An unscientific observation of the headers of top online news sites reveals that most of their logos incorporate some form of the colors or red or blue. Coincidence or intentional?

According to a number of articles on color psychology, it may be the latter. RED is associated with energy, danger, strength, power, danger, action and adventure. It also has very high visibility compared to other colors. BLUE is associated with trustworthiness, seriousness, power and professionalism.




The above collection of headers, stripped down to basic colors.

But the world isn't just red and blue. Picking the right color for online graphics means creating the appropriate emotion from readers. Black may indicate somberness or seriousness while yellow evokes happiness and joy.

Truth be told there are so many colors to choose from that just naming them all can be daunting. Do you know the difference between lavender and mauve? How about turquoise and cyan? With this nifty chart, in addition to the useful and inspiring site ColourLovers, you'll be able to tell that the Los Angeles Times uses Prussian blue for its links and that the trademark Bloomberg orange is also known as golden eye.

For help in choosing the perfect colors to complement your site's existing scheme, visit Vandelay Website Design for an exhaustive list of color-related resources.

I had to laugh when I watched the trailer for the upcoming movie Kit Kittredge: An American Girl about a precocious little girl who fights to have her story printed in the local newspaper. "Do kids really want to be reporters anymore?" I thought. Is there some tyke banging down the door of the New York Times, story in hand?

It's hard to say. Most of us have probably heard conversations similar to those at AngryJournalist.com of aspiring reporters who got the bait and switch: they thought they were getting a job where they would write or report and make a difference, but were eventually put off by crummy editors and lousy pay. Most notably several posters mention that the places where they work are not open to new ideas, especially when it comes to new media journalism.

As media companies across the country slash jobs and reorganize priorities, many community outreach programs that targeted aspiring journalists not yet old enough to be interns are also being cut. Moreover, many kids aren't even reading newspapers or watching the daily news to see what a reporter's work looks like.

For me, one of the highlights of working in a newsroom is when a group of wide-eyed students shuffle through the labyrinth of cubicles and offices, amazed at the buzz and excitement generated by a working news staff. For a child, that could be the moment that cements their aspiration to be a journalist.

The good news is according to this Forbes survey and this UK press release, a good percentage of kids do want to be writers. Not journalists per se, but its a good start. Now its up to us to open our newsrooms and give them an occupation to look forward to.

Labels: news on the news

Here is an example of a typical courtroom sketch (okay it's actually a Photoshopped screengrab from A Few Good Men, but work with me here). Like other sketches, it's basically just a flat graphic.



Here is the same sketch with a little multimedia treatment. (Roll over the characters with your mouse. Click here for the .FLA)



Or if you have a series of sketches at your disposal or just cropped versions of a single one, you can create a quick slideshow using Flash, SoundSlides, or by uploading to your content management tool. See an example below (click here for the .FLA)



Both of these Flash files took less than ten minutes to build and add an incredibly useful multimedia element to an otherwise old news standard. For more on the artists behind some of the most recognizable court sketches, check out this post at Ironic Sans.

Labels: flash

Not too long ago, very few media companies had invested time in creating Facebook applications. But with the millions of registered users visiting the site every day, there has been a rush to be a part of Facebook profiles everywhere. Examples of great Facebook apps include Time Magazine's Quote of the Day app, The New York Times News Quiz (which has roughly 1,500 unique users a day), and InStyle.com's Hollywood Hair Makeover (about 3,300 daily users). All of these infuse an element of fun into journalism and have an element that keeps Facebook users coming back.



Building a Facebook application is still very much for those with technical knowhow, but there are a few third party applications making the process easier. First, start off with this post from Tony Hirst that details a few of said applications, including Dapper Facebook AppMaker.

It's never to late to create a winning Facebook app, according to Stanford instructors Dr. BJ Fogg and Dave McClure. Some of their other musings: "simplicity and clarity are the key to app success" and "copying success is a cheap/fast way to succeed." I couldn't agree more.

Nevertheless, the abundance of applications are quickly turning Facebook profiles into the poorly designed pages of its rival MySpace. I did want to share though a personal favorite of mine: Flog Blog. The neat little app lets users add RSS feeds to their Facebook profiles, should their favorite blog not already have a Facebook application. I, of course, use it to keep friends updated about 10,000 words.

Facebook and MySpace are of course two of the hundreds, if not thousands, of social networks floating around the web. But what other social networks are popular around the web? According to this map Orkut is popular in Brazil and India, hi5 is popular in Portugal, Mongolia and Peru, and Blogger is a hit in France and Pakistan.

Labels: widgets

Nothing beats a magazine that you can hold in your hand, flip through pages or set down and pick up later (wait, isn't that the argument for physical newspapers?). A digital version of your magazine, however, is sure to attract online readers who are not subscribers and who can't or don't pick it up at the local bookstore.

Many magazines offer a large amount of their content online, either for free or through paywalls. But very few offer a physical copy of the magazine online. Seems like a no-brainer right?

A digital magazine can be as simple as a PDF of the final layout, which most mags have lying around anyway. Or it can be jazzed up with Issuu, which takes a boring PDF and spices it up with interactivity, animation and a user friendly layout. Issuu also has a lot of interesting magazines that can be browsed for free, including 20 Minuten which looks great in its digital form.



An online version of Fortune Small Business, powered by Olive Software, lets users zoom and flip through its pages, using a Flash-based navigation. (The company also does newspapers.) Space Magazine has made use of the Google Maps API to create an interactive magazine that functions much like a Google Map. I'm still not sold on the tiling effect or the odd navigation, but it sure does look good and is very avant-garde.

Pdf-mags.com has an impressive collection of about 175 magazines that are both online and free. A list of its offerings reveals that it is comprised of mostly niche magazines, but still impressive nonetheless.

Traditional magazine readers/ citizen journalists are taking the web 2.0 route and creating online magazines that, like my fave CRAM Magazine, are really impressive in both writing and design. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Putting an entire magazine online for free is the next step in online journalism, but is sure to tick off more than a few subscribers who are paying for exclusive content. It is up to your company to decide whether such a commodity should be free, an online bonus, or available for a fee.

Labels: pdf

Video editing doesn't have to mean shelling out tons of cash for Final Cut Pro or limiting oneself to iMovie or Windows Media Maker.

Jumpcut is perhaps the best online service for video editing. Anyone can upload and edit video without downloading expensive. Once registered, you can upload video up to 100 MB in size and cut it or pare it down using the web-based video editor. Once the video is edited, JumpCut provides HTML code to embed the video in your site. Best of all JumpCut is free, which means more money for expensive gadgets. Check out an example of how the site works by clicking here.


Motionbox users can upload up to 300 MB video to the site (100 MB at a time) and edit it as they wish. Users can stream the completed video for free, but must upgrade to the premium version ($29.99 a year) for downloading capabilities and unlimited upload space. Motionbox is not a substitute for professional video editing, but it is a cheap and easy alternative.

SmashMash, in addition to video editing services, offers the ability to upload photos and create a Ken Burns-y like slideshows (kind of like SoundSlides but with more versatility). SmashMash will provides embedding codes and even has support for light animation.

Kaltura is YouTube meets wiki. It offers a web-based platform where many users can collaborate on the editing of one or more videos using a Flash-based editor. Kaltura is geared toward businesses and the created video can be embedded on your site.

If your video is nice and edited, but was captured on a less than stellar device such as a cell phone, commercial digital camera or webcam, FixMyMovie can quickly improve its quality. The site will increase the video's resolution, remove noise, and brighten any darkness. Users can either use the site's upload tool or send the offending video via email. The process can take up to an hour depending on its size. After the video is scrubbed clean, FixMyMovie will email you a link to the enhanced version where it can be downloaded or embedded on the web.

Labels: video, wiki

I'll be off the grid today attending the GLAAD Media Awards in New York. My multimedia story Landmark moments in Gay Hollywood, produced and written for Entertainment Weekly, is nominated in the Digital Journalism: Multimedia category. Other nominees include CNN, The Advocate and NewAmericaMedia.org. I honestly feel like Saoirse Ronan at the Oscars, but I will post the results later tonight.

Update: Congratulations to CNN and to all the winners from last night's awards. It sounds cliché but I was simply happy to be there. I felt honored to be in a room full of journalists that were so invested in the news they reported. The GLAAD Awards will air soon on Bravo.

From Stuff That Happens:

I rarely watch the local evening news anymore, mainly because I find it hard to ascribe to the "if it bleeds it leads" theory. However, on a trip to my family home I sat down with my mother, who watches the evening news like clockwork every night, to watch KCAL 9 News at 10.


I was impressed by the integration of the popular stories on the web into the broadcast and the numerous refers to the website. They even had a great tech story on YouTube's pending integration with TiVo. It made me proud to be a multimedia journalist. Most of all I was impressed by the use of the term "blog post" instead of "blog" in reference to a new blog entry. Several announcers, especially the crew at Good Day L.A., will instead say "I have a new blog today" which drives me batty.

Toward the end of the newscast my mother drifted off to the garage where she spent a considerable amount of time looking for a short story she had read some time ago. Flustered and tired, she eventually gave up the search, but on a whim decided to Google the story title. Not only did she find the complete text, but she also found a version of the story told with a PowerPoint presentation. Ah the magic of the internets.

Sports journalism has an intrinsic fan base, so it only makes sense to parlay that readership into online sports communities.

Takkle, an offshoot of Sports Illustrated, is hooking them while they're young. The site has an active network of high school athletes and fans who can submit photos and video of their favorite teams or participate in throwdowns on just about any topic.

Impressively, the site ranks the top 25 basketball players and top 100 football players from high schools across the country. Takkle users can rate each player as over or underrated, view stats and debate the player's cred in the comments section.

Elsewhere on the site, SI.com's College Football's Greatest Rivalries video series is well-packaged and is sure to get football fans talking. All the greats are there including University of Florida v Florida State, USC v UCLA and Army v Navy. The opportunity to debate the prowess of one's home team exists elsewhere on the site at FanNation, but it would have been nice to have a comment section or direct link to each rivalry's discussion board to make the debate more immediate.

Bleacher Report is perhaps the best citizen journalism sports site not tied to a mainstream media outlet. In the vein of Associated Content, users can register and write their own sports-related articles, which, when posted, can be reviewed and rated by other users. Writers are free to speak their minds and throw unbiasedness out the window (especially today's front page story "ESPN: The Ultimate Hypocrite". Totally valid argument, but wow what a headline.) Bleacher Report covers most of the major sports, including football, basketball and soccer and its thriving community is making it one of the best on the web.

And because no post is complete without a good map, soccermap.net takes soccer league tables and plots them on a user-friendly map. The site is Europe-centric, but is very comprehensive and is RSS-enabled for news on any specific league. The site's stats can even be embedded as a widget on any webpage.



Read more about tackling the online sports section in this previous post.

Labels: maps, rss, social networking, video

Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland
Flickr photo by Rob Goodspeed




Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University
Flickr photo by benderbending




UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
Flickr photo by Steve Rhodes




Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Arizona State University
Flickr photo by Brian Indrelunas




University of British Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
Flickr photo by Manny Hernandez




Gaylord College, University of Oklahoma
Flickr photo by Majdan




CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Flickr photo by robinhamman




Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Flickr photo by eston

Chances are there is some blog turning the tables and covering your news coverage. Take for example LA Observed and The Bruni Digest which keep an eye on the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times food section, respectively, The Editorialiste, a watchdog for the news industry in general or the now defunct PostWatch and NPR Watch which covered The Washington Post and National Public Radio.

We all know there are conspiracy theories abound that reckon "the media" has this agenda or that slant or is trying to sway the public in way or another. In reality, most of us are just nice guys trying to perform a service to the global community. Its sad to say, but a great deal of the public doesn't recognize that.


In the spirit of openness and new media, why not open up news meetings to the public? This could be as simple as placing a digital tape recorder in the middle of the table and posting the (unedited) mp3 on the web or hooking up a webcam to capture the reporting and editing staff in all its glory. If the news meeting is conducted by telephone, which many are, use an inexpensive telephone recording device to capture the meeting. Kudos to The Spokesman-Review for webcasting its news meetings twice a day on weekdays.

An open news meeting is one step up from the now requisite company blog about internal affairs, which, only in rare instances, sheds unfiltered insight on controversial matters. Committing to a visual broadcast of course means tucking in those shirts and cutting down on the in-jokes and swearing, but the behavior modification can easily be done. Obviously, broadcasting news meetings may not work for every media outlet and may create more trouble rather than lessen it. Nevertheless, it is an idea to explore and the natural extension of the online newsroom.

Labels: blogging, news on the news

More than 77 million users watched roughly 3.2 billion videos on YouTube last December, according to a recent comScore report. There are no clear estimates of the number of embedded YouTube videos floating around the web, but it is safe to say that if the de facto file sharing service crashed tomorrow, a lot of blogs and news sites, including 10,000 words, would suffer greatly.

So, similar to preparation for a natural disaster, here are some alternatives that let users upload and embed video. Veoh, Moonk, Dailymotion, blip.tv and many other sites (more from WebWare and Mashable) do the same thing for free.

Its worth noting that YouTube is just now starting to roll out higher resolution video, but most of the clips on the site are still of poor quality, especially next to its competitors.

If embedded YouTube videos of copyrighted work find their way onto your site and the page is still receiving traffic, it is wise to go back and check periodically to see that the video has been taken down by site administrators.

In honor of YouTube, here is one of my new favorites: I Met the Walrus, an inspiring, Academy Award-nominated film by director Josh Raskin. Watch it before it gets taken down.

Labels: video

Copyright law, however important, runs the gamut from tedious to vague, and is even more so when it comes to the new world of online media. If your work is being infringed (because journalists would never do the infringing), there are some immediate things can be done to stop it.

Sometimes photos or graphics might show up elsewhere on the web (a couple of times I've had entire projects copied and posted elsewhere). One simple way to prevent this is to disable right click on all images by inserting a bit of Javascript code into the webpage itself. This will stop the average computer user from downloading pictures/graphics but can be easily worked around by a tech-savvy person.


Another more formal way of protecting images is to use a service like PicMarkr. The free, online, tool adds a custom watermark to any image. The site is easy to use and can pull photos directly from your hard drive. The watermark can be either text or an image such as a logo.

Photos of a local event that may not have been caught by a news crew often pop up on Flickr, but take in a few moments before clicking that download button. The site can be used as a resource for non-commercial websites under Creative Commons license, which excludes a lot of media outlets, so be sure to contact the photo creator for permission. An alternative is to set up a group pool, like the one created by KPBS as a repository of photos of the recent San Diego wildfires.

If text is the problem, Attributor is available to help. The site, which recently partnered with the Associated Press, scans the internet for illicit copies of your content and requests immediate removal. I cannot vouch for its accuracy, but it sounds like a great solution.

Smashing Magazine has a pretty good run down of copyright law as it pertains to the web and Media Law Prof Blog which tracks, in detail, modern applications of the law as it pertains to journalists.

Most major news organizations have a cadre of lawyers on hand to deal with these issues and should be consulted should they arise. For more information on media law, check out the First Amendment Project, which has a great number of resources available to journalists.

Finally for a humorous (and animated!) explanation of copyright law, take a look at the video below by Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University:

I was watching a Hillary Clinton rally on CNN last week when I noticed that nearly every supporter behind her had some sort of camera in his or her hand. My mind immediately went to multimedia and what it would be like to use some of what I assume were hundreds of cameras positioned around the auditorium. Using the different camera locations could give the online user the ability to pick the angle from which they view a news story instead of letting a media outlet choose for them.

Further in my train of thought, I recalled the bullet time technology used in the movie The Matrix that positioned a number of cameras around an actor to create the effect of stopping time. That same thinking can be married with what is visually represented in the end credits of the movie Dreamgirls: the film editor's job of selecting different camera shots (see below for examples). We can, in effect, let the user be his or her own film editor.


Left: Actor Keanu Reeves is captured in bullet time; Right: Film editing represented in the end credits of Dreamgirls

Below is a visual example of what I'm talking about. Using user-submitted photos, in this case, from Flickr, a site visitor can select the angle from which they view a news event (in this case a Barack Obama campaign rally in Oakland, Calif. last year).


Photos from Flickr users solsken, juicyrai, oso, js42, Barack Obama, y-cart used under Creative Commons license

The project above was built in Flash in less than 30 minutes and can be done for political speeches, sporting events, red carpet coverage, you name it. Many news outlets already have tip lines in place like for example CNN's I-Report and the submissions can be harnessed to provide the online visitor with a unique experience. This can also be recreated by a quick-on-their-feet photog or videographer who can literally be in many places at once.

Labels: citizen journalism, flash

Hey you. I appreciate you reading 10,000 words, but if you are a journalist I hope you haven't limited yourself to reading journalism blogs. Just like the old school eclectic journalist who reads a variety of newspapers and magazines, every journalist, regardless of media, should be reading a variety of blogs -- and not just mining them for story ideas, but to get a fresh perspective on the news we cover.


As an entertainment journalist living in Los Angeles, I have a wide number of blogs to choose from that keep me updated on what's happening around me. The L.A.-focused blogs I subscribe to include The Los Angeles Eastside Scene, Franklin Avenue, elevatedla.com, Caroline on Crack and LAist. There are a number of cities in the "-ist" series, including Toronto, Shanghai and Philadelphia — perhaps also covering a city near you?

The L.A. blog that started it all for me was Metroblogging Los Angeles, which covers almost everything about the City of Angels, including crime, food, politics, the arts and more, and is admirably interactive with its readers. The best part is the blog is also part of a multi-city series. Metroblogging covers more than 50 cities, from Atlanta and Auckland to Vancouver and Vienna.


Together, the Los Angeles blogs help me stay connected to the city I live in and more or less cover. More often than not the L.A. blogs overlap with my beat -- entertainment journalism. But for entertainment-focused news coverage I stay tuned to BuzzSugar, Best Week Ever, TiFaux, the previously mentioned ShowHype, the.LIFE Files, and my personal favorite fourfour.

Most blogs that I add to my long reading list I discover through either Google Reader's discover function (which is all the more reason to read blogs through RSS) or through StumbleUpon.

What blogs do you read to stay in touch with what's happening in your beat? How did you find out about them? Share your recommendations in the comments!

Labels: blogging