal Web sites really are for readers and users. Over the past few months I have fallen in love with the idea, much like the rest of the online journalists. My multimedia journalism professor is hooked, I've tried to convince people over at The Daily Texan to consider creating a new site, and I even wrote a research paper on one of the first hyperlocal sites: northwestvoice.com of Bakersfield, California.
It's a little upsetting how easy it is to fall under this spell of super self-service in such a small niche. Today's keynote speaker, Guy Berger of Rhodes University in South Africa, was one of the first people I've heard to question the idea.
He said that hyperlocality should be a priority for U.S. newspapers, but not the exclusively. Is it really healthy for Americans to become more self-involved?
He suggested a new priority: hyperglobalism.
Our news is already completely focused on the U.S., and international stories are generally unread unless they include some sort of relation to our homeland. It's not really our fault, but how soon will it be before, let's say Texans, don't even care about the news that goes on outside of our state? Or before Austinites are completely unconcerned with anything that happens away from our city?
That's pretty far-off, but it's important that we realize how short-sighted we can become.
It's a little upsetting how easy it is to fall under this spell of super self-service in such a small niche. Today's keynote speaker, Guy Berger of Rhodes University in South Africa, was one of the first people I've heard to question the idea.
He said that hyperlocality should be a priority for U.S. newspapers, but not the exclusively. Is it really healthy for Americans to become more self-involved?
He suggested a new priority: hyperglobalism.
Our news is already completely focused on the U.S., and international stories are generally unread unless they include some sort of relation to our homeland. It's not really our fault, but how soon will it be before, let's say Texans, don't even care about the news that goes on outside of our state? Or before Austinites are completely unconcerned with anything that happens away from our city?
That's pretty far-off, but it's important that we realize how short-sighted we can become.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Bad News
Ken Riddick is the bearer of bad news. Well, he’s not giving us information that we didn’t know, he just has the task of presenting some of the problems from the business side of the news industry.
Riddick, Vice President for Interactive Media at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, brought a slideshow with scary charts and graphs abound. Scary because most of them are pointing down; as in, stock market crash down. But, there’s hope, he says, because of the leaps and bounds in the online dimension of news. For example, since 1995, the percentage of readers going online has skyrocketed from about 12 percent to nearly 70 percent.
Then, Riddick presented the slide show of an absent panelist, Robert Benz. More scary charts, this time actual stock charts. Benz’s presentation also showed the ways that people can get things on the internet that they used to get from newspapers. I know I’m quicker to jump onto Craigslist than to flip to the classifieds. At least the print is bigger online.
The point of these presentations and all these scary charts and whatnot is that the internet is where it’s at. The internet can make those charts look healthy again. The problem is that the medium itself is so young and powerful, and an optimum business model to reach and monetize a big chunk of the audience has not yet been created. Or, if it has, it hasn’t been implemented.
Riddick, Vice President for Interactive Media at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, brought a slideshow with scary charts and graphs abound. Scary because most of them are pointing down; as in, stock market crash down. But, there’s hope, he says, because of the leaps and bounds in the online dimension of news. For example, since 1995, the percentage of readers going online has skyrocketed from about 12 percent to nearly 70 percent.
Then, Riddick presented the slide show of an absent panelist, Robert Benz. More scary charts, this time actual stock charts. Benz’s presentation also showed the ways that people can get things on the internet that they used to get from newspapers. I know I’m quicker to jump onto Craigslist than to flip to the classifieds. At least the print is bigger online.
The point of these presentations and all these scary charts and whatnot is that the internet is where it’s at. The internet can make those charts look healthy again. The problem is that the medium itself is so young and powerful, and an optimum business model to reach and monetize a big chunk of the audience has not yet been created. Or, if it has, it hasn’t been implemented.
Change
For both Kinsey Wilson, of USAToday.com and Bill Grueskin, of WallStreetJournal.com, September 11 brought about radical change in the newsroom. It split the newsroom, relocated everyone from their offices, and changed what they were used to in terms of reporting the news.
I’m starting to see that 9-11 was a catalyst for journalism as a whole. It was a time when everything was news, and any information to reduce the chaos was helpful to the whole country. The fact that newsrooms were literally divided, relocated, and ultimately reorganized forced the industry to undergo a change that was coming anyway. It seems like it was an inevitable change, but, thanks to that day, it happened a lot sooner than it would have were it to be left to itself.
I’m starting to see that 9-11 was a catalyst for journalism as a whole. It was a time when everything was news, and any information to reduce the chaos was helpful to the whole country. The fact that newsrooms were literally divided, relocated, and ultimately reorganized forced the industry to undergo a change that was coming anyway. It seems like it was an inevitable change, but, thanks to that day, it happened a lot sooner than it would have were it to be left to itself.
Pop Quiz
Neil Chase, the Continous News Desk Editor at NYTimes.com is presenting his PowerPoint about web operations at the New York Times…in pop quiz format.
Where do web producers sit at the New York Times?
A) In the newsroom?
B) In a separate building 7 blocks away that has a dif. Area code and zip code from the print newsroom
C) In the times builiding on a different floor
D)_In paris and hong kong
E) At home in their pajamas?
The answer is all of the above. That’s pretty cool.
Chase’s presentation was about the web operations at the Times. He presented demonstrations of several examples of multimedia stories done for the New York Times, and talked about the migration of several reporters from writing traditional stories to blogging.
It’s pretty cool that traditional journalists are able to shift back and from forth from their regular writing duties and sort of pursue alternative stories in blog form, especially at a place like the Times.
Where do web producers sit at the New York Times?
A) In the newsroom?
B) In a separate building 7 blocks away that has a dif. Area code and zip code from the print newsroom
C) In the times builiding on a different floor
D)_In paris and hong kong
E) At home in their pajamas?
The answer is all of the above. That’s pretty cool.
Chase’s presentation was about the web operations at the Times. He presented demonstrations of several examples of multimedia stories done for the New York Times, and talked about the migration of several reporters from writing traditional stories to blogging.
It’s pretty cool that traditional journalists are able to shift back and from forth from their regular writing duties and sort of pursue alternative stories in blog form, especially at a place like the Times.
Washingtonpost.com
After some minor technical difficulties, Jim Brady of WashingtonPost..com started his presentiation with an interesting timeline of internet news at the Post. Highlights include:
1999: “You lost how much money last year?”
2000: “See, the web was just a fad.”
Since those rough years, the Post has shifted to a “web editor” model for presenting media on the web.
Brady talked about how the web allows for more experimentation, and how they’re more likely to experiment with stories on the web.
What really caught my attention was that the newsrooms for the paper and for the website are in completely different buildings about 5 miles away from each other. They could just as easily be across the globe and probably be just as efficient.
1999: “You lost how much money last year?”
2000: “See, the web was just a fad.”
Since those rough years, the Post has shifted to a “web editor” model for presenting media on the web.
Brady talked about how the web allows for more experimentation, and how they’re more likely to experiment with stories on the web.
What really caught my attention was that the newsrooms for the paper and for the website are in completely different buildings about 5 miles away from each other. They could just as easily be across the globe and probably be just as efficient.
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