MSNBC Inauguration coverage

MSNBC has an extensive Web site dedicated to the inauguration. You can watch videos and follow along with the transcripts. My favorite part is the ability to click within the transcript to make the video play from that point. In addition to MSNBC TV, you can watch "Today," "Nightly News," and "Meet the Press." Plus, there is a map of the parade with blurbs about celebrations, individual stories and more. Several different polls also sit toward the bottom of the page.

WashingtonPost.com Inauguration Coverage

The WashingtonPost.com did some interesting things with its photos. Its panorama of the National Mall allows the viewer to drag the screen to see more of the National Mall and experience how many people were there to witness the inauguration. The WashingtonPost.com also threaded its photos from the day into a mosiac. This feature allows the viewer to zoom into individual photos from the day and zoom out to see a scene from President Obama's swearing-in ceremony.

BET.com

Although hopeful, Ann Nixon Cooper, a 107-year-old African American never thought she would live to witness Barack Obama being sworn in as the first Black commander in chief. BET.com provides readers with a short article describing her feelings about this exciting day in her life.

Electing a black president is a step in the right direction for the African American community. I think it's really exciting to interview someone who has lived through the Civil Rights Movement and witnessed first-hand the struggle it has taken for the African American community to advance to this point in time. Although it's short, it is a nice feature story to have on the BET Web site.

http://www.bet.com/News/Decision08/beheard_news_107WomanWitnessesInauguration.htm

Slate.com Inauguration Coverage

January 21st certainly was an historical day, but a person can only hear or read that word so many times before it's enough already. Enter Slate.com.

I love Slate because it tackles hard news topics but adds interesting twists to its coverage. Its inauguration coverage was no different. If you want to check out the site's full list of inauguration articles, there's a link at the bottom of this post.

With stories like "First Movers: How exactly will Obama get all his stuff into the White House?" and "Does the Kevlar Number Come in a French Cuff? Obama was wearing 'bullet-resistant clothing.' What's that?", the site gives readers answers to questions that simply aren't provided by other news sites.

http://www.slate.com/id/2208447/

NY Times- What's on your mind

The New York Times had this cool idea of letting their users type in one word to describe how they felt on the day of the election. They then illusrated the data with a "word train" where the most common words had larger fonts and were at the top of the page. You can categorize the words be McCain and Obama supporters or you can see them all. It was a simple way of displaying data but very interesting.


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/11/04/us/politics/20081104_ELECTION_WORDTRAIN.html

Resume package due on Wednesday

Reminder: Resume packages are due at the beginning of class Wednesday: Turn in to my folder on the x drive your last name folder, which will include your photos folder, your edited resume page, and a clips page or a photo montage page. Each page should link to the other (using just the file names in the link tags; full URLs will not work because the pages are not live yet. Please DO NOT PUT DRIVE LETTERS, such as h or x, in any of your links).

Both pages should include a banner at the top; they should also include copyright info and a back to top link.

You must work independently. You may not take layouts from other students.

The second page could link to published writing or broadcast samples --news clips, press releases, audio or video clips. Or the second page could be a montage of photos you've taken of friends, family or travel. The two pages, when linked together, must include at least one external link, a banner graphic created by you, and at least one photo. All links and navigation on your pages must work; all text must make sense and be written in AP style. Each factual mistake will result in a full letter-grade deduction, as will each broken link and broken image. Projects turned in late will lose a full letter grade for each day that they're late. This should be something you'd be proud to show a prospective employer.

Unreadable pages (because of bad color choices for fonts or backgrounds) will result in an automatic F. Text on both pages should follow AP style for print throughout.

Resumes Due Tomorrow

A reminder that your Web resumes are due in the x drive tomorrow at the start of class. You should copy your last name folder to x, into my folder. Here's the checklist on what you should include:

* Your folder name should be all lowercased. Inside should be a photos folder (called "photos") with your headshot in it. Inside the main folder should be a one-page resume file (named "yourlastnameresume.html," all lowercased) created in Dreamweaver.
* Your html file should include text, subheads, an e-mail address link, at least one external hyperlink, at least one bulleted list and a photo.
* You should also include a copyright line at the bottom (the format is Copyright ©2009 Your Name) and a back to top link (an anchor link) at the bottom.
* Background colors are optional, as are horizontal rules.
* Each factual mistake will result in one letter-grade deduction, as will each broken link or broken image tag.
* Unreadable resumes (because of bad color choices for fonts or backgrounds) will result in an automatic F.
* Resumes should follow AP style for print throughout.
* You may use in-line style (working with the Dreamweaver "properties" bar), to control font styles and sizes for text for this assignment.

Any questions-- e-mail me or drop by the new-media lab on the 3rd floor...

Economic Transparency

I remember being taught the concept of economic transparency (or lack thereof)  in Jour200. The basic idea was that in order for newspapers to continue high profit returns, they reduce their staff and do more with less. With fewer journalists writing more stories, the overall quality in reporting decreases. However, this effect goes largely unnoticed to the public because of how cheap newspapers are. The cost is so low, the public does not expect much and the overall quality of journalism quietly decreases.

This effect  is not unique to the print industry. Economic pressures on broadcast journalism are creating the same "do more with less" business model. TV stations are looking for "backpack" or "one-man-band" journalists. Now a journalist is expected to shoot, edit, write and report an entire story on their own. It's difficult for one journalist to match the work that used to be done by a photographer, editor and reporter.

Meanwhile, many newspapers are adding video to their websites. But most traditional print journalists aren't trained in video, which is reflected in the product.

With both print and broadcast journalism looking to the Internet as the savior of their business and a portal to the next generation of journalism, the broadcast industry should have the advantage. You'd expect a TV station's online video to be of higher quality than a rookie print journalist's.

But the lower quality backpack journalist videos are less likely to out-shine a print journalist's video. With free access to the news websites, remember that the public then has lower expectations of quality. The result is that the playing field is leveled and both industries have a fair shake at winning the online audience.

Now, not all all backpack journalists produce poor videos. With journalism schools teaching the one-man-band style, the future quality of these videos will improve some. Likewise, not all print journalists produce amateur video. But the "do more with less" business model, as a whole, is negatively affecting both industries.

So is print journalism really dying? Is local TV news going the way of the dodo bird? Or is all of journalism just decaying slightly as it tries to evolve into a creature that is a little bit of print, a little bit of broadcast and has some new Internet genes?

Welcome, Spring Semester Class

Welcome to the spring semester of JOUR 352 and 652. As part of your class participation grade, you'll be asked throughout the semester to respond to some topic threads that I post, to start at least one thread of your own, and to comment on others' ideas. Let's try to limit the discussion to new-media topics: How the journalism industry is changing, for instance, and how it's being covered.

Your Multimedia Stories

I thought you might like to spend some time with each other's multimedia stories. Here are links:

Tastee Diner's resiliance

paintball popularity

young voters

club basketball at UMD

third-party candidates

a political Halloween

Terps study abroad

Yellow Dubmarine

holiday shopping

students' hit by the economy

students help family reorganize home

Black Friday

seesawing against slavery

college students' pets

fitness initiatives in Prince George's

marching band's 100th anniversary

Job Security

When I opened the email, I couldn't believe what I read. My internship stomping grounds, WUSA9, was turning into an all one-man crew station. This broke my heart.

Not only did I feel terrible for all those wonderful people I worked with this summer because many of them will be transferred or out of work soon, but it scared me a little. Is this what the economy has brought our business to? People losing their jobs because they are amazing photographers who don't want to, or don't know how to be on camera? Reporters losing their jobs because they were taught in college to hone their craft of writing, writing, writing because someone else would do all the shooting, shooting, shooting.

Don't get me wrong, I know this is good news for those of us still in college who DO know how to do it all. We're on the cutting edge of new media, way to go us!

But here's the scary part. Those middle-aged co-workers of mine were on the cutting edge of "new media" back in the 70's and 80's when they left school too. Some younger generation is going to come along with new tricks in 20 years and take OUR jobs too!

And it's not that employees weren't educating themselves on newer media forms. While I was at WUSA9 this summer, there were many days where my producers had to leave me alone in the newsroom so they could go to "Web training" or other such events. They are just all behind the curve that us younger reporters have set with our knowledge of computers and electronics practically starting at birth now.

I can only hope that the economy gets better really soon so people can have their jobs back and we can all breathe a little easier about there not being many jobs open. But I don't think I'll be breathing easy 2 decades from now when some intern comes in and takes my job.

The Future

After our trip to washingtonpost.com, I was both excited and worried about my future. As journalism students, everyone keeps telling us that the future of journalism lies in the online world. But after our trip, even that future seems small. Washingtonpost.com only takes a couple students fresh out of college, and these students tend to have been interns before hand. I have had no internships yet, and have looked at only print internships for the upcoming semesters before I graduate (in a year and a half). For the older staff, they tend to hire those who have worked in the print industry before. So what do I do when I graduate from college? Do I join a smaller Web site first? Do I do as planned and join a print newspaper? What is the best plan?

Then came the more exciting part. This Web site alone faces the entire city, has a view of all that is happening in the city laid out before its writers, photographers, editors, every single day. Writers receive the opportunity to create art in journalism, to keep the public updated every few minutes, to keep interaction a primary component in the way it runs. And then there's the salary. Washingtonpost.com staffers can make $30,000 or more immediately. That's more than I ever excepted in my first years at a newspaper.

But what is the best plan? I'm torn. I don't know if I want to write for a Web site, a magazine or a newspaper. I know that the future of news lies in new media, in the internet. I know it pays more. What I don't know is where to start, how to break into the new media. Do I start with a print publication and learn the basics of journalism, of reporting in its more original context? Do I immediately go for a smaller online publication and work my way up? What is the best course of action? What are people looking for when they hire new staffers? Do they look for someone with a plethora of experience, who has studied both print and online realms? Or do they want someone who has started immediately with online publications and is attempting to work his or her way up?

Bloggersgoing too far?

Take a look at the Washington Post article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17462-2005Feb11.html

Three years ago, CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan made a comment which implied that U.S. troops in Iraq killed journalists intentionally. This caused waves and waves of attacks from bloggers, so much so that it led to him resigning from CNN soon after. In fact, the bloggers found out about Jordan's comments a week before major newspapers like the Washington Post and the Boston Globe even knew about.

There's no doubt that a good number of those bloggers that attacked Jordan are journalists. Is it right for journalists to affect the outcome of news, like they did here? Perhaps they are under the impression that on blogs, there are no standards to uphold. And what about the news organizations that reported this story about Jordan's comments? Since many of them found out about the incident only after they read the blogs, it is entirely possible that the information they reported are bias and inaccurate.

One article I read said this: it's unfair that Eason, after 23 years of good deeds for CNN, loses his job because of one bad one. Jordan's comments, although offensive to some people, did not cause any direct harm to others. So its it fair that he lost his job because he said something stupid, when in fact all of us say stupid things everyday? I get the impression that bloggers sometimes are too eager to look for fresh meat and not eager enough to think about the consequences.

Extended Forecast

It is the nature of teenagers

to rebel against their parents.

What will e-journalism look like 20 years from now?

------------------------------------------------------

I sometimes muse over how our children will view technology.

Ours is the generation of Facebook. Cell phones and iPods made their appearance on the teen scene about the time we were in high school. Now, as young men and women, we're pioneering texting, Twitter, Google News and MySpace and we're among the first twentysomethings to have (through the Web) a grand total of all information at our disposal.

As our technology increases---think how few of our parents had cellulars as recently as 1993---who can imagine what communication will look like a few decades from now?

Yet if electronic connectedness becomes a mark of our generation (perhaps like disco in the '70s or I Love Lucy earlier), and if teenagers naturally tend to shy away from whatever their parents find cool, is it possible that young folk around 2020 or 2030 will want a bit less technology and a bit more personal, face-to-face interaction than we do? Will they develop a suspicion of cell phones to mirror the excitement with which we've embraced them?

Of course, teens may continue to embrace technology like our generation has and dive even deeper into quick communication than anyone our age ever thought possible, which could lead to e-revolutions even more exciting than we've seen in our time. Our grandparents wrote letters; we're writing Twitters. What will our grandkids write?

But let's consider the possibility that the young folks of tomorrow reinvent communications like we have and want something other than the online newsprint of their grandparents (that is, us) for getting information. In this case, there are two options: either we'll see a step back, perhaps toward hard-copy newspapers, or (more likely) we'll see a step sideways to some new electronic medium we can't use yet (like holography) or haven't invented.

Will there be a teen technological counterrevolution when we're 45? Will Web journalism, now the wave of the future, stay the wave of the future that long? Will our electronic lifestyle get more and more electronic, or will we reach a threshold?



I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this examination.

Is the business of journalism dying out in this online-driven world?

People used to get their news from their local newspapers. Then some of these newspapers became regional or national papers as technology improved and they could be made and sold in bulk and transported long distances. People could read about things happening in their area, around the country, and all over the world while they ate breakfast. Then radio developed as a common way to get news. Families would gather together after dinner and listen to their radio. Next came television and with it, a whole new way of telling stories. Broadcast news has developed so quickly and changed so much in a short period of time. But now the Internet is here. And it is wreaking havoc on the news business, or at least forcing it to change.

With the Internet’s popularity as high as it is, there are now so many options for getting news. The traditional physical newspapers, television newscasts, and radio shows are still there… for now. But each of those outlets now has a website too. So a reader doesn’t have to buy a newspaper, turn on the tv, or listen to the radio. They can read headlines of that newspaper online, watch clips from the tv station online, listen to streaming radio or download podcasts of that radio show.

But, readers also have so many other options of where to get their news. There are topic-specific websites for basically anything and everything. There is Twitter to see headlines from basically every news source. There is Youtube where any type of video can be found, including whole newscasts, raw footage of events, etc. Facebook can even be used as a news source these days. When I want to know who won a Terps sports game, or a Redskins game, or a Ravens game, I check Facebook and everyone’s statuses answer my questions. When I want to know what is happening on campus or in the area, Facebook can have the answers.

And now blogs are the newest news source. Journalists and every day citizens are blogging about events and topics, covering every facet of the world. But these blogs don’t have editors or fact checkers. Many are jam-packed with opinions and half-facts. Some seem like legitimate news sources but are just written by “citizen journalists.” It can be hard to know which blogs to read, which can be trusted, etc.

In my opinion, the classic news sources will always be needed in some facet. They might all just turn into online entities but that type of accountability, reliability, ethics, etc need to be kept in order for the news to be trusted. The business of journalism can not die out. It just needs to morph and change.

Web ethics

The other day, my boss and I were discussing blogs and the new ethical dilemmas they bring to the field of journalism. Like Marista said, people rely so much on blogs, and many people rely more heavily on them than on newspapers when getting their daily news fix. This gives journalism ethics an entirely new dimension. Although there is more hard news on blogs than there has been in the past, it is still a much more laid back news medium than more conventional sources. There is more of a chance of relying on hearsay, and therefore more room for error. Because the blogosphere lacks the stringent accuracy guidelines other news outlets abide by, it seems that legal issues, such as libel, might be more rampant on the internet than in print. I wonder how people think the field will be dealing with these issues in years to come.

Blogs everywhere you turn

I’ve found it surprising that over the last couple of years, even in the last year, everywhere I turn, people are finding their information from blogs. Not only are blogs quicker (than waiting around for the 5 o’clock news) but also they share some information not considered mainstream. I know lots of people who check out different blogs daily, not only because they have update information quick, but because it contains information many can’t find anywhere else. I have one friend who has lists upon lists of blogs she looks at, sometimes daily, but definitely weekly. Usually these blogs are meant to inform about topics not on the news or anywhere else. I know lots of people who read celebrity blogs, not only are they quicker than waiting for the new People or US Weekly to come out, but also, it’s free. Other people have transitioned to blogs because that seems to be the only place to find information anymore. My same friend only looks at music blogs for her music anymore, MTV is all reality shows, and she never listens to the radio anymore. This seems to be the case for me too, I can’t find really good music a lot without turning to the internet to find it, everywhere else is so limited, and blogs are making it unlimited. It’s quicker to check out blogs and hear what you want than waiting for a good song to play on the radio. Because so many sit at computers all day, and with technology allowing people to access the internet everywhere, blogs have become the standby for providing information. Just the other day I saw a girl on the shuttle bus looking at perezhilton.com on her i-phone, she couldn’t’ wait the 20 more minutes until she got to her apartment/dorm/house. People want access all the time, and to get information anyway possible and blogs are allowing people to do just that.

Video Hosting Options

A rotating group of around ten of my friends and I run a series on YouTube - or rather we did, I'll get to that - that's about entertainment like video gaming, movies, television and so on; kind of a video blog sort of thing. We've also got a talking puppet. It's crazy. Anyway, it's a pretty fun hobby, and the satisfaction you get after finally making everything work out with sound, writing, acting, clips, and so on is pretty great.

The thing is, YouTube has quite a few downsides when it comes to hosting videos, and since video is an integral part of new media it might be important to look at some alternative video hosting options. While this probably wouldn't be an issue for a big site like CNN or the Post - who could just host their videos on their own webspace - small-time journalists and bloggers have a lot to consider when it comes to a host. I've done some research on various hosts, and I've decided to present my findings here.

First, YouTube is probably the first video host that leaps to everyone's mind. YouTube is easy to use, it's accessible to pretty much everyone, and it's very popular, which is a big deal when you're making a series that you want people to see. Like I mentioned earlier, though, YouTube has some downsides:

*This is the big one: YouTube will not host videos that are over ten minutes long. Some older accounts can exceed this limit, but the vast majority of the time your videos must be under ten minutes to be hosted on YouTube. This may not seem like a big deal, but it's possible to run into issues with it, and being constrained to ten minutes can be bad for creativity.
*Well, maybe this is the big one: YouTube's picture quality is absolutely horrible. They've tried to address this in a number of ways over the years. For instance, they now have a "high-quality" option for videos - which doesn't seem to do all that much - and they've added in options for hosting widescreen videos. Even with these additions, YouTube just can't compare to other hosts in terms of visual quality. Your videos will usually become grainy and pixelated on YouTube due to the way they compress them after you upload them.
*YouTube requires that all videos be less than one gigabyte in size. This isn't actually a big deal, since if your video is this big you're doing something wrong when you compress it. This is much better than earlier this year, where videos had to be less than around 150 megabytes or so.

These flaws may not seem like a big deal, but they were enough for my group to pack our bags and find another host. Let's take a look at some other options:

Google Video - video.google.com - has picture quality that's even worse than YouTube's. It doesn't have any file size or time restrictions if you use the downloadable upload program offered at the site, but your videos will turn out so hideous that it doesn't matter. I'd stay away from Google Video.
DailyMotion, located at www.dailymotion.com, is very similar to YouTube. However, it has a 20 minute time limit instead of 10, and there's no file size restriction. The picture quality is also slightly better.
Revver, www.revver.com, offers to pay you for the privilege of hosting your videos! Sounds great, right? Well, it's too good to be true: Revver loads up your videos with invasive ads if you choose to host them there. Revver's also affiliated with Zango, which is a notorious spyware company, and that makes it even more of a bad idea to have anything to do with it. Oh, and get this: while they DO pay you, they have a required amount of money that you have to earn before you actually see a cent, and don't expect to make that amount anytime soon.
Vimeo, at www.vimeo.com, has the best picture quality of any video host. If you have a high-definition video that you need to upload, Vimeo is the way to go. Unfortunately, it also has a very harsh file size restriction - 500MB per week for non-paying users. The staff also has a tendency of deleting videos and accounts that don't meet a certain set of "artistic criteria", which can be a problem.
Viddler, at www.viddler.com, is a happy medium between Dailymotion's unlimited file size and Vimeo's gorgeous picture quality. Viddler also allows people to download your video to view on their own computers - this is a Godsend for some people whose computers have trouble handling streaming video. This is my recommended file host, and the one that my group's series will be moving to.

There are a few other options - Blip.tv is similar to Viddler, for instance. However, these are some of the most notable choices right now. If you ever need to host a video - say, for the upcoming multimedia article assignment - you might consider giving one of these a try instead of YouTube. You could be pleasantly surprised.

A little exploration into RSS feeds

As we learned in class and were tested on during our first exam RSS feeds compile information from a number of Web sites all into one place for a reader. Like our one reading said they are like Web butlers, bringing us all the information on a particular subject right to a single page on our computer screens. After setting up my Google Reader in class I forgot all about it until a few weeks ago when I was playing with different options and settings on my Google account. I came across my RSS reader and decided that I was going to try it more thoroughly and then report my findings for my entry on the class blog. Since we only discussed them briefly, I figured most people would forget about their subscription quickly and never explore them more. I wanted to see how efficiently they worked and if they pulled up information on some obscure topics that I could think of. The following are some of my findings:

1.) A good starting point for research- I began researching a paper for another class on the American Civil Liberties Union. This group has many books about them in the shelves of Mckeldin, but the paper called for more information on their current involvments in U.S. politics. I typed “ACLU” into the search bar and was only presented with two headlines. However, both of these headlines lead me to sites with more information about the ACLU listed on them. From this discovery, I began looking at the RSS feeder as an alternative to a general search engine and wikipedia combined. It offereed more specific answers within the searches, but offered me more information and places to search. This RSS feed was similar to wikipedia because it was a good starting point for basic research

2.) A great way to explore additional information on topics you already like- Something that I really enjoyed about this feeder is being able to gather information not only on topics I was interested in, but related ideas as well. For example, I read a non-fiction book a fewweeks back about a women who escaped a polygamist community in Utah. When I entered her name into the search I realized that this camp combined with one in Texas and this womans ‘family’ were actually among the women and children taken during the raids last spring. The reader extended the information I learned in the book and brought it to current times.

3.) A friend to reporters- This was one of the things that was first presented to us with the RSS readers, but it is so helpful that I wanted to mention it again. Readers are especially helpful in finding story ideas because instead of searching all over the internet for various headlines or current events. Stories about your particular beat or area of interest are pulled from sites across the Web and filed into your personal Reader. This allows ideas to all be in one place and easily organized, offering less stress of developing a story idea and saving you as a reporter time.

RSS Feeders offer journalists and curious people a chance to save time and enjoy the news. Instead of spending hours seeking out stories on various Web sites, feeders like Google Reader and Yahoo! bring you headlines and articles from a multitude of sites. There are also specific readers set up to follow only stories on particular sunjects such as New York Time’s Health Reader. Sites many times have links listed right on there that allow readers to link to a RSS feeder that gives their headlines. Some other sites have different topics already formed and have RSS feeders constantly sending the latest headlines to the links on their site (See: http://arstechnica.com/site/rss.ars)

Overall, this little helpful tool is one that people should explore a little more. It offers a lot of information with very little work involved searching for it.Comments on how people use RSS feeds and if people enjoy using them or not are always welcome.

Visit to washingtonpost.com Dec. 3

Reminder: We'll be going on a professional Web newsroom tour and talk at washingtonpost.com in Arlington, Va., on Wednesday, Dec. 3. We're scheduled to meet with editors from 1:45 p.m. to 3:10 p.m., to allow for travel time to and from Virginia. We'll meet in the lobby of the building at 1:45 p.m. sharp. Chet Rhodes, AME for news video and a former broadcast teacher here at the University of Maryland, will join other editors in talking about how storytelling, story presentation and reader interaction at Web sites differ from storytelling in traditional media.

You will be given assigned questions to answer about the visit; your typed responses will count as an in-class grade and will be due at the start of the next class (Dec. 10). (Don't forget that your multimedia stories are also due at the start of class next week.)

Address for washingtonpost.com: 1515 N. Courthouse Road, Arlington, Va. 22201. The office is across from the Courthouse Metro stop on the Orange Line. There is a parking garage for the building, but you have to pay to park.

If any of you would like to carpool together, this blog would be a good place to connect with each other. Leave a comment to this thread.

Before arriving: Please familiarize yourself with the Post's Web site, including its Politics section and Inauguration Watch, its photos and videos page (Cameraworks), its Discussions area and more.

See you there!
Chris Harvey

Holiday Shopping Guides on News Sites

We talked a little bit about the election packages on news Web sites and it seems we almost now expect that when there's something going on in the country, there will be a web package that accompanies it.

I put that little theory to the test and searched on several different news sites to see if that had holiday shopping guides like they did election guides...and they do.

Though they're way less in-depth as the election guides, news sites are offering tips and info about the shopping market this season. I wasn't surprised to see a lot of cheap gift ideas, given the economy, as well as "green gift" ideas.

Here are some examples that are easily linked from the home pages:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27789830/
The Today Show, via MSNBC's Web site, offers a new type of video segments where products can be "clicked" as they're being discussed in the video for more information.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/11/13/gift.guide/index.html
A little less interesting, CNN offers a slideshow of gift ideas and pictures with a short paragraph describing each. I wonder if they'll up their game as the holidays get closer to compete with other sites.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/features/2008/holiday-guide/
That Washington Post offers a shmorgishborg of Holiday gift ideas, entertainment, fashion and family-time survival tips. It's like mini packages in one big package...some useful information on this one.

As I wasn't surprised to see bigger and better Web packages compared to last year, I wonder what the next big package will be for news Web sites that we now expect?

Blogging and Other Citizen Journalism: What's Their Impact on Mainstream Media, Politics, Democracy?

Blogging tools such as the one we're using right now allow journalists and nonjournalists alike to self-publish to the world. Sometimes the tool is used to create a personal journal or travelogue; sometimes it's use to round up lots of published writing and links on one topic; sometimes it's used to report, write and update a story on deadline; sometimes it's used strictly for commentary--and to build a community of like-minded people.

I’ve heard numerous definitions of blogging, including these given a few years back by blogger-journalists participating in a national Online News Association conference in Berkeley, Calif.:

• “It’s a template with dynamic content, updated frequently, with links. It doesn’t have to be commentary.” — Denise Polverine, then editor in chief of Cleveland.com, which started several Weblogs in spring 2003
• “It’s a new form of journalism. It’s irreverent, it’s not in the authoritarian male voice … and transparency is important.” -- Sheila Lennon, who writes a blog on www.projo.com
• “Blogging is a conversation…” – Jeff Jarvis, president and creative director of Advance.net and author of the blog the BuzzMachine

Others have tried to define it in writing:

“Call it participatory journalism or journalism from the edges. Simply put, it refers to individuals playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, sorting, analyzing and disseminating news and information — a task once reserved almost exclusively to the news media.”-- J.D. Lasica, senior editor of OJR, writing in the fall 2003 Nieman Reports

“It should be obvious that Weblogs aren’t competing with the work of the professional journalism establishment, but rather complementing it.” — Managing Editor Scott Rosenberg writing in Salon in 2002.

Many would agree on these descriptions: blogs are updated often, from the top down; they include reader comments and questions; they include links to documents or stories; they can build a nongeographic community based on interests, or a geographic community based on shared locale; they are sometimes reported, but often simply commentary or roundups based on others' reporting; they are sometimes but not always written with attitude and edge.


Leslie Walker, who until late-summer 2006 wrote a dot.com column for The Washington Post, reported that free blogging tools have been available since 1999, but they didn’t catch on in a big way until the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. She quoted Evan Williams, chief executive of one of the earliest tools — blogger.com — saying that site had more than a million registered users in early 2003.

Technorati, which allows users to search for blogs, was tracking almost 113 million sites as of November 2008.

Teens are turning to blogging and other forms of self-publishing in a big way: A December 2007 press release from the Pew Internet & American Life Project stated that 64 percent of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engage in at least one type of content creation; 28 percent of online teens have created their own blog.

Web logs have also played an important role in emerging democracies.

Jeff Jarvis estimated, for instance, that in 2003 there were about 100,000 Weblogs in Iran. He said: “Countries without free speech are finding free speech in Weblogs.”

Are there negatives to blogging?
Tom Regan, associate editor of csmonitor.com, wrote in the fall 2003 Nieman Reports: “In the eyes of many journalists, blogs are poorly written, self-absorbed, hyper-opinionated, and done by amateurs.”

Some have called the nonjournalists who sometimes write them a threat to the gatekeeper role that news organizations have held.

On the flip side, supporters have argued: “They introduce fresh voices into the national discourse on various topics and help build communities of interest through their collection of links.” — Walter Mossberg writing in the Wall Street Journal in March 2003.

On a personal note: Friends and students have found blogs are a good way to stay in touch with friends and family, while traveling or studying abroad.

Bloggers’ Influence

And, of course, lots of political stories have been influenced by bloggers. Among them:

• Then-Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott’s comments in 2002 about how the country would have been better off had it elected segregationist presidential candidate Sen. Strom Thurmond in 1948 eventually cost him his leadership post. Initially, the mainstream media ignored Lott's comments, which he made at a birthday party for Thurmond. But bloggers kept the story alive, and Lott stepped down as minority leader.
• During the 2004 presidential election, bloggers questioned the credibility of CBS News Anchor Dan Rather’s September 2004 piece, which alleged President Bush had used influence to evade the draft and join the Texas National Guard. Bloggers raised the possibility that the documents Rather and his producers built the story around had been forged; Rather later resigned the anchor job.

In addition, blogs come in handy in times of crisis.

For instance, citizen reporters and bloggers helped to detail and put a face on the devastation of the 2004 tsunamis in South Asia.

They helped the Times Picayune in New Orleans to report on the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in the fall of 2005.

And citizen journalists and blogs brought video and still images to the world from the scene of the Virginia Tech shootings in Blacksburg, Va., in April 2007.


Getting Started

To start blogging, read up on and choose one of the commonly used blogging publishing tools:

 blogger.com (you're on it!)
 wordpress.org
 xanga.com
 livejournal.com (for blogging and social networking)
 MySpace.com (for blogging and social networking)

To see how others are using blogs, do some searches on Technorati.com.

For your assignment this week:
Read the published readings attached to your syllabus for this week (week 13):


Then, check out four well-established blogs, for content and interactivity:
Wonkette;

Buzz Machine;

E-Media Tidbits; and

Romenesko, PLUS:

One blog of your choosing. (If you don't have one you that view regularly, search through technorati.com to find one to review.)

For each of the five blogs, answer these questions in a Word doc, which you will attach in an e-mail and send to me before the end of class Wednesday. Give just a couple of paragraphs per blog:

1. Is this a reported blog, commentary, or an aggregation of lots of links and info? And how good is the content?
2. How easy is it to navigate and find archival entries?
3. How well does it encourage reader interaction?
4. How could the blog be improved?

That's it! Looking forward to reading your e-mails.

Happy Thanksgiving! Chris

Backgrounds Matter for Video: Palin's Gobblegate

If you had any doubts about how important the background is on the video you shoot, take a look at this clip of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin chatting with reporters after she gave a turkey its Thanksgiving pardon. If you're like me, you'll find it impossible to concentrate on Palin's words, as the man behind her proceeds to end the life of another turkey. (Alert to the squeamish: This could make you queasy.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-kjM1asH-8

Poynter Institute video guru Al Tompkins reminds that when the eyes and ears are receiving competing messages in video, the eyes win. What we're hearing becomes difficult to process.

More on "gobblegate" from the Anchorage Daily News:
http://www.adn.com/politics/story/597969.html

Putting LInks in Your Multimedia Stories

Class, I got a good question from one of you, about where to put your required two "Related Links" on the story page of your multimedia project.

To make them stand out, and to also make them easy to find, I'd recommend you put most related links in the table you're creating for your top-of-page photo. In that case, your photo table would have three rows: one for your image; one for your photo caption and photo credit; and one for your related links. Here's an example, from one of my Maryland Newsline students:


http://www.newsline.umd.edu/business/specialreports/foreclosures/latinoimmigrants110708.htm

If you handle it this way, please make sure your font face for your caption and related links is different than the font face for the body of your story. You don't want them all to blur together. On Newsline, our main text font face is Times New Roman, and our headlines, captions and related links are Arial.

Another way to handle some links, of course, is if a report or company is specifically cited in the text of the story, you could link to it right there in the story. See this example, which uses the side table for one link and the main story for others:

http://www.newsline.umd.edu/business/specialreports/foreclosures/foreclosurepets102408.htm

Twitter warning

The following was written in an article on company recruitingby two of my co-workers at the Society for Human Resources Management. The "Mahoney" in the story is Carol Mahoney, vice president of global talent at Yahoo!.

Connectedness comes through technology, too.
“Social networking has changed the game,” Mahoney said. Yahoo! recruiters use every technological tool possible, including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, to check up on their applicants. If an applicant using Twitter “tweets” that his interview at Yahoo! was “conducted by a bunch of idiots” or if his follow-up interview at Microsoft is coming up at noon, the Yahoo! recruiter will know.

Moral of the story: be careful what you tweet, because people can see it immediately.

-Pete Wolfinger

Good and Bad Headlines

Please find a good and not-so-adept headline on one or more news Web sites, and explain why you think so in a comment to this post. Please be sure to give the full URL and headline for each, as well as your explanation. Please be tactful and constructive: Don't write anything you don't want the world to see.

Due by the start of class Nov. 19.

Twitter is Weird

I attended the Town Hall Meeting in Van Munching and it was a great discussion. I'm glad I got the opportunity to sit and listen. Some topics of interest were the youth vote, race's role in the election, a "post-racial" society, and Obama's use of technology throughout the race.

Yet, I found Twitter to be a little weird. I posted a great deal throughout the hour I was there, but after a while, I noticed my posts weren't being shown in the main discussion. I'm not sure why that happened. (It made me wonder if my blogs were inappropriate or blocked or something of that nature.) This bothered me; I didn't want to keep posting once I realized no one could see my posts in the main discussion.

If there was something I missed or didn't catch, Twitter respondents immediately posted. This was helpful. However, some of the posts contained wrong information and misspelling of names (something that really bugs me). If journalists use Twitter on a regular basis, does this mean that accurate reporting will go out the window?

Any thoughts? Should journalists use Twitter?

Tweet the Night Away Nov. 5 --and Earn Extra Credit

Class, you can bump your lowest in-class grade up to an A by taking advantage of this extra-credit assignment:

"Tweet" newsy comments during a panel discussion co-hosted by the college Nov. 5, from 5-7 p.m. at Van Munching Hall. The panel will discuss the implications of the 2008 presidential elections. Among the panelists is Pulitzer Prize-winning Professor Haynes Johnson from the College of Journalism.

How do you participate? First get a user account at Twitter.com.

When you get to the "What are you doing" screen, simply type in this slug for this discussion:
#ElectionWrap
Leave a space after the slug, and begin typing your reasoned comment or summary of the events. Remember, you've got to be exceptionally succinct: You've got only 140 characters with each take. And please remember that the world can read your remarks.

To follow other "tweets" from classmates and others during this discussion, open up another browser window and go to:
http://search.twitter.com/
Type in #ElectionWrap, and all the comments for this thread will display. Hit "refresh" periodically to see new comments.

We're experimenting tonight with this technology because it is increasingly being used journalistically--to find story ideas, and to send in quick updates from the field on breaking news stories.

For more on this, see grad student Laurie White's story, "All the News That's Fit to Tweet," which ran on American Journalism Review's Web site this fall.

--from Chris Harvey