Posted by
Dave Lee
on 3 March 2008 at 13:11
Tags: Newspapers, Student Journalism
I haven’t seen it for myself yet, but rumour has it that this week’s Times Higher Education has a comprehensive list of the bonuses being handed out to university Vice-Chancellors in the UK.
A potentially juicy story there for you all!
Posted by
Dave Lee
on 26 February 2008 at 17:00
Tags: Newspapers, Online, Student Journalism, facebook
It is very apt indeed that the first ‘In Profile’ newspaper is called York Vision, for the internet arm of their award-winning newspaper is clearly a sign of things to come.
Visiting YorkVision.co.uk will bring you straight to Vision’s Facebook application. The entire web presence of the paper is embedded into the social-networking site. Does this exclude some non-Facebooking students from reading the site? Of course, but the application has allowed Vision to better engage with readers who do use Facebook.
Iain Withers, one of the students behind the application, tells us more.
Student Journalism Blog: What drove the decision to make yorkvision.co.uk point directly to the Facebook application?
Iain Withers: The original concept was to take news directly to students - the application was an experiment aimed at getting our articles read by more people online. We decided to take our content to where students generally loiter online, rather than set up a stand-alone website. Vision prides itself in writing more humorous, gossipy articles which we thought would fit in well with Facebook.
Have you had any complaints from visitors who don’t use Facebook but want to access York Vision’s news?
Not yet - some Vision members would have preferred not to integrate into Facebook as a matter of principle (i.e. privacy concerns). Our podcast, one of only three made by student newspapers, is available through the student radio URY website and through iTunes.
Who designed the application, and how long did it take? Did it cost anything?
The design of the application was a joint effort between Matt Kirman and myself. Matt is a fairly experienced developer so it didn’t take too long to code it - the latest version took only 5 days to write from scratch. We were quite lucky to develop the application for free - fortunately Matt and I are good friends and business partners so it didn’t take much persuasion!
How many people are responsible for running the application and its content? How have the ‘non-techy’ members of York Vision’s team coped with using it?
Currently there are about a dozen people in editorial positions who have the capability to update content on the site. However, since Matt and I left York Vision the new editorial team have struggled to get a replacement developer and the future doesn’t look great for the app.
Has using Facebook to distribute your online news strengthened your role as a student newspaper?
Quite definately! We currently get around 1000 unique click-throughs to our canvas page per week. If you take into consideration the number of profile views as well Facebook is by far the best way to distribute our content.
Have you considered making the application available to other student newspapers? Perhaps making it open source?
Currently we have not released the application to any third parties, though we have had some interest from other student groups in other universities. Releasing the software as open source has been considered, however since the application has been customised for York Vision further development would be required to do so.
Do you have plans to expand on the application in any way?
Matt and I are now working on a new independent website, building on our experience developing the Vision application. Social news is an exciting concept - we’re looking to launch a very distinctive news site later this year.
Posted by
Dave Lee
on 20 February 2008 at 10:00
Tags: Newspapers, Online, Student Journalism, facebook
The more we learn about the efforts of the Northern Star team in at Northern Illinois University the more we are amazed.
The professionalism is astounding. A tragedy of this magnitude is, obviously, a huge test for those reporting on it. Personal grief battles against student inexperience. This will have been the biggest story these students will have ever worked on. And to top it all off: One of the victims, Daniel Parmenter, was part of the newspaper team.
Talking to the New York Times, the Northern Star’s advisor, Jim Killam said: “It became very clear that people very close to us were injured and dead. It immediately changed the complexion of the newsroom.”
The Times article goes on to explain the lessons learned from the Virginia Tech shootings last year. The Star’s team was fully prepared after their editor-in-chief, John Puterbaugh, had been in contact with Amie Steele who is editor-in-chief for Virginia Tech’s newspaper, the Collegiate Times. Techniques borrowed from the Virginia Tech coverage included using Facebook to identify victims quickly.
The newspaper found itself in a privileged position: They were the best source of news bar none. The mainstream media couldn’t come close to the tight personal bonds the Northern Star will have had with the students and staff at the University. It was this factor that allowed the Star to be the first to report that the killer had turned the gun on himself.
While coverage of the tragedy will soon drop off the mainstream agenda, it will of course continue to dominate the Northern Star’s pages. Amie Steele knows this all too well with her experience in Virginia.
“I’ve been looking forward to the first issue that doesn’t have an April 16 story,” she told the Times. “But unfortunately I don’t think that is going to come anytime soon.”
Here in the UK, students are not given the resources needed to produce an impressive media output like those made by the Northern Star and Collegiate Times.
Yet, journalistic instinct cannot be bought. Would UK student journalists be up to the task of reporting such a tragedy?
Posted by
Dave Lee
on 16 February 2008 at 20:09
Tags: Newspapers, Online, Student Journalism, facebook
This post is part of the Carnival of Journalism which, this month, is hosted by the Innovation in College Media blog:
“Whatever you do, don’t forget a pen and notepad,” said my tutor. “Or you’ll look like a complete pratt.”
Sound advice. Turn up for a work experience placement without a pen and you’ll look a fool. It would be like a footballer turning up without his football boots.
It’s time the ‘pen and notepad’ rule had a makeover for the Web 2.0 era. There’s more than just pen and paper these days. Journalists are creating web content on the road. Audio, video, images… oh, and the odd bit of writing too, let’s not forget.
I remember reading a blog post a long while ago about how journalists need to change their mentality towards reporting using multimedia. Some stories come across better in a single format. For example, I think good investigative journalism is still strongest in print format. A double page spread on some corruption is never missed.
But, if there’s, say, a tornado, we’re all watching amateur clips from Gerry in California. Or marvelling at a reporter being blown about all over the place. Suddenly, print is not so good.
My point is — and it’s hardly a revolutionary one — is that different stories require different sorts of coverage. Different destinations. The hard bit is it’s not always clear how a story will turn out. We have to be prepared for it all.
So, I’ve brainstormed this:
The Student Journalist Multimedia Survival Kit
(Why ’student journalist’ instead of just ‘journalist’? One reason: budget.)
1. Pen and Paper. Despite everything else I’m about to write, you should still keep these firmly in your back pocket. If you carry a bag about (which you should do), the bottom of it should be a mish-mash of grotty old biros. You’ll need them all some day. I carry two notepads. One is an A4 jotta pad which I use when I’ve got chance to take a moment to properly plan out a story, or interview etc. The second is a lovely little Moleskine pad which I received courtesy of Journobiz (more about that site in the future, no doubt. Join it). It fits nicely into my back pocket and looks the business. Earnest Hemingway used to use one too, apparently.
2. Mobile Phone. You’ve probably got one of these in your pocket right now. Good. But how good are you at using it? You know how to use the camera, I bet, but do you make use of services like ShoZu? With their simple application you can take a photo and upload it to Flickr straight away. While you’re at it, download Opera Mini for those moments where you need the web in an emergency, but can’t get to a computer. If you like to keep on top of your emails while on the go, the Google Mail client provides a good data-light service. Certainly a lot better than the default email clients found on most phones. And, for those more relaxing moments, pointing your mobile to m.facebook.com provides some light poke-filled time-wasting.
Mobile video is on the up. Expect to see a lot more content produced by journalists using mobile phones, as demonstrated by a very enthusiastic Jeff Jarvis here. If you’re worried that your mobile can’t produce decent video, maybe it’s time to start looking at some contracts. I’ve just got hold of a Nokia N95 8GB for free on my contract with o2.
We mustn’t forget that a good reporter works in two ways. Not only are you reporting, but also you must be aware of what’s going on elsewhere. Use your phone to set up RSS feeds from all the best news sources so you know what’s happening at all times.
3. Dictaphone. Your mobile will probably have a voice recording feature on it, but I’d still recommend carrying a good dictaphone. Sound quality is generally better, as are the microphones which, with the right add-ons, can cut out even the harshest of background noise. Olympus seem to rule the roost in this field, and I’ve used this little beauty for all my interviews in the last year or so. Make sure, whatever model you get, that you get one that allows you to upload it to your PC. This means you can archive all of your audio (as well as upload it to the web). If, like me, you import the clips into iTunes so you can keep track of them all, don’t make the fatal mistake of using the ‘Autofill’ option on an iPod Shuffle. It’s no fun realising your favourite music has been replaced with an interview with a midwife.
4. Digital Camera? (Open to debate…). I thought long and hard about including a digital camera. Many mobile phone cameras can produce photos as good as a compact camera, so you could argue there is needless repetition here. If you want really good press-quality photography, you really need to be investing in a good SLR camera. Which would be a big, expensive addition to the Multimedia Journalism Survival Kit. In my view a compact camera isn’t necessary.
And that’s it. Not much, is there? Well no… that’s the whole point. If it was a big bag of techy-excess then you’d never take it anywhere. We need to look to the day where a student journalist is being told that, to steal a phrase, he or she will “look like a complete pratt” if they don’t turn up with a pen, notepad, mobile and dictaphone.
With those four bits of tiny equipment, a journalist can create words, audio, pictures and video. And have it all online before they get back to the office. If we can all aim towards that then it’s a great shift in mentality, and one that will, in my opinion, secure the survival of good journalism.
Posted by
Dave Lee
on 14 February 2008 at 08:01
Tags: Courses, Lincoln University, Newspapers, Online, Student Journalism
When studying to be a print journalist, students will definitely spend considerable amounts of time in printhouses, learning to operate machinery that puts the ink to paper. After extensive training, we then must prepare to build our own printing presses.
I’m kidding. We’re not taught like that. All we, as print journalists, need to know about the printing presses is that they exist and they work. It would be a waste of time to think otherwise.
So why don’t we take the same approach to learning online journalism?
If you’re an online journalism student and find yourself aimlessly clicking away at Dreamweaver and wondering “What’s the point?”, you’re not alone. There are hundreds of us.
It’s an issue that has caused great concern for Amy Gahran, writing over on Poynter Online about the pointlessness of such an education:
“Dreamweaver is a decent Web design and development tool,” she writes. “However, it’s not very relevant to journalism, because it does not include a robust content management system!
“A working knowledge of real Content Management System (CMS) technology and how it integrates with the internet is what gives a journalist’s career legs these days,” she continues. “Requiring journalism students to use Dreamweaver is about as useful as requiring them to learn calligraphy. It makes your content looks really pretty — and it generally won’t be worth a damn on a real journo job or project.”
I really couldn’t agree more. I myself have written about this on my own blog many moons ago, as I was astonished to find I was “studying” online journalism using software that was out of date before I’d even started my A-Levels.
Gahran mentions in her post that it isn’t just the fact that most courses use outdated versions of Dreamweaver. It’s more the fact that using Dreamweaver — or any other web design software, let’s not forget — promotes a certain mindset when it comes to publishing online.
A Dreamweaver site, unless very professionally executed, is so very static… so very Web 1.0. Web 1.0 just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Think of your favourite websites. Which do you visit most frequently? The one that changes every day, or the one that changes every minute? The new web — Web 2.0 — is all about live information. When you log onto the BBC’s homepage, you know that what you’re reading is the most up-to-date news possible. That’s how online works.
Poke your nose into any newsroom across the country and see what they’re doing with the web. Are local reporters sat in front of their computers wrestling with HTML table alignments? No! They’re writing news stories, whisking them off to the web-bods who then place them neatly into a pre-designed CMS. Who designs the CMS? Why, web designers of course…!
That’s not to say we don’t need to know how some of it works, but simply learning Dreamweaver doesn’t bring us any closer to that goal. What’s the use in studying a program that nobody uses? Teach a few basic tags like bold, italic and underline, and then get onto the important stuff: Journalism.
Online journalism courses should ask questions like: What’s different about an online audience to a print audience? What can we do with online that would couldn’t do with print? How can we make this news story as accessible to our audience as possible?
It’s the decisions that arise from quesitons like these which make online journalism the most fascinating medium in today’s media. But, instead, many students are finding themselves making decisions over whether to implement a 1997-esque scrolling marquee.
HTML, PHP, MySQL and all those other complicated acronyms are to the online world what ink is to the print world. As long as we know it’s there, then that’s good enough. It’s time for less coding, and more reporting.
Posted by
Dave Lee
on 13 February 2008 at 11:53
Tags: Newspapers, Online, Student Journalism
Daniel Whitehead is spending today live-blogging York’s Varsity competitions for ‘Nouse’.
Daniel invites comments and, more importantly, what no Varsity competition could be without: banter!
Posted by
Dave Lee
on 12 February 2008 at 15:09
Tags: Newspapers, Student Journalism
How many of us feel this editor’s pain?
What kind of person takes a student newspaper the day it comes out and marks the errors on it when they could just as easily show up some night and make sure the errors never see print? A *****, that’s what.
Sound familiar?
Posted by
Dave Lee
on 8 February 2008 at 13:52
Tags: Lincoln University, Newspapers, Online, Student Journalism, The Linc, facebook
We all know that Facebook is a terrific tool – has it ever been any easier to keep in touch with friends? I don’t think so. Last week I had a 21st birthday party that was organised using Facebook’s event application, and it really couldn’t have been simpler.
The question is, what else can we do with it? How, as student journalists, can we use this rapidly expanding medium to our advantage?
Here’s where I think we should all start. Please, feel free to add your own in the comments section.
Five things student editors should do with Facebook in 2008
Any other suggestions? If you’re feeling super-adventurous you could attempt to make an application specifically for your publication, although that’s for the real tech-heads only at the moment.
Posted by
Dave Lee
on 1 February 2008 at 15:12
Tags: Newspapers, Online, Student Journalism
I read this very interesting editorial piece from all the way from Trinity College, Connecticut. Unlike UK student newspapers, our American counterparts have pretty large budgets.
In the piece, the author explains how although they pride themselves on being independent, they’re still funded by the college. What’s more, the paper acknowledges that without the facilities at Trinity, they would not be able to print. That’s the harsh reality of student news. We operate on a shoestring — and the University is wearing the shoes.
Yet, until now, it hasn’t been a problem for the Trinity Tripod. They published to an average of 3,000 students. While this is an impressive circulation, it is one that can easily be removed should there be a major problem.
Then the web happened. What was originally a community of 3,000 is now one of potentially millions. An eager student editor would see this as good news. A concerned college may be a little less keen. And they’re the ones with the money.
An interesting argument, and one that may become more apparent in the UK as we get better at using the web.
Posted by
Dave Lee
on 30 January 2008 at 09:18
Tags: Courses, Newspapers, Online, Student Journalism
Journalism students studying on NCTJ accredited courses will now be able to have their say on how and what they are taught.
On 15 February, the NCTJ will hold its first student council, inviting a representative from each of the 41 accredited journalism schools to take part.
“We have involvement with everybody else in the industry, listening to what the papers are saying to us with regards to what they’re looking for in students,” says Shevon Houston, Events, Training and Diversity Administrator for the NCTJ.
“And we really need to listen to our students to get their views and issues with the NCTJ training scheme.”
The council is a fresh attempt at giving the work of the NCTJ greater transparency, and helping it adapt to an ever-changing media climate. In December 2007, students studying with the Up To Speed journalism school took the first ever NCTJ online exam, in which they had to adapt print stories for a web audience.
Houston hopes that the new council will help the NCTJ innovate further, and act as an effective channel of communication between students and tutors.
Joanne Butcher, Chief Executive of the NCTJ, believes that the student voice is very important.
“Many of them now have to pay thousands of pounds to fund their own training so it’s only right that we provide a forum for them to let us know exactly what they think about the way we do things and how we could improve the quality of journalism training.”
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