Online Journalism

Although I already have some knowledge of Adobe InDesign from my experience as editor of my high school yearbook, The Shield, I felt that a little refresher course never hurt anyone – especially in today’s technological age. I knew a lot of the skills we went over, such as how to set up a master document, and how to navigate the control panel.

However, there were some skills that I had forgotten or never thoroughly learned to begin with. These ranged from when to use an RGB or CMYK color palette. Likewise, we discussed the different types of graphics that can be used, and how to get the best image for your design.

The instructor suggested taking the Photoshop class on the following Tuesday. Not only is it incredibly useful for the digital realm, but will be an excellent supplement for the skills learned in the InDesign workshop.

My team, which is comprised of Melissa, Ryan, Nick, Lijam and Julia, is doing our project on theraputic hockey. We are specifically focusing on the NoVa Cool Cats hockey team based in the Northern Virginia area.

Our team created a storyboard on MindMeister, which can be found here.

My role in the project is to create a slideshow of pictures from the Cool Cat’s practice, contribute blurbs and information for our ZeeMap that we’re embedding on our final project and helping Melissa with the information for the feature story.

Today in class, we got to hear from NBC Washington’s Jim Iovino, who discussed the changing face of journalism and gave tips on how writers can best appeal to audiences.

As a film student, one thing that I found especially interesting (especially in light of Jon Denunzio’s visit last week in which he actually said quite the opposite) was Iovino’s comment that an ability to shoot and edit video is practically a must-have for anyone interested in entering news these days. (In fairness to Denunzio, he didn’t disregard video entirely; he just said that it was totally irrelevant in his area, which I felt was a bit shortsighted, although he was a great guest overall.)

Some of the tips Iovino had for journalists:

• It’s crucial to be the one to break a story. Fill in the details later; the environment is too competitive nowadays to sit on a story.
• Find a unique angle to present every story. If readers appreciate your tone and voice, they’re more likely to return.
• Journalism always starts with the question…no matter what form (print, television, online), the basics of compelling storytelling are always what drives journalism.
• Sometimes raw footage can be an effective tool to hook the audience.
• Mobile is the way of the future and sites must adapt to keep their stature.
• That said, it’s impossible to predict too far in advance, because two years ago, few people saw Twitter as an effective tool for journalists.

Perhaps the highlight of the afternoon was Iovino showing colleague Pat Collins‘ recent exposure on the “moment of zen” segment on “The Daily Show.” Collins is quite the character; another segment centered around his baffled interview with a woman who traveled three miles each way in the snow to secure a sandwich from the Giant deli. (In her defense, their deli is pretty good…but not six miles in heavy snow good.)

PS: Plastics. Um, I mean, video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s a controversial one for you.

The West Seattle Herald posted an article essentially downplaying the importance of bloggers that, in many respects was the equivalent of an old man telling a bunch of teenagers to get off of his lawn.

20th Century Fox

The anonymous piece (which perhaps said it all) included such nuggets of wisdom as:

Instead of 3000 words about a community council meeting that was ‘live blogged’ with updates every seven minutes, wouldn’t you honestly prefer 300 words that tell you what happened and what was decided?

And in what would make Professor Klein burn the West Seattle Herald offices to the ground, the author even lamented the use of links in online stories.

The article does raise some good points, particularly about the effectiveness of advertising between the mediums. But a rebuttal from the Blog Herald (which, incidentally, displays a number of smart Web-writing techniques) courtesy of Thord Daniel Hedengren presents a wise argument against the West Seattle Herald’s techniques.

While I probably wouldn’t read a liveblogged council meeting, I still find this offensive. Let’s say I’m really interested in local politics but can’t attend, then the live blog is a great way to keep up to date as it happens. Is it the perfect way to cover a council meeting? No, of course not, but it is live and happening right now.

Hedengren loses some credibility by going over the top and suggesting readers cancel their West Seattle Herald subscriptions but it’s still an interesting conversation between two sources who are obviously in complete opposition when in an ideal world they would be working together.

Quick question before we begin: how are you reading this blog entry?

• Did you print out a hard copy?
• Are you reading it on your computer?
• Checking it out on your mobile device?

Those are three top options, listed in descending order of how likely you are to retain the content you read.

While I highly doubt that anyone is eagerly loading up a blog for an online journalism course on their iPhone, it is a bit discomforting to read that, as technology expands by shrinking, the power of the word may be shrinking as well.

Reading retention, thy name is futility.

Jacob Nielsen summed up a study in which University of Alberta researchers determined that reading from mobile devices results in less than half the retention of reading from a computer screen (which itself is only about a quarter of the retention from a printed page).

Nielsen points to several factors on his blog…of course, chances are that readers will miss out on 73 percent of it, which appears to be the ignored portion on text-heavy sites such as user agreements.

• Mobile devices are slower to download
• There isn’t a physical keyboard or mouse
• The screen is much smaller and text is either tinier or there is less of it on screen
• Not all sites are properly formatted for mobile devices

Teaching Online Journalism

Finding the story is the reminder this post intends for its readers.

“I think that in the process of teaching them reporting, we may kill their instinct for finding and telling real stories,” McAdams said on her post.

I agree with her statement. I know some journalism students are just too worried about getting all the facts right. That’s all they end up focusing on.

We’re taught to get the story, but not necessarily how to evaluate if it is actually a story. Many times once we’re given an assignment we say we don’t have any ideas for stories. I suppose since today the world is so fast-paced, we don’t take time to think about what’s really there.

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