Lessons I learned from an in-depth online reporting project

Over the course of two and a half months, I worked on an in-depth project examining gender at Whitworth University.  I focused on building the project specifically for the web and used it as a chance to take on the role of a multi-skilled, multi-platform journalist that is being asked for in the field today.  To find out more about the project or what I did, read the previous post.

Here is what I learned through the process of using multiple tools and skills in this project.

Applying what I learned: ‘The Women’

While those of you who have been following this blog may know that this fall I took on an independent study to look at how the internet has influenced journalists’ roles, many of you may not know what I’ve been up to this spring.

In the final semester of my undergraduate education, I sought to apply the lessons I learned this fall. I learned that journalists need to be multi-skilled and multi-platform, so I developed a project in which I could demonstrate that.

Over the course of two and a half months, I worked on an in-depth project examining gender at Whitworth University. Nearly 60 people were interviewed. I wrote more than 50 articles of varying lengths both news and features, took and edited video clips, created databases, posted documents, created a graphic element, did the coding for the Web page, added links and did some of the photo work for the project.

Today it is finally complete, with only a few finishing touches needed. Check it out: The Women

In an upcoming post, I will debrief and talk about what I learned through this experience.

‘Journalism 2.0′: Raising the bar for journalists

“If you are a journalist, or thinking of becoming one, you may have already noticed this: They are raising the ante on what it takes to be a journalist.”

Phil Meyer began a book with this observation in 1991. Think about how much technology has changed since that statement was written and how much more his statement is true today.

This is one of the premises of Mark Briggs book project about digital literacy for journalists titled “Journalism 2.0: How to survive and thrive.”

Briggs covers topics ranging from the basics of the Web and the tools invovled to how to report for the Web, produce audio, video and photos, and put it all together.

While the book contains a lot of technical assistance and training, it also provides a basic understanding of the changes the Internet is bringing for journalists and their audience. Here is a little bit about what Briggs’ book has to say on the subject.

Series highlights skills writer wishes he learned in j-school

With how rapidly the field of online journalism is changing, journalism education is sometimes having a hard time adapting.

MediaShift‘s Mark Glaser wrote a post in April 2007 about journalism schools remaining stuck in a legacy media mindset.

After contemplating Glaser’s post, Mac Slocum responded through a min-series in Poynter’s E-media Tidbits about what skills he wishes he learned in journalism school.

These were the three skills Slocum said would be valuable:

1. How to be a researcher and guide
2. How to generate traffic
3. How to lead and moderate communities

Note that the skills Slocum highlights are not specific programs or coding languages and that multimedia is absent from the list.

I’m curious what Web skills do you wish you were learning or learned in journalism school? What skills are being taught?

‘Web Journalism’ Part 5: How it works in practice

This is the final post in a five part series looking at James Glen Stovall’s book “Web Journalism: Practice and Promise of a New Medium” published in 2004 by Pearson Education, Inc. I will be examining several textbooks about online journalism and posting highlights.

To see how the ideas of online journalism are being put into practice, Stovall spent some time in an Internet newsroom and then reflected on the practice and promise of the Web for the future.

Stovall visited the newsroom at MSNBC.com, a partnership between Microsoft and NBC as well as collaborations with other media entities. His observations about the newsroom are from over four years ago, so they may not still be exactly the same. However, the concepts he pulled are probably still consistent.

At MSNBC.com, deadlines can be every minute because people expect the latest information, even if it only happened a minute ago, Stovall observed.

The front page of the site is the most important part, Stovall writes. At the time, the organization had a front page editor on duty 24 hours a day, keeping the site organized and fresh.

Human resources, screen size and user inclination put a check on the idea of the Web’s unlimited capacity, Stovall writes.

Stovall observed that despite the technology, words and storytelling were still carefully considered, showing that journalism had not, at that point, changed in that respect.

He points out that the Web is still in its infancy and questions are still being explored. Putting all of the many tools related to online journalism in one reporter’s “backpack” is a lot to balance. The question of whether a journalist can actually use all of the tools on hand to cover a story is still up for debate.

Stovall’s book is packed with a lot more information and ideas than were highlighted in these posts. If you want to read the book for yourself, copies are available at booksellers online such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Read other posts in this series:
-Part 1: The basics of what the Web means for journalism
-Part 2: Gathering, synthesizing and sharing on the Web
-Part 3: What the Web means for other storytelling forms
-Part 4: Design, engagement and the law online

‘Web Journalism’ Part 4: Design, engagement and the law online

This is post four of five on James Glen Stovall’s book “Web Journalism: Practice and Promise of a New Medium” published in 2004 by Pearson Education, Inc. I will be examining several textbooks about online journalism and posting highlights.

In some of the later chapters of his book, Stovall takes a look at how design, reader engagement and the law play out online.

Design

Some of the major considerations for design on the Web center around purpose, readability and organization. While there are people who focus strictly on design, Stovall writes that all people in news should give design critical attention.

Designers need to address two questions: “Why does the Web site exist? And, what do the editors want visitors to do?” These questions are key to determining design and organization, Stovall writes.

Readability, as with print mediums, is a key element of design. Similar to print, type size and coloring need to be taken into consideration. Additional factors on the Web include avoiding horizontal scrolling and minimizing vertical scrolling. Stovall encourages designers to view vertical scrolling through the lens of trying to get content “above the fold” in a newspaper.

Readers need to be able to find what they want and do it quickly, so organization becomes a high priority. Stovall writes that readers should not have to go deep into a site to find what they want.

Reader engagement

Readers also want a way to engage with their news content. Stovall points to how Web conversation exploded following 9/11 as an example of the world uses the Web to talk to itself.

A growing Web audience translates to a growing news audience, Stovall writes, and this means the development of Internet communities and services to readers. Most people now report using the Web to help with their jobs, Stovall writes.

The Web gives more power and control to the readers but also gives media outlets more information about the choices individual readers make. A new area of exploration on the Web recently has been personalization and has had some success and failure, Stovall said.

Stovall argues that people need to get over the idea that people won’t pay for the Web, because there is evidence they will pay for premium services, using the Major League Baseball site’s approach as an example.

Media law

While the Internet opens up new doors in the relationship between the media and their audience, it also presents new legal dilemmas. The Web has been given one of the highest levels of constitutional protection for its speech, similar to print media, Stovall writes, but there are still some issues being raised.

Comments on news sites open up the potential for libel suits, but courts have generally said that as long as organizations only edit a little (take down or limit objectionable messages) or don’t monitor or edit at all, they will not be considered liable, Stovall writes.

Questions of privacy have often been discussed, but few laws are in place. Some of the main topic areas are currently related to cookie technology, e-mail usage and children on the Internet, Stovall writes.

The Internet has also opened up new realms of copyright infringement. Recent cases have involved news outlets being found in violation of freelancer copyrights because of online databased they’ve developed and republished works in, Stovall writes.

Another area of the debate on copyright centers on linking and whether linking deep into sites infringes on copyright. Some sites have polices on “deep linking” and Stovall encourages people to take a look at those policies before linking to that site.

Stovall’s chapter on media law is the final general content chapter of the textbook. The next and final post in this series will look at what Stovall has to say about his observations inside the MSNBC office and his concluding thoughts.

Want to read the book for yourself? Copies are available at booksellers online such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Read other posts in this series:
-Part 1: The basics of what the Web means for journalism
-Part 2: Gathering, synthesizing and sharing on the Web
-Part 3: What the Web means for other storytelling forms

Nuggets from the college media conference

I spent Oct. 29 through Nov. 2 at the ACP/CMA National College Media Convention in Kansas City. Here are a few of the ideas and bits of information I brought back from sessions related to online media.

 

Web Writing Blows Chunks by Mark Butzow of Western Illinois University

-Refer to Jakob Nielson for resources on web usability.

-Web writing is a matter of targeting the user’s goal of finding the relevant block of text and then finding the required information within it.

-The current state of the industry? “The sand is shifting under our feet,” Butzow said.

 

Increasing and Tracking Traffic by Brian Ringer of the University of Oklahoma and Brad Arendt of Boise State University

-Linking is key. People who link their stories on Facebook or Myspace get significantly more hits. This is especially true for columnists. Also, for culture and entertainment coverage, send links to locations or bands you’ve reviewed favorably so they can check it out and maybe provide a link to your work on their site.

-Play with Google Analytics for your site and look at where your traffic is coming from. Consider partnering with some of those sites.

-In promoting your site, look at how radio and broadcast brand themselves.

-Use both your print and online logo in all banners and marketing.

 

Students’ Voices Online by Lara Hanson of MTVU, Kristin Millis of the University of Washington and Jeff Browne of Colorado State University

-Keep your e-mail newsletters short. People do not like to be overloaded with information.

-Find ways to give community journalists a role in your reporting. Transparency becomes important in this.

 

It’s Our Time to Lead: The Changing Role of the Collegiate Journalist by Rich Beckman of the University of Miami

-Beckman gave a list of ways the news industry went wrong. Here are a few:

    -Reactive instead of proactive

    -Lack of appropriate trained Web and multimedia-savvy young journalists

    -Translating a Loss of revenue into a loss of training money

    -Failure to adopt integrated marketing and publication strategies

    -Failure to integrate social networks, blogs and citizen journalism strategies

    -Reliance on inflexible IT platforms

-He also have a list of the essential skills journalists need today to get employed:

    -writing and editing across platforms

    -legal and ethical grounding

    -audio and video content gathering, editing and storytelling skills

    -photojournalism and photo editing skills and the ability to produce audio

    -multimedia storytelling skills

    -multimedia design and infographic skills, programming and producing

    -social networking expertise

    -understanding usability trends

-The impact of new media? ”Multimedia is the best tool we’ve ever had for telling stories for social change,” Beckman said.

 

What’s happening in the World of Media Shift? by Mark Glaser of PBS MediaShift

-Glaser disagrees with the idea that journalism is “all going to hell” and says this is the best time to be in the industry and to be a student, because students will have the youth and new ideas to bring change.

-Why is change in the industry slow? “Big media are like tanker ships - they are really hard to turn around,” Glaser said.

-Glaser gave a list of what he sees as the rules to new media:

   1. The audience knows more than the journalist. This means news is a conversation, not a lecture.

    2. People are in control of their media experience.

    3. Anyone can be a media creator or remixer.

    4. Traditional media must evolve or die.

    5. Despite censorship, the story will get out.

    6. Amateur and professional journalists should work together.

    7. Journalists need to be multi-platform and entrepreneurial.

 

Interacting With Your Readers by Derek Donovan, reader’s representative for the Kansas City Star

-The biggest weapon in interacting with readers is to convince people that you are doing the fairest job that you can.

-Respond to e-mails and do it quickly.

-Regarding readers’ comments? “It’s our pool and you can swim in it, but you can’t pee in it.”

-Organizations should make sure their policy on unpublishing content is clear and on the Web.

‘Web Journalism’ Part 3: What the Web means for other storytelling forms

This is post three of five on James Glen Stovall’s book “Web Journalism: Practice and Promise of a New Medium” published in 2004 by Pearson Education, Inc. I will be examining several textbooks about online journalism and posting highlights.

Other forms of storytelling besides text are also greatly expanded by the Web in terms of their capacity and demands, Stovall writes in chapters on photojournalism, graphics journalism and audio and video.

Capacity

The Web provides greater breadth and depth for alternative storytelling forms.

Photographers who used to become irritated when publications ran out of space, an editor selected a “wrong photo” or the size of the image didn’t do it justice now have the ability to provide more images and in different formats. The Web’s ability to hold more images through galleries, audio slideshows and other forms also produces a demand for more, increasing photojournalists’ workloads, Stovall writes.

This also means that the Web presents two new challenges for photojournalists: load time and screen size.

Graphics, which Stovall writes is the most underdeveloped part of journalism, has an opportunity to expand on the Web. The Web has no limits on graphics and what they are able to contain. Like stories, they can be continually updated and added to as new information develops. Layering and organization are key to this process.

People are still experimenting with ways to produce graphics for the Web in the areas of type-based, chart-based and illustration-based graphics.

The Web allows broadcast journalists to expand their stories into longer pieces and segments and provide more detail, Stovall writes. The space available allows more video to be streamed online from a variety of sources than can be done on television.

Demands

The demand for information when and how people want it is also translated to graphics, images and video.

Photographers and editors do not have as long to make decisions on images. Photographers now have to think more about storytelling, combining images with other means such as audio, video or graphics, and assess the editing process to beware of manipulation.

As cameras switched to digital, they became lighter, easier to use and less expensive. This means photography is becoming more egalitarian and in some cases reporters are taking their own cameras on assignments, Stovall writes. The change in technology also can take editing out of the hands of photographers to editors who specifically work with programs like Adobe Photoshop.

Graphics journalists have to learn new programming and pick up animation. They also have to think more visually and sometimes less text-based than print, Stovall said. Immediacy plays a role in that people expect to see visual representations as soon as events happen (for example, a map of the effected area right after an earthquake).

The Web demands broadcast journalists to become print journalists, but it also works in reverse. It is expected that news sites provide content in a variety of forms. Broadcasters have to learn to tailor their text for both the ear and the eye to translate to the Web.

The next post in this series will look at what Stovall has to say about design, engaging audiences and media law when translated to the Web.

Want to read the book for yourself? Copies are available at booksellers online such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Read other posts in this series:
-Part 1: The basics of what the Web means for journalism
-Part 2: Gathering, synthesizing and sharing on the Web

Spokesman-Review online director offers advice to future journalists

I sat down with Ryan Pitts, online director at the Spokesman-Review, at the end of last week to talk about his experiences with the transition to online media and where he sees the industry going.

 

Here was his advice to those looking to go into the journalism field:

 

1. “Recognize you don’t have to work in a newsroom to be a journalist”

Future journalists should have an entrepreneurial attitude. Pitts pointed to blog sites in Seattle as examples of how existing media companies might not be positioned to give journalists the kind of support they need to be telling the stories they want to tell.

 

2. “Learn to think differently than journalism as a byline”

Pitts suggests that journalists need to adjust their view about what journalism is. He suggests, using the example of EveryBlock, that people who are aggregating information but are not getting bylines are doing valuable, journalistic work.

 

3. “Understand the value of structured data”

At the Spokesman-Review, they try to capture extra information about everything they do to give people different uses for the information. Gathering information from obituaries for example can pull together a database that’s easily searchable and can also tell something about community trends, Pitts said.

 

4. “Don’t get trapped in narratives as the only way to tell the story”

Think about how the story needs to be told. The narrative has its place but the long narrative is not always the best way or the right way to tell the story, Pitts said.

 

Check in later this week for more from the interview with Pitts.

‘Web Journalism’ Part 2: Gathering, synthesizing and sharing on the Web

This is post two of five on James Glen Stovall’s book “Web Journalism: Practice and Promise of a New Medium” published in 2004 by Pearson Education, Inc. I will be examining several textbooks about online journalism and posting highlights.

Basic journalism values are just as much the foundation of reporting online as they are in any other medium, Stovall argues in the three chapters of his book dealing with reporting, writing and editing for the Web.

Gathering important, interesting and timely information, synthesizing it and presenting it digestible ways to an audience will stay the same in journalism as it transitions, though reporting processes and relationships with the audience may change, Stovall writes.

The Web changes the formats information can be presented, eliminates deadlines and makes them immediate, and provides new source forms. Stovall suggests that the reporting and writing style required for the Web will make wire reporters out of everyone.

Keys to reporting in this fashion are knowledge of how to locate information, flexibility and abilities to handle devices and software.

Lateral thinking about how to expand stories into other forms and other information sources is essential, though it presents problems in conceptualizing all of the many forms and taxes the personal resources of journalists, Stovall writes.

Layering by providing information in small doses helps the medium organize itself and helps readers decide how deep to go in a story.

Stovall writes that the Web is still a word medium and accuracy, clarity, efficiency and precision are still important. Web writing also focuses on chunking information through subheadings and writing for scanability.

Summaries are often neglected when it comes to Web writing as they can be used to inform or encourage people to read the story. Using the story’s lead misses out on an opportunity to engage readers and better present the information.

Reporters are much closer to the production and distribution of their work online and need to think about how the words look and are presented, Stovall writes.

He defines reporters as the foot soldiers of the media organization while editors are the officers keeping the production in line.

As an editor, the reputation of accuracy is just as important for the Web as it is in other forms and this includes links and other forms. A dead link is just as embarrassing as a misspelled name, Stovall writes.

Another aspect of editing on the web aside from gaining the same technological and multi-platform skills as reporters is navigating interactivity. Figuring out how to encourage and manage this process becomes a tricky part of online journalism, Stovall writes.

The next post in this series will look at what Stovall has to say about photojournalism, graphics journalism, and audio and video for the Web.

Want to read the book for yourself? Copies are available at booksellers online such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Read other posts in this series:

-Part 1: The basics of what the Web means for journalism