When I started my first journalism job at a medium-sized newspaper, I was surprised by how many reporters rarely left their desks to do their work. It wasn't that they were lazy or not producing stories — they just did their reporting over the phone. Now that e-mail, Google, and other internet technologies are a permanent fixture in newsrooms, many more journalists are doing their work from the comfort of their chairs.

This is why I was excited when California Watch, the investigative reporting team for which I serve as a multimedia producer, announced the "Open Newsroom." For one day, the California Watch team is hitting the streets in neighborhoods around the state and inviting readers to come chat with us, share ideas, or just share a cup of coffee.

The idea was born out of necessity — the team is transitioning to a new work space — but I personally love the idea of going into the community and inviting readers to meet us face-to-face. Journalists are already doing this somewhat using social networks like Twitter to interact with readers, but nothing beats in-person interaction.

Shortly after I discovered my colleagues at my first newsroom were conducting most of their reporting over the phone, I was introduced to the concept of "parachute journalism," or visiting a community only to cover a story and then leaving shortly after. Journalists should avoid parachuting into communities and should whenever possible get out of the newsrooms and meet the people in the communities they cover.

As for me, you can catch me at the Starbucks at 2224 Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley from 1 to 4 p.m. on Thursday, January 19. Drop by and say hello and let's see if we can't make journalism a little more awesome.

Labels: news on the news

After a natural disaster like the recent earthquake in Haiti, news organizations often have just hours to put together produce multimedia and interactive elements in addition to text stories. Web Journalist Blog, in collaboration with 10,000 Words, has put together a list of maps, graphics, slideshows, interactive content and social networking efforts coordinated by mainstream news media to report the damage in Haiti. You can find even more examples, as well as ways you can donate to relief efforts, in this Digiphile post.




Also on 10,000 Words:

• Do you have a multimedia emergency plan?
• How to quickly track natural disasters online

Labels: news on the news

In what seems to be a growing trend, colleges and universities are pairing with traditional news media to cover underserved communities and populate hyperlocal news sites. The New York Times recently announced that it will partner with The City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism to cover areas of Brooklyn. The UC Berkeley School of Journalism has partnered with several news organizations, including a notable partnership with financier Warren Hellman and public radio station KQED to form a non-profit online news operation. You can read about similar partnerships here, here, here and here.

The trend raises the question: are media organizations using college journalism students to fill the gap of traditional reporting and better serve local communities or are students being used as cheap labor?

It is worth noting that college journalism students are often bright and talented young journalists looking to hone their skills in an academic environment. Some students, especially those in graduate programs, often have substantial experience in the newsroom or have worked previously as a full-time journalist. The partnerships can benefit both the students who gain practical experience and news media who can expand the reach of the newsroom.

But are news organizations avoiding paying full or part-time reporters in favor of tapping the skills of students who only require academic credit rather than financial compensation? Please share your thoughts in the comments.


Also on 10,000 Words:

• How to make the most of your journalism internship
• Just what are they teaching future journalists?
• How online college newspapers are using multimedia and social networking
• Journalism Grads: 30 Things You Should Do This Summer

Labels: news on the news

Is journalism dead? Not even close. Attendees at this past week's Online News Association conference were brimming with ideas about how to sustain journalism and the technologies that will support the industry. Want to be a part of the future of journalism and technology? Here's what you need to know.

1. Explore new technologies, but be discerning

In her workshop Top Ten Tech Trends You've Still Never Heard Of, Webbmedia Group's Amy Webb threw a list of amazing new technologies at the audience like lightning bolts, each one more dazzling than the last. While all the technologies mentioned had the ability to elevate journalism, it would be foolhardy to adopt them all at the same time. Instead, choose the tools that you think are right for your organization and can do more than just be the "cool" new tool.

2. Experiment, but don't be afraid to fail

The journalism culture insists that new ideas be tested and proven before they are actually put into place, the opposite of other industries where failure is a part of the process. Journalism innovators have such a heavy burden on their shoulders because the world is watching and sometimes waiting to cry FAIL should a project go under. Don't be afraid of failure or the naysayers, because as journalism educator Ann Grimes said, it is okay to "fail early and often."

3. Follow the wisdom of the crowd

There were many great panels at ONA, but the absolute best and most informative wasn't created by conference producers, but rather was voted up by conference attendees. Instead of a group of pre-selected panelists, the lively "un-conference" session led by Publish2's Ryan Sholin encouraged input from anyone who wanted to speak and the diverse viewpoints contributed to the collective knowledge of the group and a better understanding of the topic.

4. Collaborate with others outside of journalism

Looking to other journalists for inspiration can be equivalent to the blind leading the blind. The way to truly innovate is to look outside of journalism for ways to improve the industry. Take a cue from Stanford University and a number of other journalism schools who have partnered with other departments to come up with new ways technology can be used to enhance and sustain journalism.

5. There's more than one way to skin a cat

One ONA session in particular left the audience scratching their heads after the presenter showcased only one way to create an online map when there in fact hundreds of ways to create map mashups. The implied lesson: there may be a single technology that everyone is using but that doesn't mean you shouldn't experiment with different options. Case in point: journalists and geeks all gravitate toward one technology and chastise others for not following suit. If you're using a computer, it must be a Mac, if you're using a browser it must be Firefox and if you're using email it must be Gmail. Forget about what others say, if you find something that suits you better, go with it.

6. Follow your passion...now

You don't have to wait until you are let go from or quit your job to start the next big revolutionary project. ONA speakers Leo Laporte and Om Malik started with an idea for their respective businesses and didn't wait for editors or business executives to give them the go ahead. If you start small and have a great idea, that will idea will cut through the clutter and rise to the top where other people will discover it.

7. Provide good content

It doesn't matter how novel or innovative journalism is presented if the content itself sucks. There are a million burgeoning ideas of how to present news but if the writing, reporting, facts and research are lacking, readers and viewers just won't care.


Also on 10,000 Words:
• What the journalism industry can learn from porn
• 4 Organizations more tech-savvy than your newsroom
• 10 Journalists you should follow on Twitter

Labels: news on the news

1. The stories that are published are the stories that sell

The reason you're more likely to read about a shooting spree than a library opening is because with dwindling resources, broadcasters and print publications must devote their time to stories that will grab the most attention. Hyperlocal sites like EveryBlock have stepped up to fill the void, but the phrase "if it bleeds, it leads" has never been truer.

2. Many stories are not copy edited

In the age of layoffs and buyouts, many of the first people to go in the newsroom are the copy editors, the people ensure that published stories are accurate and well-written. Without copy editors, many stories, especially those that appear online, are being published without first being checked for spelling and grammar. These errors are becoming even more frequent and are a mark of credibility against the news outlet.

3. Many stories come from wire services

Years ago, newspapers were brimming with stories written by staff reporters about national and international issues. As these reporters are being downsized, more of the national stories that appear in the local paper are written by wire services like Reuters and the Associated Press, meaning a lack of diverse voices covering any given issue.

4. Some journalists are driven by awards

The great majority of journalists gravitate to the profession to spread the news to as many people as possible and enlighten the communities they cover. There are also some journalists who write stories not for readers, but with the intent of winning big name awards like Pulitzers and Emmys. Though they may not openly admit it, some stories are written to gain the adoration of other journalists rather than to empower readers.

5. Journalists are biased

There is no such thing as unbiased...it is humanly impossible. While journalists often strive to make sure their stories are as unbiased as possible, many cover particular subjects or issues because they feel particularly strong about them.

6. Some journalists use Wikipedia

Although the use of Wikipedia is frowned upon in many newsrooms because of its perceived unreliability, many reporters do use the wiki as a source and unverified facts that appear on the site sometimes make their way into news stories. Such was the case with the obituary of French composer Maurice Jarre. Many newspapers published a quote found on his Wikipedia page that was never uttered by Jarre himself, but was added to the page by a then 22-year-old university student.

7. There is no big conspiracy

Not so much an ugly truth, but a truth some refuse to accept. There are a growing number of critics who decry the media for collectively and intentionally pushing either the liberal or conservative agenda (which agenda depends on who you ask). The truth is such a coordinated effort does not exist and most publications are made up of individual journalists with a wide of variety of interests and (you guessed it) political leanings.

8. Many journalists have side projects

In the golden age of journalism, reporters could dedicate themselves exclusively to their work in the newsroom when there was no fear of being sudden layoffs. But when a pink slip could come at a moment's notice and paychecks are becoming increasingly smaller, many more journalists are writing books, creating blogs, consulting, and anything that can build their personal brand or bring in a few extra dollars.

9. Entertainment stories rule

When journalists lament the "death" of journalism, they are often referring to the big investigative pieces that expose politicians and bring to light previously uncovered issues. The reality is, the most popular stories on news sites are often not investigative pieces, but entertainment stories and celebrity news. Paris Hilton can often drive more traffic than the president.

10. No one has the answers

Everyone is looking for the savior of journalism and the solution to the industry's problems. Social networking, paywalls, restructuring and micropayments have all been suggested as the key to saving journalism, but anyone who says they have a definite answer is delusional or misinformed. Together we will try to do everything to ensure journalism's future, but what exactly that magic solution is remains to be seen.


Also on 10,000 Words:

• 10 Reasons why online news sites suck
• 10 Things I wish they'd told me in J-School
• 25 Things I've Learned About Journalism

Labels: news on the news

News meetings suck.

Not because they are long, boring and often don't have enough snacks (actually that may be the problem), but because they are a group of journalists sitting in a room trying to decide what news they think readers will want to read. Editors and reporters have a good eye for news and are trained to know what makes a good story, but the problem with the system is that there really is no accurate way to gauge what stories thousands or millions of readers will care about. Sure there are site analytics which gauge the popularity of individual online news articles, but as any editor can tell you these stories often skew to the offbeat stories and celebrity news.

That's where sites like Windy Citizen and NYC.is come in. The sites aggregate local news for Chicago and New York, respectively, and follow a Digg-like formula where users submit the stories they find interesting and others vote the stories up or down. Both sites play to the wisdom of the crowd: local readers know what's important to them and those that are unsure of what they want to read can rely on their peers for suggestions.


 
Windy Citizen (left), NYC.is

Yes Windy Citizen and NYC.is mostly depend on mainstream news sources to fuel their sites, but the key difference is readers don't have to rely on mainstream news sites — or a handful of journalists — to tell them what they should be reading.

Such sites are like perpetual news meetings where people around the world communicate and identify the stories they are interested in. Online news headlines often appear separate from the actual news site, meaning many readers will have read the story without seeing the news site it came from or the landing pages that advocated its existence.

Some traditional journalists will argue that we need editors to make the key news decisions, but do we really? It is understandable why editors are needed in print and broadcast journalism to select stories to be printed or aired, but in the digital age where readers flock to social networks and, to a lesser extent, RSS readers to get the news they care about, the power of the news editor is diminished.

While sites like Windy Citizen and NYC.is should be praised for letting readers determine what is newsworthy, such modern approaches to the curation of news won't be adopted overnight... meaning the news editor position is safe for now. However, journalists should get ready for people-powered journalism where the reader is best served by serving themselves.


Also on 10,000 Words:

• 6 Sites that are changing the way you follow the news
• Beyond Twitterfeed: Innovative uses of Twitter in the newsroom
• 5 Interactive maps that connect communities
• How the internet is changing how natural disasters are covered
• Why aren't all journalists "citizen" journalists?

Labels: citizen journalism, news on the news

Last week's post on the 30 skills every journalism graduate should learn this summer garnered attention for pointing out technology every newly-minted journalist should know. As several commenters suggested, the checklist is also applicable to established journalists, as is the following advice:


As this Yanko Design post points out, being a Jack of all trades is only the starting point. Journalism and its associated technologies are changing at a rapid pace and to learn one skill set is to be left in the dust. Sadly some of the technologies on the list will be obsolete in just a few years time. To survive in this industry means continuously evolving along with it.

This isn't limited to veteran journalists either. There are many "new media" journalists who adopted an enviable skill set some years ago, but haven't picked up anything new since. At the heart of a good new media journalist is flexibility and adaptability.

Additionally, it doesn't matter if you have every new media skill in existence if no one knows you exist. This means having and distributing business cards, having an online portfolio and sharing it with others and not just accumulating lots of Twitter followers or LinkedIn connections but actually interacting with them and establishing contacts in and outside of the journalism sphere.

Most of all, success in journalism requires a strong grounding in the fundamentals: knowing how to write (well), how to interview, how to speak to others and how to quickly establish trust and relationships. Without these skills, there is no reason to even learn the technologies that are transforming the industry. Learning a slew of technical skills isn't the answer, it's just part of the journalism equation.


Also on 10,000 Words:

• Journalism Grads: 30 Things You Should Do This Summer
• The 20 Essential RSS Feeds for Multimedia Journalists
• 10 Things I wish they'd told me in J-School

Labels: news on the news

The average reader or viewer will never see the inside of a newsroom and sadly will never experience the electricity of reporters and editors working together to gather the day's news. Newsrooms have long been shrouded in a veil of secrecy, so why should they bother letting outsiders in on the experience?

Imagine having a friend with whom you talked every day, but knew nothing about where they lived or never visited their home. Newsrooms are a lot like that, but they don't have to be. Journalists can use the multimedia tools they use to bring stories to life to cover themselves. The following virtual tours combine photos, audio, video and/or slideshows to give users insight on the institutions and journalists who represent their interests.

The Sky News Virtual Newsroom combines three-dimensional animated recreations of various news departments with interviews of the people who work there. The overall effect shows just how complicated newsrooms can be, but also how many people it takes to create the news.



Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore is your virtual tour guide to the "studio of the future," a Flash-based digital recreation of the channel's impressive studio. The hovering ghost-like orbs are clickable markers that describe some of the set's features, including several high-definition televisions and monitors and other hidden quirks.



In 2007, The New York Times used video and 360° interactive panoramas to create an interactive tour of its Manhattan tower. The multimedia piece also features audio from architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff.



If you're looking to recreate the panoramas seen in the project, check out this previous post on the tools used to create them.

A virtual tour doesn't have to be flashy; it could be as simple as a series of panoramic photos, like those of the New York Times newsroom posted by Flickr user imajes. The now online-only Christian Science Monitor used a relatively simple, interactive Flash graphic to illustrate the day-to-day operations of the newsroom.



Talk shows have long been the forerunners of making interactive set tours available online and there are a few that are taking the idea to the next level. The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien posted a time-lapse video of its set construction and The Rachael Ray Show, using the interactive video technology from Klickable, has created a video walkthrough of the set in which users can click various items and find out more about them, as illustrated in the screengrab below.



The overall effect of the virtual tour is to give the user an inside look out how journalism is created and take some of the mystery away from the newsgathering process. The internet is all about creating a spirit of openness and an online tour is a great way to open the newsroom doors to the public.


Also on 10,000 Words:

• 4 Organizations more tech-savvy than your newsroom
• Beyond Twitterfeed: Innovative uses of Twitter in the newsroom
• Why newsroom meetings should be made public
• 4 Sites for viewing panoramas (and 3 ways to create them)
• Essential resources for panoramic photography

Labels: news on the news

Yomiuri Shimbun of Japan has the world's largest newspaper circulation with an estimated 14,000,000 subscribers. In fact, 6 of the top 7 largest newspapers are based in Japan, according to the World Association of Newspapers.


There is at least one newspaper available in every continent of the world, including The Antarctic Sun of Antarctica.



Of the 429 U.S. newspapers viewable at the Newseum's daily archive, 123 — or 28 percent — use some variation of the familiar Gothic font in their masthead.



Anne Royall, born 1769 and considered by some to be the first professional female journalist in the US, was also the first woman to interview a US president: John Quincy Adams.


The world's smallest newspaper, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is the First News of Surrey, England. The tiny tabloid measured in at only 1.25 x 0.86 in (32 x 22 mm).




The newspaper with the largest number of Pulitzer Prizes is the New York Times with 101.



You've probably heard the New York Times' famous slogan "All the News That's Fit to Print." But how about the Aspen Daily News' motto "If You Don't Want It Printed, Don't Let It Happen" or the Mason Valley News of Yerington, Nevada's proclamation "The Only Newspaper in the World That Gives a Damn About Yerington."


At 210 years old, The Dartmouth, founded in 1799, is the United States' oldest college newspaper.



The Washington Post has its own theme song, aptly titled "The Washington Post March," composed in 1889 by John Phillip Sousa. The familiar tune was commissioned by newspaper management and can still be heard at many parades.




Also on 10,000 Words:

• The Daily News-Tribune-Herald-Times: Newspapers names are
much of the same
• Just what are they teaching future journalists?
• How did you choose your blog's name?
• Better Days: The Golden Age of Newspapers

Labels: news on the news

In this era of new media and technology, journalists are being asked to acquire skills beyond reporting and writing, probably the most daunting of which is learning basic computer programming. Some argue that coding skills are an essential part of working in a new media environment, while many traditional journalists balk at the idea, saying computer programming is not why they signed up for the profession.

Both sides have valid arguments: learning basic HTML, CSS or other programming languages helps journalists create their own online content and understand the parameters of technical journalism. On the other hand, refusing to learn coding may be more than just stubbornness or old media thinking.

Being both a journalist and a programmer/coder requires use of both sides of the brain. The left brain, which relies on logic and analysis, is more apt for synthesizing computer processes; the right brain relies more on intuition and creative thought, essential skills for a successful journalist. Because journalists are more likely to be right-brain thinkers, asking a writer to code is basically asking someone to rethink the way they think (To find out what kind of thinker you are, take this short quiz).

This is why such skills are at odds with each other and learning coding is not as easy as just picking up a book. One must tap into both hemispheres of the brain and think both analytically and intuitively to thrive in the new era of journalism.



So why should journalists bother to learn coding? If anything, learning how to build online and interactive stories gives journos a greater understanding of how web-based journalism is created and how they can enhance traditional print or broadcast stories. As with all multimedia skills, journos are more likely to be invested in the technical process if they have an idea of what's possible.

Also, learning computer skills makes journalists less dispensable and, for the unemployed, more marketable for future employment, which — let's be honest — can't hurt in the industry's current tumultuous state. Many journalism jobs now require someone who has both coding skills and writing experience, the latter of which many traditional computer programmers lack. Because many coders and developers aren't exactly rushing out to learn about inverted pyramids and cutlines, this gives the coding journalist an advantage.

There are many working journalists/programmers, some of whom are more fluent in one side or the other, and with computer programming being taught in J-Schools, even more should emerge in the coming years.

Learning HTML/CSS is useful for building web-based projects and knowledge of ActionScript is necessary for working in Flash environments. But unless you're planning a career as a developer, a deep understanding of Django, PHP or Ruby on Rails is not required.

It's encouraging to see participants at the Knight Digital Media Center training workshops and other similar efforts take the basic web design skills they pick up and go on to create their own online stories or web-based projects.

For those interested in learning basic computer programming, start with the online tutorials at W3Schools or any of the books in the For Dummies series. Additional online tutorials can be found at lynda.com, News University or any of the sites listed in this previous post.

There are journalists whose prowess remains in the written word and they shouldn't be admonished for sticking to what they know. Those who choose to adhere to long-standing forms of print or broadcast journalism shouldn't fret, but know that there will come a time when basic coding will become an integral part of a journalist's duties. It's better to jump on the bandwagon now than to be left in the dust later on.


Also on 10,000 Words:

• Essential multimedia tutorials and resources for do-it-yourself training
• What is...? A handy guide for the new media novice
• Journalists: Change starts with you
• Multimedia Picker: Choose the right medium for your message
• Why J-Schools matter

Labels: news on the news

As many newsrooms have discovered, Twitter is a great way to break news as it happens and to share stories with a large audience as they are made available. However, many news organizations fall into the trap of simply posting links to stories with no context and no interaction with their followers, thereby turning Twitter into a glorified RSS feed. That is the old media way of disseminating the news, one that won't survive. What follows are examples of newsrooms embracing Twitter as a new media, Web 2.0 way of spreading and sharing the news and listening in return.

One of the simplest ways to increase reporter interaction with communities is to sign up as many as are willing for Twitter and have them cover and share news on their beat with Twitter followers. In order to make it easier for readers to find their favorite reporters, many news organizations, including the Austin American-Statesman, Cincinnati Enquirer, Grand Island Independent, and Des Moines Register (pictured below) have set up landing pages for potential followers to find every tweeting journalist or news section in one place.



NBC4 Columbus takes the landing page a step further by also showcasing tweets about the city that aren't necessarily directed to the news staff, in addition to recent tweets from anchors, reporters and staff. The Telegraph has reversed the notion, by displaying Twitterfall, an online interface for viewing recent tweets, on a large screen in its newsroom.

Many traditional and nontraditional news outlets have also embraced Twitter as a means of crowdsourcing, or gathering information from the community on a story or topic. Twitter makes it easy to ask questions of many people at one time who may have information that would have otherwise gone unheard. 10,000 Words has done so for several posts, including this one and this one. ReadWriteWeb explains how they crowdsource in the post "How We Use Twitter for Journalism".

Sites like TweetBeep, which provides alerts based on keywords selected by the user, can also be used to stay on top of breaking news as it happens on Twitter. If you're looking for news on a specific area, CityTweets aggregates Twitter mentions of various cities around the world in one place. Breaking Tweets is also worth a look — the news site is powered by information and photos shared on Twitter.



Because the journalism conference season is coming up, it would be interesting to see something like this, a list of attendees who are on Twitter (looking at you @ONA09). With so many seminars and happenings being shared on Twitter at SXSW for example, it would be useful to have those names on hand to increase interaction among attendees.

You can find even more ways to merge Twitter and journalism in the comments section of this Online Journalism Blog post and this post by Meranda Watling.

It's time to turn off Twitterfeed, and embrace Twitter's many uses for many improving journalism. For a list of newspapers on Twitter, check out this exhaustive list and also ReporTwitters, a collection of online journalists using Twitter as a tool for innovation.


Also on 10,000 Words

• 10 Journalists you should follow on Twitter
• Twitter for journalists: What you need to know
• The top 7 mistakes new Twitter users make
• How to analyze your Twitter followers and friends

Labels: news on the news, social networking

There are several kinds of posts you will never see on 10,000 Words, one of which is anything proclaiming the demise of journalism. There are a chorus of pundits and bloggers that have already proclaimed the death of journalism as we know it, but rarely offer solutions to help improve the industry.

Journalism-is-dead.com is a collection of the alarmist, bombastic and otherwise humorous quotes about why journalism is dead. The future of media may be grim, but according to some, you'd think it was a sign of the apocalypse.

Check it out, have a laugh, and keep in mind the medium may change but journalism is here to stay.

Labels: news on the news

I was browsing through last month's issue of Complex magazine when I stopped at a timeline of the history of Calvin Klein.

"They should have made that into a multimedia presentation," I thought. I then paused and asked myself why. Why would this already nicely designed infographic need the interactive treatment?

The short answer: to attract more viewers and stand out in a sea of online graphics.



There are so many sources of news in the crowded online market that making print articles available online is enough to attract a substantial readership, but not enough to stand out from the crowd. Considering many web readers skim content rather than read it, interactive and multimedia news stories force users to interact with the content rather than passively consume it.

In addition, a good interactive story can yield thousands of Diggs and Stumbles, hundreds of mentions on Twitter and other social networks, and a slew of saves on social bookmarking sites like delicious, which in turn means hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of visitors. All that is worth the extra man hours if it means higher page views which also translates to, for those concerned with the business side of journalism, greater revenue.

A nice multimedia presentation doesn't even have to be a complex database like those created by the New York Times. Popular Mechanics' interactive map of proposed North American high-speed train projects could have been a simple infographic, but its interactive Flash graphic was Dugg more than 1,700 times, bookmarked on delicious by more than 60 different users and was Stumbled a gajillion times.

In the same vein, the Associated Press' relatively simple interactive graph of the 2008 U.S. Presidential candidates' fundraising receipts was Dugg 545 times and Portfolio.com (which is already a great source of Flash journalism) created a simple six-slide slideshow on the "World's Most Worthless Money" was Dugg a whopping 1,045 times.



What these interactive graphics all have in common is they are simple but compelling ideas that are presented in an interesting way. One could argue that the examples illustrate their respective issues better than they would be with plain text or a flat graphic. Web users are spending more and more time online and are better served with content that piques their interest rather than puts them to sleep.

In the end, the most important thing is that interactive news stories encourage the reader to walk away with a greater understanding of the concept presented before them and encourage a larger audience to do so. After all isn't the point of journalism to spread the news to as many people as possible?


Also on 10,000 Words:

• Online news games are fun (and informative!)
• Where to find the best in Flash journalism
• Eyetrack studies: What we've learned and how to conduct your own

Labels: flash, news on the news, social networking

Advertising for the U.S. Army is everywhere — from movies to television to print ads — and all with one message: joining the Army is the coolest thing you could ever do and you should find out why. Media organizations should adopt similar marketing techniques to regain the readers that we so desperately need to survive.


Make use of the swag

When the Army sets up its recruiting tables, they are often stacked with Army-branded footballs, Frisbees and other assorted bric-a-brac so even if the taker doesn't plan on joining the armed forces, they at least have the Army burned into the back of their minds.

Every year, recruitment tables at journalism conferences around the world are also filled with company-branded notebooks, pens and the like, but the people who take away the loot are mostly other journalists and media types who already have thousands of notebooks lying on their desks. Since attendance at journalism conferences will likely be down this year (lets face it, who can afford these pricey shindigs anymore?), why not give the swag to people in the community who will be genuinely impressed by the free loot? Many communities complain about lack of interaction with their local papers, so the leftover piles of swag are a perfect way to bridge the gap.


Go where the young people are

The U.S. Army is notorious for taking its recruitment efforts to colleges around the country as well as placing large ads in many college newspapers. While it may sound strange to suggest professional newspapers advertise in student publications, it does bring home a point — no one knows how awesome your coverage is if you don't tell them. Media outlets cannot rest on being the long-standing source for news; they have to advertise directly toward the very demographic they complain about not reaching.


Get a new attitude

One of the biggest draws of the Army's television ads is it makes enlisting look like the most awesome thing ever: steel-faced soldiers march through a mix of smoke and flashing lights while rock music plays in the background...it makes one want to drop everything and join immediately.

While newspapers and broadcast stations likely don't have the cash to hire 3 Doors Down to sing a song about them, they can ditch the old gray lady/non-regional diction/holier than thou/old media attitude make reading the news feel a little more hip. One of the biggest draws of Current and sites like the Sugar network is they make the user feel cool just reading/watching just my changing the tone of the delivery. Coolness doesn't require the massive advertising budget of the army, it can be as simple as presenting news stories in a more conversational — and less condescending — manner.


Also on 10,000 Words:
• What the journalism industry can learn from porn
• 25 Things I've Learned About Journalism
• What Speed Racer taught me about multimedia journalism

Labels: news on the news

Now is the time of year when news organizations rehash the same clichéd trivia about African-American history in place of fresh reporting on the ongoing contributions of Blacks to American culture. Use this BINGO card to keep track of the oft-recycled people, places and things that you are sure to hear about this Black History Month and every February for years to come.





Previously on 10,000 Words:
• Black History Month is dying, but isn't dead yet

Labels: news on the news

It may be wrong to beat a man (or a newspaper) when he's down, but some of the unconscionable and downright annoying features and practices of news sites warrant a little attention. Here are some of the worst offenders:


1. 50 million-word stories

The reason why so many people use the internet to get their news is because they can do so fairly quickly. So that Pulitzer Prize candidate that takes two years to scroll through and resembles an endless sea of text? Either break it up or kick it down a notch.


2. Multi-page "slideshows"

On the flip side, there are the popular online "slideshows" — one news story spread over several pages, usually with a single image and a paragraph of text on each page. While the practice may be good for page views, no one wants to click through 27 different pages to read a single story.


3. Expanding/ "Rich media" ads

You're going about your business, reading a news article when suddenly that innocuous ad in the corner expands across the page and some cute animation demands your attention. You panic and search for the "close" button, but because it's tucked away in the last spot you'll ever look, you can't finish reading the news article and leave the site in disgust. Sound familiar?


4. No links whatsoever

Often a news story will refer to some cool, hip, happening site, but because there is no link to said site, readers are left to Google it themselves. Sometimes, this is the fault of the reporter for not including the link or at minimum a note to do so. Yet many news sites just don't have a practice of linking out or even worse, don't include links in fear that their readers may be taken away from their site.


5. Registration

Thankfully many news organizations have seen the error of their ways and stopped requiring visitors to register just to view a single story. There are a few holdouts who insist on the practice and who fail to realize that many visitors would rather not read the story at all than to endure a five-minute registration process for a site they may never return to anyway.


6. Poor design

The average front page of a major news site looks like the HTML fairies threw up on it: endless columns of text and links with no real differentiation between the content. If you're going to do the column thing, check out Alltop to see how it's supposed to be done.


7. Full-screen ads

Upon visiting a news site, readers are greeted with a full-screen ad for something or the other instead of the story they were expecting to read. Again, done to generate advertising revenue, but it doesn't make the practice any less annoying.


8. The never-ending hunt

As seen on TV? Not really. Many television newscasters at the end of a report will say something along the lines of "For more information, check out our website" and give the station's web address. However, when the viewer actually visits the site, the link to the story is nowhere to be found and doesn't show up in the site's search.


9. Pop-up ads

Are we really still doing these? Really?


10. Comment trolls and flamers

These guys are the bane of many sites' existence (and not just news ones). Because of the sometimes controversial nature of whats being reported, people use news sites as a forum for their bitter, inflammatory, racist or insulting remarks. Frustrated site managers try to dissuade or delete said comments, but are mostly crying on the inside and clinging to the notion that everyone has the right to free speech.


Also on 10,000 Words:
• 25 Things I've Learned About Journalism
• Eyetrack studies: What we've learned and how to conduct your own
• The difference between print and online design

Labels: design, news on the news, site management

The way we read the news is changing, so it only makes sense that the way we follow the news should change as well. Even relatively new news aggregators like Google News seem antiquated compared to these game-changing tools.

Track This Now

Track This Now is an impressive tool in which the user inputs keywords and a Google Map outputs where the phrase is being mentioned by news sources around the world. In the below screengrab it is evident that media organizations all over the world are talking about president-elect Obama, as shown by the markers on the map. The latest news on Obama or any other searched-for topic is shown in the pane on the right.

Spreed News

Spreed recognizes that many internet users want their news quick, fast and in a hurry. The free service displays news articles a few words at a time, making them easily digestable and reducing the time necessary to read each story. It's hard to tell if the service will catch on, but it will definitely be popular among those with short attention spans.

MemeTracker

MemeTracker analyzes almost a million news stories a day to determine what quotes and phrases appear most frequently over time. Memorable quotes like "Lipstick on a pig" and "The fundamentals of our economy are strong" echoed strongly across the blogosphere and as such are marked by strong peaks on the graph. The site, which was created by a team of researchers from Cornell University, has a great search function for viewing the popularity of quotes based on keywords, such as "economy" in the example below.

Stitcher

One of the latest iPhone applications lets owners of the mobile device listen to news stories on the go. Unlike other mobile news radio stations in which users tune in to a 24-hour a day broadcast, Stitcher users can listen to audio news articles from news organizations like NPR and CNN on demand, as well as pause, rewind and fast forward. Favorite news stories can bookmarked and saved for later listening.

DiggGraphr

DiggGraphr is a tree map visualization of the latest news on Digg and is reminiscent of the Marumushi newsmap (previously covered here). Each story is represented by a color-coded square. An initial visit to the page can be a little off-putting because selecting "All" will bring up headlines for spammy stories with just one or two Diggs, but by selecting a category in the drop down menu, users can filter the information into any one of Digg's relevant categories.

NewsIsFree: NewsMaps

NewsMaps tracks the latest news from a number of popular US media organizations in a similar manner as DiggGraphr, albeit in an even more scaled down way. Recent stories are grouped by source and represented by blocks of color, red signifying the most recent news. Users can filter by keywords, source or any of several other factors. The NewsMap also offers a couple of unique features including the ability to directly clip, email, blog or track the article, all without leaving the site.




Previously on 10,000 Words:
• 7 Innovative ways of visualizing the news
• The big scrolling debate: Do users care about page length?

Labels: design, mobile, news on the news

One of the biggest complaints about modern journalism schools is that they aren't equipping the next wave of journalists with the skills they need to compete in today's newsrooms. So what are they teaching students? The online course descriptions for several J-schools were run through Wordle. Here are the results:

Medill Graduate School of Journalism

The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism

More after the jump

UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

Asian College of Journalism

UNC Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communications

UPDATE:

Here are a few more word cloud analyses from around the blogosphere:


Reynolds School of Journalism
created by Jessica Estepa




Boston University's JO540 Multimedia Journalism class
created by Steve Garfield

Labels: news on the news

A quick read of the latest issue of Los Angeles magazine was made even quicker by the ads that dominated the magazine, surpassing the number of actual news articles. To determine if this was out of the ordinary, ten magazines were randomly selected from a local newsstand and the number of ads in each was counted.

The hand count includes total pages in the magazine, including any fold-out pages, front, rear, and inside covers, and full-page inserts. Here are the results, ranked from lowest percentage of ads to the highest.

Time

78 pages, 27.66 total ads

Cosmopolitan

244 pages, 96.83 total ads

Rolling Stone

114 pages, 46.33 total ads

Blender

98 pages, 45 total ads

People

160 pages, 77.66 total ads

Esquire

204 pages, 99.16 total ads

Vanity Fair

364 pages, 208.66 total ads

Wired

240 pages, 138 total ads

Vogue

360 pages, 218 total ads

Los Angeles

284 pages, 191.5 total ads

Labels: news on the news

Newspapers are dying, we know. But which sections are already dead?

Front Page/A1

The front page of a daily newspaper is likely to contain news that, unless you don't read blogs, don't follow Digg, aren't on Twitter, don't read online news sites, and have no computer at all, is old news. Most newspapers now favor thoughtful analysis over breaking news stories, but you can get thoughtful analysis on blogs, Digg, Twitter...

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the editor have been obliterated by online comment sections attached to individual articles. Why read the random musings of a handful of selected readers when you can read hundreds of comments on any one story or issue? Better yet, newspaper readers now have access to millions of blogs dedicated to every topic under the sun.

Restaurant reviews

Who cares what one guy or gal thinks about the latest restaurant opening? A quick search through Yelp, CitySearch or any of their clones will reveal thousands of Average Joes writing about hundreds of restaurants near you. Even turning to the newspaper for simple suggestions has been been outmoded by tools like the iPhone's Urbanspoon application.

Movie reviews

Just as Yelp has replaced print media as the go-to for restaurant reviews sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.com are kicking newspaper ass. Why read what one jaded critic has to say, when you can read the reviews of hundreds of jaded critics, all in one place.

Weather

The little box with the happy smiling sun and the day's forecast? It's probably either oversimplified or overrun with useless statistics, and on top of that, it likely isn't accurate for every area the newspaper serves. That's where the many online weather tools come in, giving web users accurate forecasts right down to the street level.

Classifieds

1995. The year craigslist was launched and the beginning of the end of newspaper classified sections. Oh well, the tiny ads were taking up space anyway.

3 sections that aren't going anywhere (or newspapers are really screwed)

Obituaries

People will die and as long as they continue to do so, there will be journalists there to write nice things about them.

Opinion

Before newspapers were confined to concepts like impartiality and fairness, the printed word was made up of opinion pieces (that may or may not have been based on, you know, facts). Even at their most basic form, newspapers will always contain someone's opinion, albeit with a lot more fact-checking.

Comics

There's nothing like spending a Sunday morning with a cup of coffee and a page full of comics. And while many comic strips are now available online, newspapers provide the real estate for all of them to be read in one place.

Labels: news on the news

1. Your computer has been replaced by a Speak and Spell.
2. There is now a bouncer outside the newsroom door.
3. Your phone calls are forwarded to a call center in India.
4. Your boss just stole your stapler...


I was saving this post to assuage journalists who have been caught in the wave of layoffs, but ironically I myself have just been laid off from my job as part of Time Inc.'s massive restructuring.

10,000 Words will continue as usual because this blog is my passion and a chance to share everything I've learned and am learning with the world. I take solace in the fact that my varied skill set makes me a rare find within the journalism industry and I look forward to the challenges the next step in my career will bring. Thanks to everyone for your support and keep reading!


P.S. If you're looking for an innovative multimedia journalist, check out my online portfolio

Labels: news on the news

While researching for the map of newspaper endorsements for president, it became apparent that most newspaper names are just variations of the same familiar titles: Times, Post, Journal, etc. So, after running Wikipedia's list of US newspapers through TagCrowd, here are the most popular newspaper names in the United States:


1. News (299)
2. Daily (259)
3. Times (177)
4. Herald (128)
5. Journal (122)
6. Press (94)
7. Tribune (86)
8. Sun (66)
9. Star (58)
10. Gazette (43)
11. Courier (42)
12. Record (42)
13. Post (40)
14. Sentinel (34)
15. Observer (33)
16. Democrat (28)
17. Register (28)
18. Enterprise (27)
19. Reporter (26)
20. Independent (25)
21. Chronicle (24)
22. Leader (24)
23. Citizen (22)
24. Review (20)
25. Weekly (20)


And of course, in the grand tradition of 10,000 Words, here is a word cloud created with Wordle (click for larger version):




Also on 10,000 Words:

• What is...? A handy guide for the new media novice
• 8 Ways of visualizing the news
• What the journalism industry can learn from porn
• Better Days: The Golden Age of Newspapers

Labels: news on the news

Burger King's notoriously creepy King commercials as well as the company's recent debut of ads featuring awkward singing duo Shroom & Swiss have made one thing clear: weird is the new jingle.

In the age of Tivo and DVRs, advertisers have to do a lot more to compel viewers to watch their commercials. Many have found that the way to capture the minds of the elusive 18-34 male demographic is to emulate those crazy YouTube videos that they are watching. This has led to an onslaught of head scratchers like Quiznos' "Eat $5" campaign, Skittle's piñata man, and a centaur touting the virtues of Axe Body Wash.

While some intentionally weird campaigns have been successful (BK's King is now a sought after Halloween mask), most just end up falling flat. Television viewers are a lot more sophisticated than advertisers give them credit for and can recognize when they're being pandered to.

It's hard to think that this trend in advertising — along with the prevalence of reality TV — isn't a part of the dumbing down of American television, but as long as campaigns like the King continue to go viral and become cultural phenomena, advertisers will continue to do whatever works. The fundamental point of any ad is to get people talking about the product, which, ironically, is what I have just done.


Burger King: Shroom & Swiss, Wake Up With the King

  


AXE: Chocolate Man, Centaur

  


Skittles: Piñata Man, Long beard

  

Labels: design, news on the news, video

Let's face it. No one — save for shut-ins and the Pulitzer Prize committee — wants to read a story that spreads over several pages of a newspaper. Pictures and graphics are not gonna help and putting on the net only exacerbates the problem. So what is a long-winded journalist to do? Here are some ways to make the long story more palatable:

Break it up

Newspapers ought to take a cue from DailyLit, a forward-thinking site that makes classic literature like Dickens and Dumas, as well as newly released books, available for online reading through installments. Users can select a book they want to read and receive daily chunks of it either through email or RSS.

RSS itself is a great way to encourage readers to follow a long with a particular story. Instead of making an excessively long story available online in one piece, deliver different sections of the story through RSS over the course of a few days to ensure the reader digests more of the story.

The same idea could be applied to Twitter: instead of sending a portion of the story through RSS, simply send a link to Twitter followers/readers.

Let the story stand alone

GOOD Magazine, which, along with the Las Vegas Sun, is at the forefront of new media innovation, makes a free 6x6 inch, mini-newspaper available in select Starbucks locations that concentrates on a single story. This week's story is on carbon emissions and is made up of a large and detailed graph of how greenhouse gases affect the world. The first fold-out page is a full-sized ad that the reader sees before reading the story (ad revenue!). Not only is this a genius way of putting a story in front of readers who will likely have a few minutes to spare, it is also a great way to promote brand identity.

More pics: Front cover, Inside ad, Full-page story

Go mobile

Now that more Kindles are finding their way into consumers' hands and the iPhone and BlackBerry have made reading on a cell phone less of a chore, it's time to adapt long investigative pieces or feature stories for reading on mobile devices. If people are willing to read books on a Kindle, they are likely willing to read the newspaper. And now that news sites are being optimized for the web, it's time to optimize the stories themselves.


Whichever way the story is presented, it must reflect the growing segment of the population who don't have time to read long pages of text. After all, what good is a story if no one reads it?

Labels: mobile, news on the news, rss, site management

Nowadays it's popular to knock journalism schools as unnecessary institutions that are producing young journalists who lack the real world experience to make it in today's newsrooms. But in those halls of academia, young people with a passion for news are receiving the journalism training that fewer media organizations are able to provide.

The majority of journalism jobs require a minimum amount of experience, yet very few offer that experience to journalists at the beginning of their careers. Many newsrooms have internship programs that facilitate on-the-job training, yet more and more are cutting funding for these programs along with the jobs held by seasoned employees.

This leaves J-Schools to close the gap. Many journalism schools try to simulate the newsroom experience as best they can, requiring students to write or produce stories on deadline, as well as learn new forms of journalism and network with professionals who have seen the industry change and grow.

J-Schools now offer what many long time journalists wish they had available to them: exceptional multimedia skills training. The familiarity with technical journalism is increasingly the difference between the hireability of one candidate over another. And as much as they dare not admit, many recruiters are still impressed when they see Medill or Columbia on a résumé.

In the interest of full disclosure, I attended the UC Berkeley Graduate School where I received a degree in multimedia journalism. Before I attended Cal, I had no idea that multimedia journalism existed. I had been working as a crime reporter for some time, the violence of which was affecting me mentally, and decided to apply to grad school. It clearly was a life-changing decision.

Berkeley not only showed me my existing multimedia skills could be paired with my passion for writing, but it also put me in front of some of the pioneers of the new media movement, who I was in turn greatly inspired by (perhaps to write this blog?)

I implore veteran journos to take a look at the coursework of today's journalism schools and see the rigorous training students are receiving. A student who has graduated from any of the esteemed J-Schools is equipped with the skills necessary to become an entry-level reporter. The "real world" skills should come in time.

If the current trend continues and every newsroom around the world slashes their internship programs, it will be up to the J-Schools to do what they have been doing for years: producing the next wave of competent journalists.


Also on 10,000 Words:

• 10 Things I wish they'd told me in J-School
• Just what are they teaching future journalists?
• J-Schools in pictures

Labels: news on the news

As recently as a year or two ago, coverage of a natural disaster simply meant a reporter in a wet slicker being whipped around by gale-force winds.

Today's news audience demands immediate and hyperlocal coverage and the internet is here to give it to them. A recent study shows that people are more likely to turn to social networks like Twitter and Facebook than traditional news sources in the event of an emergency.

There have already been a number of blogs created exclusively for coverage of Hurricane Gustav, which was only on the radar a little over a week ago. These include the Hurricane Gustav Online Newsroom created by the Red Cross and Hurricane Gustav Resources maintained by OneStorm.

However, we are now living in a digital world where even blogs can't beat the immediacy of Twitter. There already a number of feeds on the microblogging service dedicated to Gustav, including news from the Red Cross, the SunHerald based in Mississippi's Gulf Coast, and the Chicago Tribune's GustavReporter.

Because of the fast breaking news happening on Twitter, major news media have already started to reference incoming tweets on their broadcasts, as evidenced in this story by Mike Elgan. You can follow updates about the hurricane by searching Twitter for "gustav" or joining the conversation by including the hastag #gustav in your tweets.

As recently as a year ago, many news outlets were reluctant to add their content to public video sharing sites like YouTube, but now those mainstream organizations are often ahead of the pack. The Associated Press has already posted a number of video clips to YouTube, which fit right in with the citizen journalist-created videos that exist on the site.

 

The way to show the path of a hurricane on a news broadcast used to be a relatively simple graphic that highlighted a large swirling cloud on a colorful map. The net has extended the possibility of what this map can be. MSNBC's Hurricane Tracker is a user-friendly interactive map that not only shows where Gustav is headed, but a host of other data to accompany it. The Palm Beach Post also has a Gustav tracking map, this one showing the hurricane as it relates to the southeast portion of the US.





CNN's iReport has also made use of maps, but in a different way. Photos and video from "iReporters," or citizen journalists who are in the middle of the storm, are geotagged and posted on the map where others can view by area and leave comments.



The South Florida Sun-Sentinel has gone all out and provided every type of news coverage imaginable, including video, a variety of maps, constantly updated blogs, archival footage and more, in addition to its traditional print stories.

Other useful online tools that likely wouldn't have existed a few years ago include a Google Maps mashup of evacuation destinations and the HurriCam, a live streaming webcam stationed in southernmost Louisiana. And because average Joes are no longer content to sit around and wait for mainstream media to report on the news that matters to them, the Ning-based social network Gustav Information Center has been setup to provide a forum for Hurricane Gustav-related news. Credentialed reporters and citizen journalists alike will also find the social network Storm Tools for Journalists incredibly useful.

Finally, there has been a recent trend in newsrooms to provide links to organizations that provide aid to those devastated by natural disasters. After the recent cyclone in Myanmar, many online news sites like the New York Times streamlined the donation process.

Labels: citizen journalism, maps, news on the news, photos, social networking, video

From an LA Weekly newsstand: "If you can read this, PRINT AIN'T DEAD. LONG LIVE PRINT."

Labels: news on the news

1. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is any good multimedia project worth its salt.

2. You want to do video? You're gonna have to pay for a decent video camera.

3. Every story doesn't require an elaborate Flash project.

4. No, Twitter is not a bird, it's the next wave of journalism.

5. Waiting until a story has run in the paper first isn't just ridiculous; it's a recipe for failure.

6. If you're going to triple my workload, you're eventually going to have to pay me more.

7. Sure, the local blogger posted the story five minutes before we did, but we'd rather be accurate than fast.

8. The web is not a dumping ground for stories.

9. Time to wise up to the internets buddy, before you're laid off too.

10. Being an "online news director" requires a thorough understanding of online news.

11. Multimedia skills don't just appear; you gotta pony up the dough for training.

12. I'm not surfing the internet, I'm doing research.

Labels: news on the news

This post is one in a series covering the multimedia sessions at the 2008 UNITY Journalists conference

A few minutes ago, I walked out of a session I intended to cover called "Adventures in Multimedia." When asked why by a colleague, I responded that I can't stand multimedia journalism theory. One can hear said theory when media professionals discuss the state of the industry and its decline and that multimedia is its savior. They discuss how we need to bridge the gap between print and online through video, Flash and other multimedia elements.

But what the panelists and some talking heads fail to impart is the practical tools to make this happen. Often newsrooms talk about convergence without equipping their reporters with the proper knowledge of online tools, either through training or workshops. The best multimedia journalists are sometimes those who take it upon themselves to learn the various tools in a multimedia journalist's arsenal, without prompting from a supervisor or employer.

The online revolution in journalism will never happen unless news organizations make a financial commitment to training their existing staff and making an investment in the future of the company.

Labels: news on the news

The rest of the web knows how to link: if you get information from another site, common courtesy indicates you should link back to the original source.

But many online journalists haven't quite adopted that reasoning. There is still a prevailing theory among many journalists that the blogs we ransack for leads or story ideas are not actual news sources and do not merit attribution. Add to that a resistance to linking to any outside site for fear that visitors will be led away from the page and the result is a slew of professional journalists who are linkphobic.

Back in February, Robert Niles wrote a helpful primer on how, and where, to hyperlink a news story. Clearly, some people never read it. Recently, there has been an outcry from bloggers who are seeing mainstream publications source their original content without attribution.

The SEO Company has an informative table that shows which online media powerhouses are linking to sites outside of their own. Interestingly, many sites only link in their blog posts and not in their main stories. SEO makes a good point about linking out:

We believe that linking to useful websites doesn't "leak" traffic - quite the opposite in fact. Offering useful links actually makes visitors more likely to return to see what other interesting websites they might find in the future[...] Mainstream media websites are, with the exception of the BBC, business entities with shareholders and an obligation to maximise profits. It's understandable that they are reluctant to send valuable page views elsewhere.

Here is the cardinal rule of internet journalism: A link should be added to any story if the information is based on that from another site, even if it is from a blog. Anything else is plagiarism and just wrong.

Web journalists should also link to sites that readers may find useful. For example, if a theatrical production is being reviewed, a link to purchasing tickets may be helpful. Or if a Crime Stoppers-like organization has more detailed information on a crime suspect, provide a link for readers to follow.

Hyperlinking can be a form of journalism itself. Two excellent blogs, Journerdism and shiner.clay, both provide collections of links to stories that may be interesting to readers.

To those who are still apprehensive about the whole linking thing, do not be afraid that readers will leave your site. If you continue to provide, well-written, one-of-a-kind content, readers will keep coming back.

Labels: blogging, news on the news, site management

Friday's launch of the iPhone 3G means that millions more people will change how they interact with their cell phones. The iPhone represents a growing opportunity for news organizations to take on the mobile web and to recoup tech savvy consumers who have shunned old forms of media.


Gone are the days of waiting for the evening paper or the 7 o'clock news to find out about the day's events. The iPhone provides instant information at the tap of a finger which gives users the ability to pull up any factoid in a matter of seconds.

This means even shorter deadlines for reporters, and even quicker turn around on blurbs that can be posted to the web immediately. It also means consumers will be more receptive to mobile video which, on the iPhone's predecessors, had to be viewed on a screen the size of a postage stamp. The phone currently has built-in YouTube access for those videos hosted on the video sharing site, but it puts a greater demand on Apple to create Flash compatibility on the phone so news sites can provide video in a central location.

If consumers continue to favor smartphones for newspapers, it spells the demise of the 100,000 word story that, let's be honest, no one but the Pulitzer Prize committee is reading anyway. Flowery language and intro paragraphs will eventually give way to succinct stories that can be read and digested quickly.

The iPhone's increasing popularity also means a definite increase in citizen journalism. Ordinary citizens can use the phone's built-in camera to take photos of news as it happens and email it to their local or national news outlet. Or, as more users become familiar with the phone's unique typing interface, they will post their own news in whatever manner they want.

Flickr is already seeing a rise in photographs submitted from iPhones, and several Twitter applications are making it easier to send news directly from the phone.

Many media companies, like the Los Angeles Times, CNN, and NPR have already acknowledged the technical capabilities of the phone by creating mobile-friendly sites. This is tame compared to the possibilities the iPhone holds.

The GPS-enabled phone is an untapped space for news organizations to provide extremely hyperlocal news directly to the reader by mapping news events happening directly around them. Imagine being able to access a map and know that a fire is happening right down the street from you.

The great barrier to mass adoption of new technology is often price. But now that the cost of the iPhone has dropped significantly (and perhaps even more in the future?), the number of iPhone and other smartphone users is likely to grow dramatically.

As technologically advanced as the iPhone is, it still lacks obvious features that still haven't been addressed in its latest iteration. But as the phone and other similar technologies grow and develop, the opportunities for new and innovative journalism will arise.

One can only hope that these developments will occur in the near future, but, as has been shown in the past, the field of journalism is slow to catch up to available technology. Journalism shouldn't be catching up to technology; it should be at the forefront of its creation.


For a list of iPhone development resources, visit Positive Space.

Labels: mobile, news on the news

Dan Rather, Barbara Walters, Katie Couric. All beloved American journalists. All on TV. Will there ever be a multimedia journalist to rise above the pack and become a star reporter? The field of multimedia journalism has it heroes: Dan Gillmor, Rob Curley, Adrian Holovaty, etc., but many of them are unknown to the mainstream public.

America is obsessed with celebrity and there is nothing to say a non-traditional journalist can't be the apple of America's eye. If newspapers are to go the way of the dinosaur, surely there will be a maverick new media journalist who will become America's sweetheart.

As I write this post, the first contender to come to mind is Kevin Sites of Hot Zone fame. Sites is an incredibly talented and resourceful backpack journalist, but judging by the swooning graduate students at his visit to the UC Berkeley J-School some time ago, you would have thought he was a rock star.

On the other hand, what makes one journalist more starworthy than another? What separates Ted Koppel from say Steve Edwards? That's up to America to decide, I guess.

Do you know any rock star multimedia journalists? Should the nation idolize the people behind the journalism? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Labels: news on the news

We'd like to think our users/readers/viewers see us as great pillars of journalism, but a quick tour of Brand Tags reveals this isn't always so. The site asks visitors to play word association with some world-famous brands, including Microsoft, Pontiac and Jagermeister.

There are a large number of media companies represented on the site. Here are the words, sorted by popularity, that users most often associated with the brands:

Newsweek

(pictured at right)
magazine, news, boring, newspaper, paper, information, old, liberal, informative, time, weekly, politics, biased, conservative, tabloid, american, business, news magazine, dull, crap

CNN

news, tv, biased, liberal, lies, boring, cnn, propaganda, information, bias, ted turner, american, atlanta, crap, james earl jones, liars, turner, war, lie, anderson cooper

Oprah

fat, black, women, oprah, boring, tv, bitch, rich, annoying, harpo, money, woman, cult, talk show, lame, o, stupid, overrated, power, talk

ESPN

sports, boring, sportscenter, tv, jocks, fast, football, men, espn, american, jock, news, lame, guys, gay, sports center, nothing, sports channel, sports tv, hockey

New York Times

news, newspaper, liberal, paper, old, smart, serious, crossword, reliable, classic, boring, information, biased, quality, intelligent, trustworthy, good, established, journalism, informative

Financial Times

money, newspaper, boring, pink, news, serious, business, british, paper, economy, stuffy, magazine, london, dull, informative, old, wall street, reliable, quality

NBC

tv, peacock, news, television, 30 rock, friends, the office, old, funny, boring, office, seinfeld, rainbow, gay, network, heroes, nbc, comedy, american, conan

The Los Angeles Times

news, newspaper, paper, old, liberal, read, new york times, la, reliable, boring, american, official, classic, gothic, newspapers, hollywood, lies, crap, apple, smog

PBS

boring, tv, educational, public, sesame street, smart, education, people, free, quality, kids, television, intelligent, nova, liberal, learning, good, old, pbs, documentary


Brand identity is important so if users do see us as boring (which seems to be a common thread amongst many of the brands), then we have a problem on our hands.

Labels: news on the news

The winners of the EPpy awards for online content were announced yesterday in Las Vegas. Check out the complete list of winners or click here for the finalists.

Best Business Blog
NYTimes.com/DealBook

Best Business Web Site, with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors
Kiplinger.com: The Business Resource Center

Best Business Web Site, with more than one million unique monthly visitors
BusinessWeek.com

Best Classified Web Site, with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors
NWjobs.com

Best Classified Web Site, with more than one million unique monthly visitors
Cars.com

Best College Newspaper Web Site
The Daily Reveille


Best Community Web Site, with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors
The Denver Post

Best Community Web Site, with more than one million unique monthly visitors
msnbc.com

Best Entertainment Blog
Pop Candy, USATODAY.com

Best Entertainment Web Site, with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors
Indy.com, Indianapolis Star Media Group

Best Entertainment Web Site, with more than one million unique monthly visitors
PEOPLE.com

Best Local Radio-Affiliated Web Site
iCat fm, Catalunya Radio

Best National Magazine-Affiliated Web Site
Thisoldhouse.com

Best Network or Syndicated Radio-Affiliated Web Site
American RadioWorks from American Public Media

Best News Web Site, with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors
LJWorld.com

Best News Web Site, with more than one million unique monthly visitors
NYTimes.com

Best News/Politics Blog
The Swamp, chicagotribune.com

Best Overall Design of a Web Site, with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors
Metromix.com


Best Overall Design of a Web Site, with more than one million unique monthly visitors
Detnews.com, The Detroit News

Best Overall Local TV/Cable-Affiliated Web Site
KING5.com

Best Overall Network TV/Cable-Affiliated Web Site
CBSNews.com

Best Overall Newspaper-Affiliated Web Site, with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors
Las Vegas Sun

Best Overall Newspaper-Affiliated Web Site, with more than one million unique monthly visitors
NYTimes.com

Best Regional Magazine-Affiliated Web Site
VisionMonday.com

Best Spanish-Language Newspaper-Affiliated Web Site
ELPAÍS.com

Best Special Feature in a Web Site — Enterprise, with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors
Diabetes: The Invisible Epidemic, PalmBeachPost.com

Best Special Feature in a Web Site — Enterprise, with more than one million unique monthly visitors
Katrina Recovery Coverage, The Associated Press

Best Special Feature in a Web Site — News or Event, with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors
Oklahoma Centennial, NewsOK.com

Best Special Feature in a Web Site — News or Event, with more than one million unique monthly visitors
13 Seconds in August, StarTribune.com


Best Sports Blog
The FanHouse, AOL Sports

Best Sports Web Site, with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors
GoVolsXtra

Best Sports Web Site, with more than one million unique monthly visitors
USATODAY.com

Best Use of Video in a Web Site, with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors
CBC Digital Archives Web site - Les archives de Radio-Canada

Best Use of Video in a Web Site, with more than one million unique monthly visitors
TV Guide Online

Best Weekly Newspaper-Affiliated Web Site
The Santa Barbara (Calif.) Independent

Knight News Innovation Award
CNN.com

Congrats to the winners! Some great work here.

Labels: news on the news

It's no secret that 10,000 Words is a fan of CNN (here and here), especially its iReport program that empowers citizen journalists, but we have to agree there are some bizarre happenings over at it its website, particularly when it comes to its headlines.

A great blog encapsulating the phenomenon is CNN is like the worst "news" source. Ever. Blogger/artist Kelly Chambers takes the week's most interesting headlines and draws an illustration to accompany it. The results are hilarious, especially "Kids put in dryer and tumbled, police say" and "Drunk newlyweds tasered, jailed."

Another equally interesting blog is WTFCNN?, a collection of the news site's most questionable headlines. Some of the offenders include "Worst hair day ever involved a monkey," "No LOL, Doctors don't answer emails," and "Co-ed strips for her honors thesis, gets a B."

Breaking News or Not? users also take aim at CNN by determining whether a story is actually news and therefore warrants placement on the site. Some of the decisions are faulty as "Massive power outage hits Central and South Florida" was deemed as not news, but it is interesting to see what users think. BNON also covers a number of other news sources including Fox News, the BBC and The New York Times.


If you're a fan of the CNN and its infamous, yet iconic, headlines, the cable news network has made them available on t-shirts for you to wear proudly around the newsroom. Recent and past headlines are available to choose from and are written in the famous font.

Speaking of t-shirts, the season for professional journalism conferences is fast approaching and if you are a young journalist looking for that first gig or a seasoned pro looking to switch lanes, you may want to grab yourself a Resume Tee. Blackbird Tees will print your curriculum vitae on a t-shirt and a witticism on the front. Just remember if you get hired, tell em you saw it here.

For more journalism tees, check out the 10,000 Words online store.

Labels: news on the news

After reading a post from fave blog The Editorialiste commenting on the troubles of budding multimedia journalists, I understand. Multimedia is hard. It's different. That's why I've written a list of reasons why you shouldn't bother with multimedia.


1. The extra hours spent on multimedia will preempt any pressing games of Solitaire.

2. Backpack journalism requires backpacks...which are heavy.

3. Asking a journalist to multitask is like asking Bo Jackson to play more than one sport, I mean come on.

4. The hundreds of voices on a website can't compare to the two quality experts in a print or broadcast story.

5. Who needs to learn how to record audio when you can write?

6. Interactivity is just a fancy word for communism.

7. There will always be an intern that will do it for cheap.

8. The only code you really need to know is area.

9. Computers cause cancer.

10. Journalism is dead anyway.


Also on 10,000 Words:

• 25 Things I've Learned About Journalism
• 3 reasons journalists shouldn't use Flash
• Why journalists should learn to code (and why some shouldn't bother)

Labels: news on the news

I had to laugh when I watched the trailer for the 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. Moreover 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.

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

We all know there are various conspiracy theories that reckon "the media" has a — depending on who you talk to — liberal or conservative slant, a collective agenda to promote some unsavory cause, or just objectionable ethics in general.

In reality, most of journalists are just nice guys trying to perform a service to the global community. Its sad to say, but a great deal of the public often 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 gives the public insight into the newsgathering process which according to journalism tradition has been shrouded in mystery. Committing to a broadcast of news meetings means tucking in those shirts and cutting down on the swearing, but would contribute to a better public perception of the people who shape the news.

Broadcasting news meetings may not work for every media outlet and may create more trouble rather than lessen it but is nevertheless an idea to explore and emphasizes the spirit of new media.

Labels: news on the news

Big Media's first forays into the digital realm were earnest but in retrospect were downright laughable. Check out how major news sites looked like when they first hit the web courtesy of the Wayback Machine. Click the images to view them in actual size.




CBS then (1998), and now





CNN then (2000), and now





ESPN then (1997), and now





Los Angeles Times then (1997), and now





MSNBC then (1997), and now





NPR then (2000), and now





New York Times then (1996), and now





People Magazine then (1998), and now





Wall Street Journal then (1997), and now

Labels: news on the news

Almost 90 years after Carter G. Woodson laid the foundation for Black History Month, the yearly observation of the contributions of African-Americans to the country has devolved into a regurgitation of trivia and a tired observation of the same notable African Americans. There is more to Black History Month than Martin Luther King, Jr.

Black History Month can easily be translated into something newer, fresher and more relevant. Instead of simply focusing on the history makers of the past, there are ways of focus on the history makers of today.


There are a number of research labs and community outreach projects based at the more than 100 historically black colleges and universities across the country. Talk to students and professors at local HBCUs to discover the history being made within the collegiate walls.

Add some soul to your food coverage, by covering not just traditional soul food, but tasty alternatives like kosher or vegetarian soul food. Attend a spoken word event (YouTube link, NSFW language) and watch members of the community express their minds poetically.

The Schools for the Colored photo gallery is reminiscent of a photo project I saw some time ago that used archival photos of black neighborhoods and compared them to more recent photos to document the evolution of the area.

Lately, I have been enjoying VH1's "Say It Loud" documentary series that brings together musicians young and old to speak about themes running through black music, like sexuality and politics. Its fun (and secretly educational) seeing Snoop Dogg and Teddy Pendergrass talk about the passionate music of Marvin Gaye.

The Black Vote in Oakland by the UC Berkeley School of Journalism (of which I am an alum) is a great multimedia piece focused on the voting habits of African Americans, which promises to be a more scrutinized issue in the coming months. For her masters project several years ago, a UC Berkeley alum traveled the country photographing streets named after Martin Luther King. The project showed the blighted nature of the streets, but was also vaguely uplifting.

BET has a photo slideshow of entertainers making history right now and Los Angeles blog LAist has a list of ten books hat provide a balanced overview of black history recommended by a local bookstore.

PBS has a must see multimedia site about the black experience and though the verdict is still out on The Root, a web magazine by the Washington Post focused on African American issues, it is a step in the right direction.

There are, of course, many great blogs documenting the black experience, including Black Fives and Nappy Diatribe, from which coverage ideas may be sparked.

No matter your Black History Month coverage, it shouldn't end when March 1st rolls around. I hate to quote McDonald's, but Black History happens 24-7-365.

Labels: news on the news

Updated September 28, 2009

An ode to every journalist's best friend: the AP Stylebook... The first AP Stylebook was produced in 1953 and had 62 pages, according to the Associated Press. The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, as it is formally know, is edited by Associated Press editors Darrell Christian, Sally Jacobsen, and David Minthorn and is updated annually. The 2009 edition includes new words like Twitter, texting, and baba ghanoush. In the spirit of new media, the Stylebook is now available online and as an iPhone app and you can even get your style questions answered via Twitter @APStylebook. So what do you use yours for?

Labels: news on the news

Stay with me on this one. I was channel surfing last week when I landed on G4's coverage of the Adult Entertainment Expo and a group of panelists discussing how technologically advanced the adult film industry had been and become.

"Everybody knows that porn drives technology; sex drives technology," said one panelist.

Statistics vary on how much of the internet is made of porn, but there's no denying adult themed websites had a greater presence on the internet long before news ever did.

Porn has already begun to conquer the mobile web, allowing users to view their favorite photos and videos on the go. And yet only a conservative number of media sites are optimized for cellular devices (kudos to Fox News, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, CBS News and others for their mobile optimized sites).


I remember hearing stories of people watching porn on their iPods and digital devices on the BART trains of San Francisco, but in my time living there I rarely saw somebody reading news content from anything other than the traditional newspaper. If we could more assertively rush content to mobile devices we could not only capture the average business traveler, but also save the BART system from cleaning up the large piles of newspapers left behind.

Video on demand has been a boon to the porn industry for years now. Instead of going to the video store and sifting through shelves to find captivating titles, users can download or stream a variety of adult films in a diverse number of niches that surpasses even what's available in brick and mortar stores.

In the G4 interview, adult film director Richard DeMontfort argued that porn sustained the early stages of video technology, including VHS and DVD, because people could enjoy the films from home. "When video came out, porn was the first one there, porn kept video growing like crazy," DeMontfort said. "The method of transmission changes every few years... now it's changing faster than ever."

Very few online news sites are providing large amounts of video content produced exclusively for the web that is not derivative of a print or broadcast story. Right now that isn't a bad thing because you get more bang for your buck if the package is available on more than one platform. But it doesn't help to change the prevailing ideology that print/broadcast consumers and online consumers are the same group of people. Often the online user is in a completely different market than the target audience of the news site and requires more sophisticated content than what is being offered to the traditional news consumer.

The journalism industry is often reactive instead of proactive when it comes to new technology platforms. We see some cool technology that many times has been out for a long period of time and figure out how we can copy it and make it our own. Instead, we the media should be on the forefront of how our content is delivered, instead of waiting for Joe Porn to figure it out.

Tod Hymes, publisher of XBiz World, offered salient advice: "The smartest people in the world are looking at the internet and all these delivery platforms figuring out how to capture the demographic they want and how to get them to pay money."

Finally, one panelist said that no matter the transmission, it all boils down to people watching other people have sex. And for journalism, it boils down to the written and spoken word. The news will never die, we just to need adjust how it's presented in order to stay on the forefront of the technology that's changing our work and our lives.

Labels: news on the news

There are about 112 million blogs floating around the internet, according to blog tracker Technorati. And while a significant number of those blogs are run by established media organizations, there are plenty of journalists who are alarmed by anyone other than a credentialed journalist reporting the news.

On a recent episode, The Colbert Report, Andrew Keen author of the book The Cult of the Amateur, said: "The internet trivializes culture to such an extent that everyone is broadcasting, everyone is writing blogs, everyone is putting music on the web."

Keen continued: "I think we need objective professional journalists who responsibly collect the news rather than anonymous bloggers who are often in pay of corporations and foreign governments. That's the crisis of this media."


It not only didn't make sense, it was a very elitist viewpoint. To dismiss the millions of people who write daily about issues they are passionate about as subpar journalism is to miss out on a wealth of resources. Everything written on a blog should be taken as golden, but the considerable amount of well-reported journalism that exists on the internet is worthy of admiration.

The crisis of this media is not bloggers. It's adhering to old methods of journalism, uninventive reporting... and not reading 10,000 words, of course.

Labels: news on the news

More than 59 million people (37.3 percent of all active internet users) visited newspaper websites on during the second quarter of 2007 - a record number and a 7.7 percent increase over the same period a year ago. Read more

The global online population will expand from 1.1 billion users in 2006 to 1.5 billion in 2011, according to a report from JupiterResearch. North America will boast the highest online penetration, with 76 percent by 2011. Read more

Nearly 75 percent of US internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of online video in May, with Google sites topping the monthly rankings with both the most unique video streamers and the most videos streamed, according to comScore. Read more

Labels: news on the news