We received additional training on a tool we got a few months back - Screenwriter. We can create flyin maps that zoom to a specific location, then launch video out. It has a touchscreen function, so you can reveal on lines of text in a fullscreen or symbols on a map. Of course, last night I set up a fullscreen to launch my package out of, and didn't set the radius large enough on my launch post - so I touched the screen in the not-quite-right spot and nothing happened. Thankfully, the director n…
Continue
Posted by Melissa Brunner on May 16, 2008 at 10:07am —
No Comments
I've been pouring over government budgets today, trying to find something interesting in the California Department of Justice outlays in the May Revise. Thrilling stuff.
Part of what makes this so mind-numbing is the way information is packaged. Nearly everything is in PDFs. So when I'm trying to crunch numbers, the fastest way I found to do it is
- Copy and paste a long list of line items into a plain text editor
- manually turn that into a CSV, using find/replace to cut out comm
…
Continue
Posted by Chris Amico on May 15, 2008 at 6:20pm —
No Comments
I'm looking for recommendations for how to structure a "rewards & recognition" program for the whole staff. We'd been giving $200 AmEx certificates to news reporters for extraordinary efforts each month, but we need something broader to cover the whole staff (including features, online community, blogging, copy desk, etc.). For one thing, it's not fair to be recognizing just one part of the organization.
Suggestions? What do
you do to recognize super-contributions? What works? What's…
Continue
Posted by Mitch Betts on May 15, 2008 at 12:39pm —
No Comments
I like the twitters when someone is at a live event. I'm working at home, alone, it is quiet except when the little astral bell (my analogy for the sound of tweet coming in) goes off, or when the birds outside kick in with their version of twitter. While I'm working on grades and other solo kind of pursuits, it is quite interesting to have Ryan Sholin pop-up with a take on what Rob Curley is saying, or his other observations.
Scoble does that too, but with Scoble it is harder to discern when he…
Continue
Posted by Barbara Iverson on May 15, 2008 at 11:16am —
No Comments
So, our CAR ace has put together a preliminary framework in Django, I've been collecting data on homicides in our area since the first of the year. We have several searchable, sortable categories (age, race, address, homicide location, etc. ) and subcategories (weapon, weapon type, relationship to suspect/victim, etc.) and so far, so good.
The idea is to build a page about homicides, and I've got tons of good story ideas because of it, both for print and multimedia.
But I'd to hate make all th…
Continue
Posted by Casey Cora on May 15, 2008 at 8:26am —
Comment
The title is a bit presumptuous but I've never been one for small titles. I've attached the PDF because I'm sure no one wants to read it on a small web screen (if they even want to read it). All of it in it's 15 pages of glory. God I hope there's no spelling or grammer errors.
Thanks to John Zhu and Jim McBee for their feedback, I took it into account when writing the final piece. I did think of making some break out and diagrams but it's not really part of the assignment. :)
Since I can't upl…
Continue
Posted by Michael Higdon on May 14, 2008 at 3:11pm —
No Comments
Paul Bradshaw has an interesting video thread going in which he asks how Seesmic can be useful to journalism. Any thoughts on how to integrate it? Check out the thread here:
http://seesmic.com/videos/eGN3hjcw5V
It seems like a great way to have a conversation with readers. Post a question, view the answers and build your story from there. What would be some of the drawback if any?
Continue
Posted by Carlos Virgen on May 14, 2008 at 2:36pm —
No Comments
Lessons learned, the second to last section
Because the majority of web users are lurkers who do not contribute but surf endlessly for content that interest them, social-networked, long-form citizen journalism alone does not work. Most people don't like to create their own content other than customizing a profile (this is important later), so providing an infrastructure is not enough to stimulate use. Herein lies the fundamental problem with small-scale citizen journalism efforts. Similarly, pu…
Continue
Posted by Michael Higdon on May 13, 2008 at 6:44pm —
No Comments
Some of this is repurposed from an earlier blog, but it's still a good set up
MySpace works because you can load your shotgun (profile) with content and just willy-nilly fire it into the abyss of 125 million people. You'll likely hit a few folks but generally miss everyone. The problem with MySpace is that it's severely fragmented with small clustered networks but no real content connections between people or the outside. It’s not terribly approachable or easy to use. Facebook is a tighter more…
Continue
Posted by Michael Higdon on May 13, 2008 at 5:54pm —
No Comments
This is the shortest section, it provides a jumping off point for the rest of the paper.
The new tools of the Internet and on news sites quickly throw the idea of public journalism into the mix with citizen journalism, which ultimately becomes civic journalism. At this point there will be a distinction between the three terms. Public journalism will still refer to Rosen’s four pegs and will refer to a professional journalist creating news with public interaction. Citizen journalism will refer t…
Continue
Posted by Michael Higdon on May 13, 2008 at 4:36pm —
No Comments
Sorry this one is so long, but it's an important section
In 2006, Adrian Holovaty wrote about “A fundamental way newspaper sites need to change” when he discusses news site content management systems built exclusively for news articles. This technological system underscores the thought process of an average journalist who believes there are written stories, photographs and news pages and that anything else is fluff or dangerous. Though public journalism can be done with these basic mediums, it’…
Continue
Posted by Michael Higdon on May 13, 2008 at 3:44pm —
Comment
Point 1, preparing the way for subsequent points
Journalists have trouble understanding what journalism is, let alone what it is for much of the time, because they’ve been walled into a way of thinking about their jobs. New ideas often come off as offensive or intimidating. The “Truth” seeking journalist finds conflict and actors who are right and wrong but must ignore this biased concept and write a dialogue in order to dramatize – a poisonous word – situations. So when a public journalist tel…
Continue
Posted by Michael Higdon on May 13, 2008 at 2:30pm —
Comments
UPDATES IN BOLD
See previous post for an outline. Here's my thesis paragraphs:
Jay Rosen presents the first cohesive assemblage of public journalism in “What are Journalists for?” Admittedly, Rosen suggests problems with the concept stemming from the fact that he has trouble defining the idea in a solid “this is how it’s done and this is what it looks like” way. However, what Rosen lacks in a handbook he makes up for in the ability to inspire
and identify. For those journalists wh…
Continue
Posted by Michael Higdon on May 13, 2008 at 1:00pm —
Comments
Hey everyone, I'm writing a paper about the new definition of public journalism as originally defined by Jay Rosen in "What are journalists for?" You don't have to have read it to really know what I'm talking about because I'm writing about effects all of you. One of the tennents of this journalism is public participation and so I've decided to see if this small public is willing to help me. You've all participated in public journalism in a way on Ning or by posting comments or creating your own…
Continue
Posted by Michael Higdon on May 13, 2008 at 12:00pm —
No Comments
If, by any chance, any of the 1989 (!) of you will be
at the E&P Interactive conference in Las Vegas this week, shoot me an e-mail or
direct message on Twitter and we'll throw down a cup of coffee or other liquid in between sessions.
Continue
Posted by Ryan Sholin on May 12, 2008 at 9:05pm —
No Comments
Camp Video Journalism - the week-long Web video workshop in Chicago is moving on - the films from the training are still rolling out. The video above is
David Dunkley Gyimah's promo reel cut from footage that he and I shot in Chicago during our brief time together. Today, David is back…
Continue
Posted by Robb Montgomery on May 12, 2008 at 9:00pm —
No Comments
I am putting together a list of resources and suggestions for journalism students who are new to the wired world. Please check it out and leave any suggestions on my blog:
http://blog.kylebhansen.com/2008/05/advise-for-young-journalists.html Continue
Posted by Kyle Hansen on May 12, 2008 at 4:39pm —
No Comments
I ended last week with a flurry of activity on the
GT blog.
When I walked in from lunch on Thursday, I learned that the Obama campaign was granting five minutes with some local journalists during a campaign stop Friday afternoon. Of course, the newsroom had some ideas for what to ask, but I thought I'd try to
rally the readers and try and get some grassroots qu…
Continue
Posted by Matt Neznanski on May 12, 2008 at 4:00pm —
Comments
I don't buy a lot of imported British merchandise, so I never knew the cost of shipping for transatlantic purchases. Nor had I fully realized the exchange-rate between the British pound and the US dollar.
A couple weeks ago, my brother bought a Radiohead tee-shirt from the band's online store (based in England of course). That brought home the relative worthlessness of the USD, as the shirt's 15-pound British price tag translated to about 30 USD.
Last week, I pre-ordered the May 5 issue of…
Continue
Posted by Christian Sheckler on May 12, 2008 at 2:31pm —
No Comments
CROSSPOSTED from my column at CCJ: http://www.concernedjournalists.org/bad-war-bad-science-bad-reporting-take-your-pick
War is bad. We can agree on this.
As both a practitioner and historian of war, I feel no compunctions about saying that and no reason to pretend otherwise. Some wars are Just, and some may be Unjust. Some wars may even be necessary, but they are all bad. The idea of a Good War is a myth. It is base propaganda, and nothing more. War should be the absolute last resort.
As a…
Continue
Posted by Bob Bateman on May 10, 2008 at 4:31pm —
No Comments
The reporter sat down at his desk and placed his fingers on the worn, circular keys. It was the same typewriter he sat at night after night. The melodious clicking of each letter was his adrenaline. The black smell of fresh ink was a drug in his veins. The deadline rush addicted him to his job; it was the reason he woke up every morning. On the wall across from him was a flat, black clock. He didn't need to look at it; all he needed was to hear the slow and steady tick, tick, tick. He knew what…
Continue
Posted by Lauren Rabaino on May 9, 2008 at 12:29pm —
No Comments
You'll see by my station blog that I'm a not-so-closet Survivor fan! Any more out there? The finale is Sunday night, and I'm wondering who you're rooting for. For CBS stations, do you do the tie-ins? Our morning crew does the satellite talkbacks with those voted out - makes for an interesting feature, although I see the Early Show doesn't have them on anymore.
Continue
Posted by Melissa Brunner on May 9, 2008 at 9:52am —
No Comments
I found
this column by The Seattle Times' Jerry Large pretty interesting.
For those who don't feel like following the link, here's the gist: An ad agency in Orting, Wash. has created an online newspaper to fill the void of the recently folded weekly, the Orting Gazette. The stories are written by community members and edited by employees at Carr Knowledge, the ad agency in question. Any reader complaints, quest…
Continue
Posted by Paul Balcerak on May 8, 2008 at 11:37am —
Comments
Big shot in the arm today!
Beatblogging.org -- leading the charge for Web 2.0 reporting -- gives a
shout out to my work at the GT.
I've learned a lot by following their experiments on blogging the beat. Recommended reading.
Continue
Posted by Matt Neznanski on May 7, 2008 at 1:17pm —
Comments
Have you ever wondered about downtime for Facebook.com, or LinkedIn.com.
Check Downtime Continue
Posted by Merrell Ligons on May 6, 2008 at 11:01am —
No Comments
Note: This post started as a reply to a post by WeMediaGuru, but it just got too long for that format and turned into its own animal.
Today, Jason at wemediaguru
notes words from
Mike Blinder of the consulting firm The Blinder Group, which works with media companies to maximize revenue:
The mafia (yellow page…
Continue
Posted by Matt Neznanski on May 6, 2008 at 10:31am —
No Comments
I'm a regular reader of Jeff Jarvis'
BuzzMachine blog. His posts about new media, we media, newspaper woes and the like are typically spot-on and spark creative thinking almost every day.
But I've got to admit that his political
posturing is getting a bit tiresome. He's a Hillary supporter and he's often pissed that Obama gets a…
Continue
Posted by Matt Neznanski on May 5, 2008 at 8:40pm —
No Comments
AP has launched their
Mobile News Network. Very impressive.
Continue
Posted by Merrell Ligons on May 5, 2008 at 6:45am —
Comment
Is there someone at a newspaper website using regular-folk driven photo sites to help coverage of his/her community? It's festival season coming up, and I'd love to figure how how to showcase the best of Flickr shot in my town, but I can't figure our where to start.
Yes, my paper is on Flickr, but that's as far as I have gotten.
Continue
Posted by Kat Powers on May 3, 2008 at 10:44am —
No Comments
Thanks for visiting my blog.
This weekend will be spent... in NYC. Wedding on Saturday. 7AM flight out of KCI to the LGA to see the most beautiful woman in the world. :)
Continue
Posted by Jeremy Goodwin on May 2, 2008 at 6:38pm —
No Comments
What better way to ease into the weekend than with a fresh batch of Internet-based distractions?
CNN/LA Times Homicide Blog: Thanks to CNN for this story about the LA Times' Jill Leovy's homicide blog, which went from being a kind of morbid drive-by tally to what looks like a damned impressive example of online journalism.…
Continue
Posted by Paul Balcerak on May 2, 2008 at 12:03pm —
No Comments
I have had this blog for several years where I review my concert experiences as well as post music news I find interesting. It is fairly tailored to the types of music I enjoy as opposed to a blanket music blog. I have been updating it more frequently as of late due to the fact the my newspaper is featuring it as one of the staff blogs. As we all know, keeping fresh content in a blog is what hopefully keeps your readers coming back.
Please take a gander at your leisure. I hope you enjoy it.
Th…
Continue
Posted by Tonya Howell on May 2, 2008 at 6:58am —
Comment
Last night Brooke White was sent home on American Idol after a week filled with controversy and conspiracy theory.
The 24-year-old nanny from Mesa, Ariz., was booted after a tragic and lackluster performance of “I’m A Believer” and “I Am…I Said” respectfully. The Neil Diamond tri…
Continue
Posted by Dwayne Steward on May 1, 2008 at 10:51am —
No Comments
My newspaper, the Central Kitsap Reporter has a new Web site up just this afternoon, as does every paper in the Sound Publishing company. Check it out at
www.centralkitsapreporter.com.
Continue
Posted by Paul Balcerak on April 30, 2008 at 5:20pm —
Comments
I would say that Neil Diamond stopped by as a mentor for “American Idol” last night, but that may be a bit of a stretch since he got less airtime than the show’s Barbie-laden mosh pit.
In a bad choice by the producers, the Top 5 “Idols” were forced to sing two songs, holding off…
Continue
Posted by Dwayne Steward on April 30, 2008 at 10:30am —
No Comments
I'm curious about how time spent on newspaper Web sites is measured. If the same kind of numbers are compared each time and they show a drop, that's a legitimate concern. But I wonder about how the total is measured.
You usually see it as a small-seeming total, such as 20 minutes a month, which would come out to less than a minute a day. But I wonder about two things:
1. It's unlikely that very many people will visit the site at 3 a.m., and there's really about a 16-hour window of prime Web si…
Continue
Posted by Brian Cubbison on April 29, 2008 at 10:39am —
Comments
The deadline for deciding has arrived and there are only a few seats
left in some of next week's classes in Web video journalism.
Visual Editors is bringing to Chicago top Web video instructors from the
U.S. and the U.K. to teach Web video fundamentals to the next wave of
digital journalists.
The Chicago Sun-Times is hosting the classes at 350 N. Orleans and the
sessions run from 9:30 to 5 p.m. (May… Continue
Posted by Robb Montgomery on April 29, 2008 at 8:27am —
No Comments
The
Carnival of Journalism is now open to the public. Take a moment and stop by.
Continue
Posted by Yoni Greenbaum on April 27, 2008 at 11:47am —
No Comments
I've been such a prolific commenter at other blogs that I feel like I write more elsewhere than on my own blog at
blog.syracuse.com/newstracker. My own blog right now is a messy workshop of experiments and spare parts. I'd thought I'd take advantage of this blogging feature at Wired Journalists and fill it with some random thoughts.
First, a recommended link:
RSS needs an Easy button… Continue
Posted by Brian Cubbison on April 27, 2008 at 11:44am —
Comment
I'm hiring! I know, it's hard to believe in this economy, but philly.com is expanding its content team. What sets us apart from most online newspaper operations is that we're not simply an adjunct of the newsroom, but a separate company. We're more of a pure-play Internet company and that is reflected in how we think, what we do and who we hire. We need content producers/site hosts/channel managers; journalists who are excited about the Internet and what it has to offer. Intrigued? Interested? D…
Continue
Posted by Yoni Greenbaum on April 25, 2008 at 6:33pm —
No Comments
The
Columbus Jazz Orchestra brought New Orleans to Columbus on Thursday night during an exciting, high-octane showing at The Southern Theatre.
The special guest,
Troy “Trombone Shor… Continue
Posted by Dwayne Steward on April 25, 2008 at 10:00am —
No Comments
This week,
“American Idol” gave us another shocker.
Last night’s blogs were abuzzin’ with predictions of Brooke or Jason’s demise, but in a twist — aptly appropriate for Andrew Lloyd Weber week — Irish rocker Carly Smithson was sent home.
Smith…
Continue
Posted by Dwayne Steward on April 24, 2008 at 10:00am —
No Comments
I got into a
small discussion yesterday with fellow Wired Journalist
Christian Sheckler about (essentially) what was more beneficial to a career-bound college journalism student: GPA or experience? In short, Christian was longing to write "good stories," but more often than not, was inhibited in that venture by a more pressing need to comple…
Continue
Posted by Paul Balcerak on April 23, 2008 at 4:16pm —
Comments
Read a
great column in today's Seattle Times by Danny Westneat about a guy who's going around the country, arbitrarily fixing spelling and grammar errors on billboards, signs and anything else he sees.
Just wanted to link to it. It's one of those things that's probably a huge waste of time, but I'm kind of glad someone's doing it because I sure as hell don't have the time or resources to. I can't stand sup…
Continue
Posted by Paul Balcerak on April 23, 2008 at 11:32am —
No Comments
I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been eagerly anticipating
Andrew Lloyd Webber Week on
American Idol since they announced it nearly a month ago. And, I must say, I was quite pleased by Weber’s app…
Continue
Posted by Dwayne Steward on April 23, 2008 at 9:30am —
No Comments
I cannot say enough wonderful things about
CoverItLive.com! Today is
our paper's launch of our new design and we've experienced some "issues" with DNS propogation which was confusing for some of our readers. Being able to have a
live chat running to discuss the redesign and kinks with it has been helpful and frankly, fun!
I enjoy having this option avai…
Continue
Posted by Stephanie Romanski on April 23, 2008 at 7:35am —
Comments
In my last post, I expressed my desire to get out in the real world and find real stories. Recently I'd begun to doubt if other journalism students shared my aspirations. Then I met Drew.
When Drew showed up at random on the Grace campus, I assumed he was a prospective student or a friend of a friend. Later I learned that he is a Canadian university student hitchhiking across the U.S. before going back to school in the fall.
Like myself, Drew is majoring in journalism. Makes sense. Journali…
Continue
Posted by Christian Sheckler on April 22, 2008 at 1:11pm —
Comments
This may draw hoots of derision (derision only comes in hoots, I believe) from people with technical knowhow, but The Telegraph of Nashua, NH, has launched its first crowdsourcing-ish project, using cut-and-paste, rather than any specialized software-type stuff.
The background: Verizon recently sold all its phone lines in New Hampshire (and Maine and Vermont) to a small company, FairPoint. We covered the sale in the usual ways but we weren't sure how to keep an eye on the corporate handoff, sin…
Continue
Posted by Dave Brooks on April 21, 2008 at 12:32pm —
Comments
I'm in journalism because I like to write and I love a good story. Good stories are all over the place -- too bad school makes it tough to get out and find them.
I mean, I'm learning great stuff in class. But if I spend lots of time on assignments, I feel like I'm missing out on the real stories -- the kind that happen in the real world. So I have to choose. And given the choice between real stories and class assignments, I'd choose...real stories.
Like Sean Blanda says in his post…
Continue
Posted by Christian Sheckler on April 21, 2008 at 11:55am —
Comments
New York’s
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Company, in the midst of its 50th Anniversary year, showcased its junior talent, Ailey II, in Columbus Sunday night, yet there was nothing second-rate about the 12 dancers’ mesmerizing performance.…
Continue
Posted by Dwayne Steward on April 21, 2008 at 9:30am —
No Comments
My fellow WiredJ member
Tonya and I will be teaching our first class on blogging. I'm excited and a little nervous about it. So I'm wondering if I could solicit ideas from you creative types on the stuff we should not forget to teach these guys. Now, these aren't journalists we're teaching, but just regular folks who are interested in blogging (and could potentially become part of our
com… Continue
Posted by Stephanie Romanski on April 18, 2008 at 11:36am —
Comments
Working in retail now for four years I've had the awkward moment several times of explaining what an education editor with a degree in journalism is doing in retail. The answer is always evolving but the latest incarnation is: I'm working on it but in the mean time I love what I do here. Recently the conversation has evolved into a plea for help. "I graduate in December with a degree in communications can you help me find a job in newspapers?"
How do you mentor someone that aspires to join the…
Continue
Posted by Susan Ruiz on April 18, 2008 at 10:30am —
No Comments
If any slice of your daily bread is baked from print B2B journ, I must call your attention to fellow member Paul Conley's latest series of posts on his blog,
. For the past few weeks, Paul's been doing a come-to-jesus talk to print journalists on how it's necessary to get beyond the page, but quick.
Though a very early adopter of web technology personally, I still make my most of my bucks in print, so Paul's jeremiads sometime grate. But his most recent--on w…
Continue
Posted by Mary Atherton on April 18, 2008 at 9:46am —
Comments
I had a chance to hear
Tim Leatherman, inventor of the multi-tool today (yes there is a guy named Leatherman). He was featured at
Speakerlunch a monthly pep-talk for entrepreneurs put on by a local guy in Corvallis.
I came away with a couple of entrepreneurial lessons to consider that I wanted to share:…
Continue
Posted by Matt Neznanski on April 17, 2008 at 5:13pm —
No Comments
In the spirit of trying to integrate new technology and content into the newsroom, I thought I'd provide links to a few of my favorite online news sources.
The Seattle Times: This is probably the first site I navigate to when it comes to Northwest news. I love the Web site — it's one of the best on the Net by any newspaper, in my opinion.
Geoff Baker's Mariners blog… Continue
Posted by Paul Balcerak on April 17, 2008 at 1:59pm —
No Comments
Amazing, remarkable, extraordinary. These words don’t even touch the experience
“Riverdance” provided for its audience Tuesday night.
Typically lauded for its exciting Irish high stepping, The Boyne’s — Riverdance’s 2008 North American tour…
Continue
Posted by Dwayne Steward on April 17, 2008 at 9:00am —
No Comments
I just read a
Mindy… Continue
Posted by Andy Johns on April 17, 2008 at 5:30am —
No Comments
We (The Anniston Star) have launched a crime map using
Zeemaps.
You can see the map at
annistonstar.com/crimemap.
I was impressed with Zee maps because of its import function. One of our news clerks copies and pastes crime information from out blotter (which runs daily in print) into an Excel doc. She saves it on the news drive weekly and our online team imports it into Zeemaps in about six clicks of the mouse.
The…
Continue
Posted by Andy Johns on April 17, 2008 at 5:29am —
Comments
And then wish you were what you found?
Google John Doran. There's a long list of entries, and you'd have to scroll to nearly the 93rd page to actually find me. But before you get there, you'll find some interesting fellas with the initials J.D.
There's the John Doran who, in 1891, played in 15 games for the Major League Baseball Colonials. The 5-foot-11, 175-pound lefty hit just .189 in 53 at bats, and posted a 5-10 pitching record (12 complete games) with a 5.46 ERA. Being a switch-hitting Di…
Continue
Posted by John Doran on April 16, 2008 at 10:22pm —
No Comments
We have several job openings (http://www.kqed.org/about/jobs/index.jsp.) Although we are looking for experienced radio journalists, some of the positions also involve online skills, including community outreach and audience development.
Continue
Posted by Bruce Koon on April 16, 2008 at 12:00pm —
No Comments
Screenwriter Ideas
There must be a better way
Seeking workable ideas for a staff "rewards & recognition" program
Ryan is twittering from the E & P "Web Leaders" Meeting
Got the data. Now what?
Seesmic and Journalism
Impressions from Camp VJ Chicago
Advice for newly wired journalists
Crowdsourcing success!
Expect to Pay Out the Ear for Transatlantic Shipping
War and Suicide and Political Considerations
The urge to merge
Ad agency starts up online newspaper, "community journalism" ensues
Twitter has been down for over 36 hours this year!
Flickr what? Buzznet huh?
Hello There
Touring with Tonya - Blog
IDOL RECAP: Brooke goes home as Paulagate explained?
Time spent on newspaper Web sites
Come to the Carnival
Using Coverit Live during Website relaunch
Low-tech crowdsourcing
Starting from Scratch
life after print = print
Zoom H2
Ever Google yourself ...
Jobs at KQED Public Radio
