Who's got the time

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7 Comments

Comment by Casey Cora on March 7, 2008 at 7:25am

Thanks for all the comments/suggestions. Like everyone on here, I believe the future consists of using Web tools to enhance smart, honest news coverage.

My real concern is striking the balance between playing around with new technologies and getting some real reporting done.

Because sitting down to bang out a well-written story on deadline and, say, editing audio, requires different frames of mind altogether.

Sure, it's all under the umbrella of newsgathering and storytelling. But along with the time it takes to learn new skills, each new technology requires it's own special editorial considerations. That chews up a lot of hours.

Comment by Robb Montgomery on March 6, 2008 at 4:17pm

Sleep is overrated.

;-)

My advice would be first to get all you can out this network, post videos, some photos, invite people, network and slowly learn how to maybe get a handle on RSS works before long you will see how you can use these tools and services to report and update stories online.

Comment by Dave Brooks on March 6, 2008 at 8:24am

But you're right that learning the new stuff, and then the new new stuff, and then realizing that the new stuff doesn't really work so you don't need to know it any more, and then there's the new new new stuff, and then the new new stuff has morphed so you have to learn it again ... with all that, you never actually do any *reporting*. (Like I'm not doing any right now)

Comment by Tom Mattson on March 5, 2008 at 11:35pm

I don't think it's un-new-school of you to be slightly overwhelmed. Heck we all are. If you're not, it probably means you're not involving yourself enough. But I think everyone's right to suggest that you find things that flip the most of your switches and run with those. Personally I make sure I've SEEN all these things, and are familiar with what they do, but usually my focus stays centered on a small number of endeavors and programs.

Comment by Mary Ann Chick Whiteside on March 5, 2008 at 8:20pm

Use your non-work time to explore a non-work topic using the tools.

One of my first databases was of the music I had - sortable by act, song, type. That was a big help later when I did a public radio show. That show taught this print journalist a lot about mixing sound, cueing records, legal restrictions on music, And how to do voiceovers.

Need to give someone directions to your place. Go for overkillnand play around on a Google map.

Do a vacation video. You are using a camera, trying things and no one HAS to see it.

Plus read. What are others demoing for your benefit.

Comment by Zac Echola on March 5, 2008 at 8:02pm

I can keep up because I focus a lot of energy on making things come to me rather than me going out to find it.

I've spent a lot of time figuring out ways to route this huge mass of personal data around in meaningful ways. I turned Google Reader into a CMS and spent a lot of time turning GMail into a personal database. I can participate in a lot of services without doing much more than typing. I'm a geek, for sure.

Google my name and you'll likely find a sea of Web services I've signed up for and never used more than once or twice. If it's not immediately valuable to me, I drop it. I dropped twitter twice before figuring out how to make it work for me. I usually wait to let the people around me (friends, bloggers, etc.) tell me why I should use something.

I also never bothered setting up a MySpace account. I don't watch TV (I mean I own a TV, but it's basically a video game and DVD viewer). I don't have kids.

And I have this amazing ability to ignore things and have no problem sitting on emails, marking "all as read" in Reader. I sometimes won't check Facebook for weeks. I hate the telephone.

Sometimes you just need to turn everything off. The Internet will be there when you get back.

Ryan is right though. Technology for technology's sake is not a good thing. As a reporter you don't have to do slide shows for every story and/or videos for everything and/or social networks and/or data. Work deliberately.

Comment by Ryan Sholin on March 5, 2008 at 7:00pm

Nope.

The word "overwhelming" comes up a lot when I speak to folks about the range of new technology and Web-based tools for dealing with data or video or images or audio or blogs or bookmarks or microblogging or anything else.

Sounds overwhelming to me, too.

So here's my suggestion:

Find your favorite part of all this and become an expert at it.

Let's put it this way: I spend more time on Twitter these days than anywhere else, and I'm very interested in technologies that tie into it.

I spend far less time on things like Facebook or video or data or Flash or slideshows or photography or audio, but I know enough about them to know what purpose they can serve to a news organization.

So find your favorite thing and get into it. There's no need to track everything at once.