Letting readers contribute

It's raining cats and dogs outside. OK, make that pea-sized ice and big splatty raindrops in sunny California. Meaning I am forgoing my walk for the moment. Here's a few thoughts from other bloggers on newspapers and newspaper websites and their ideas for potential improvements:

From journalist/marketing/new media participant Gary Goldhammer's Below the fold blog about journalism:

Interactivity, social tools and multimedia are now staples at most major papers. And they should be – moreover, the lessons of online engagement and influence of a media created by the masses, rather than a media created for the masses, must permeate today’s newsrooms and course through journalism’s 21st Century veins.

But while these advances are essential to the industry’s survival, there is more to flying above the clouds than putting on new wings. Remember what happened to Icarus when he ignored his father and flew too close to the sun.

Newspapers need to fight the battles they can win. This means getting niche and local, like magazines and weeklies. It means letting your online product be the “AM” edition, with the latest breaking news, and letting your print version be the “PM” edition, with the context, analysis and opinion readers can’t get anywhere else. And it means getting back to telling stories that matter, stories that engage and involve audiences.

In today’s age of the ever-shrinking news hole, words are a precious commodity. Newspapers need to make every word count.

And one more, post from Robert Niles on the Annenberg Online Journalism Review. It speaks to what he considers the silly fight between bloggers/citizen journalists versus members of the MSM.

He tells the story of a Los Angeles Times reporter writing about fluctuating prices on Amazon from an anecdotal experience that the reporter had -- the cookbook he wanted to buy went up 51 cents overnight.

Niles suggests that had the LA Times reporter availed himself of "citizen journalists" he could have learned and used information from their experiences of price-fluctuations of books or goods they've ordered from Amazon. Niles, as a seller on Amazon, had price fluctuation information about the sale of his own 10-year-old book through Amazon. He suggests he and others could have appended their information at the end of the reporter's story, if the Website would have allowed it.

The string of comments reflects the ongoing concern with newspapers' fears of "outsiders" mucking with a newspaper's info versus just getting to comment on it, after the fact.

Toolkit Info

Scroll down a bit and look at the list of books and websites in the blue box, bottom right. I will keep adding them as I encounter them in class and online. I hope you'll pick up a book or two, and scroll through some of these web sites.

Inspiration

This powerful multimedia story, called "Touching Hearts," was done in 2001 by the Herald Sun in Durham, North Carolina. A print reporter and a multimedia reporter both traveled to Nicaragua to tell the tale of N.C. pediatric cardiologists working on the hearts of young children there. The multimedia reporter was Joe Weiss. Find his story here, and remember to allow the pop up window. Make that choice by clicking on the preference button that pops up on the right.

If you watch only one segment, watch Oscar's story. (Off main page, select stories, then select Oscar.) What could be more powerful than hearing a father's words after he hears the doctor cannot save his son because the preventable illness has progressed too far. Hear the doctor's voice when he realizes he cannot save Oscar. Hear Oscar's father weep after his son dies. Hear sounds of the torrential thunderstorm that marked that horrible afternoon.

This story also appeared as a nine-part series in the newspaper, and you can select those stories off the same link above.

Something to realize about multimedia stories is the reader decides where he/she wants to go first. The story telling is non-linear. In this case, the reader can select different buttons off the opening page to proceed to info on the mission, the stories at the hospital, the people involved. This is a new twist for a print reporter, accustomed to folding it all into one story, from top to bottom.

Multimedia: here's where it begins

I realize I have never shared the site where I and other students posted our multimedia projects from the one-week UC Berkeley multimedia workshop from December, 2006. Here is the site.

Here's what's good about this site:

1) Along the left hand side in a blue bar are tutorials on the many-faceted aspects of multimedia reporting, from how to choose a story that works well in multimedia, to tutorials on technique like how to do a stand up or a voice over, nuts and bolts on how to edit video with Final Cut Pro or iMovie. Even details on what equipment the school is using, in case you want to outfit your newsroom. Oh, and let's not forget web design, so tutorials on Dreamweaver and Flash.

2) Student projects. This school has been giving these one-week boot camps for a couple of years now, and the projects are posted. Take a look and see how video, audio, voice over, slide shows are used. These were accomplished in about 2.5 days by total greenhorns. With a little time, you can and will do amazing work.

From the horse's mouth: You Tube founder

The BBC keeps amazing me. They are blogging and reporting and podcasting out of Davos, the World Economic Summit in Switzerland. I'm still trying to absorb it, but came across this podcast with You Tube founder Chad Hurley (left) by the BBC that is worth a look-see. Follow the link above to an 8-minute video from the founder of You Tube on what his site is about: Is it to kill television and movies? No, he says, it's to broaden the voices in conversation.

Two reasons to watch: a new multimedia reporter should NEVER feel shy about her on-the-job first-time video -- here is a hand-held, hallway video that the BBC is posting for its immediacy, not for its beauty. And two: look how young this guy is, and consider the impact he's having on how we communicate with each other. I would encourage you to explore the BBC Davos coverage, and in particular, their Davos Conversations, in which they are hoping to get viewers responding back. This is not unlike the kind of commitment a newspaper might consider from its readers. Imagine the boldness of BBC asking the world to react. Surely it would be easier to ask residents of a state to react to events in that state. Engaging the audience is our future.

Oh, and you can catch Jeff Jarvis of www.buzzmachine.com doing his citizen reporter bit. Looks like he and others joined the BBC hallway interview, video camera in hand, and jumped in to ask some questions. Catch his Davos commentary on buzzmachine, including his version of the same interview that BBC posted.

And now for the numbers, wince

OK, this is a downer post. But this article from UPI tallies up the U.S.journalism job losses in 2006. And points out how many jobs have already disappeared this year.

In my Digital Journalism class, the professor is pushing us to figure out a model where amateurs could fold into a process with professionals. Anyone who wants to check out our class blog, where ongoing posts from students get critiqued and pushed along by the professor, please just email me and I'll send you the sign on. It is not a public blog but it's not a purely private blog either. I think this would be worth a working journalist's time.

Worrying about battle, the war was lost

We fret over whether we'll write for a newspaper or a website, assuming the Internet will be there as a stomping ground if/when we need it. But people are already out there fighting over who will control the net. Will it be government? If it is, will Internet service providers be "state actors," required to turn over material under a court order? Does the FIrst Amendment offer protection here? If we keep government's hand out, will big business carve it up and charge admission so that the Internet isn't free anymore?

A class at Stanford, "First Amendment in the Digital Age" is looking at these questions. A class assignment is to blog on The Cairns Project as students explore the issues. (The Cairns Project is about "building a network of collective action." The Cairn reference is inspiring: "Throughout history, travelers have collaborated in building Cairns: stone monuments to mark the path and collectively navigate new territory.Together we can do what no one of us can do alone." Already I feel less lonely.

Here's a first amendment post that argues against government intervention, with a response that argues for it.