‘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

‘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

‘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

‘Web Journalism’ Part 1: The basics of what the Web means for journalism

This is post one 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 the first three chapters of Stovall’s book, he explores basic questions about online journalism: What is it as a medium? What are news Web sites? And what does news mean on the Web?

Stovall writes that the Web qualifies as a news medium because sites need to post new information to keep readers coming back. The post profound change he sees it offering journalism is that of interactivity – changing the relationship between the journalist and the audience (1).

He identifies five key distinctions of the Web from its traditional counterparts: capacity, flexibility, immediacy, permanence and interactivity.

The web does have some disadvantages, including expense, confusion and awkwardness, though Stovall writes that these do not come close to outweighing the advantages.

Stovall defines four approaches traditional news organizations have taken to the Web:

1. Shovelware: News organizations practicing this method shift content produced for another medium to the Web site with little or no change. This has low costs and is easy to get to the Web site.

2. Moderate Updating:These organizations discover the immediacy function of the Web and direct people back and forth from print and online.

3. Aggressive Updating: These organizations employ staff who post new items throughout the day and look to enhance content. Their sites changes every few minutes or every few hours.

4. Original Content: These organizations have editorial staffs specifically devoted to original reporting for the Web site and also incorporate aggressive updating.

Whether or not newspapers advance their news sites have to do with the attitudes and approaches. Stovall cites Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, saying, “Newspapers cannot be defined by the second word – paper. They’ve got to be defined by the first – news. If we’re going to define ourselves by our history, then we deserve to go out of business.”

Stovall suggests that new ideas need to be added to traditional news values of impact, conflict, currency, prominence, unusualness, proximity and timeliness.

The Web means journalists need to think “laterally” about their stories, approach them incrementally rather than on deadline, produce nonlinear stories with a variety of entry points, capitalize on audience generated news and follow the move toward personalizing the news.

The next post in this series will look at what Stovall has to say about reporting, writing and editing for the Web.

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