There are a couple of other things behind this. I've lived in NYC for 2 years now, and have found it ridiculously hard to meet people who might become friends. I'm also kinda bad at getting out of my apartment, especially when it's 90 degrees outside. It's helpful to have the draw of company.

There's some stuff to be examined here about taking web-only relationships to the real world. How does the relationship change? Positively or negatively? How much do people act in person the way they do online? How do my perceptions change, and how do the perceptions of others change?

If you want to have lunch, coffee, or just take a walk, I'm game!

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Taking relationships from the web to real life

I was a little apprehensive, because there hasn't been any information coming out of those meetups and I wasn't sure what the agenda was.

Turned out to be a really cool night. It was a small group, which I liked because as a newbie I could ask meta-questions and figure out what was going on. Richard Ziade, of Arc90 and Readability, told us the story of the bookmarklet and discussed Safari's use for Reader.

During the meetup, I spent some time going through Arc90 Lab, where there are a bunch of code examples that look pretty useful.

I'll definitely be a regular for these meetups, and I'm really excited about finding a bunch of cool, smart people to play with.

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

UnThursday with Dave Winer

But I did want to go to the Sources Go Direct panel at NYU, because I've been hearing this idea from Dave Winer (via blog and podcast) for a while, and I thought it would attract fewer "social media douchebag" types.

As described by Dave Winer:

Techies call it user-generated-content. Journos see a crowd. But when the news system reboots sources will go directly to the people who are increasingly thirsty for information, expertise and perspective.

On Wednesday our focus will be on how news and perspectives flow from the source, the person with expertise, to the destination -- the people who want to be informed.

In the past, all news flowed through a chain of intermediaries who were selective in who they heard and added opportunities for distortion. On the other hand, as our contrarian Nick Denton is likely to argue, how do you find the good stuff in a sea of garbage? Our two true-believers, Wilson and Sterne are likely to have ideas about this.

Our discussion will be Internet-style, with a microphone that moves through the room. You may make comments, not just ask questions. The room will be packed with people with active roles in this area, and active minds. You don't necessarily have to raise your hand to be asked to participate, so pay attention!

The panelists were Nick Denton, Gawker Media, Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures and Rachel Sterne, GroundReport.

Notes from the panel:

(I tried to rewrite them a little to make sense...)

OLD WAY: PR + execs + analysts + companies try to move IDEA (fact or point of view) from company to public

NEW WAY: Sources Go Direct

Fred Wilson reaches 125k ppl a month, 10k a day with his blog. Much of the clubby, private world of VC is now open, power shifted away from money to IDEAS. FW can get ideas out, and also gets them back through comments, reactions, other people putting stuff out. Big question: How to get ideas to market on larger scale than before?

Nick Denton: New elite of people actually publishing, not that different from old elite. Different people, different titles, same system.

Rachel Sterne: Gatekeepers replicate journalism power structure. Motivation: ego. People use Ground Report to promote themselves, advocacy, company, encouraged as long as transparent. Traditional outlets all have some agenda. Fred Wilson said GR should be great source material for mainstream journalism that can't afford to get international news.

Lots of talk about startups, gatekeepers, media coverage. "Is Michael Arrington a nutcase or just entertaining?"

Dave Winer: Is it possible to get around gatekeepers?
Audience: gatekeepers have a legitimate function, earned the right for more important opinion
DW: maybe gatekeeper position is inevitable

And this is sort of the point where I think the panel started to go downhill. Some weird tangents, not a lot of buy-in to the topic from panelists or audience.

Search Twitter references with #sourcesgodirect.

After the panel, I got to meet some cool people I've been in touch with online for a while, but never met face-to-face. I always really enjoy that, because even though most people have photos of themselves posted online, it never quite matches the IRL experience.

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Sources Go Direct Internet Week panel at NYU

I got asked this on Twitter the other night, as I was posting about Game 4 in the Stanley Cup Finals.

bergus @selfmadepsyche What's a Floridian living in New York doing rooting for the Flyers?

After a glib, 140-character response, I got to thinking about it more seriously.

I grew up in Miami, Fla. I have only been to Philly a couple of times. I've never really been into sports, and never thought of myself as an athlete. So why am I so in love with a sport and a team so far removed from most of what I grew up with?

My introduction to ice hockey came when I was about 3 years old, and my dad taught me how to ice skate. My siblings and I held almost every birthday party at the rink. We'd often see local youth teams practicing for hockey games.

When I was 6, my parents got tickets to Florida Panthers games. Between the excitement of actually winning the Stanley Cup of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, (Evan correctly points out in the comments that they didn't win the Cup, oops) and the awesome rubber rats that were handed out (and subsequently tossed onto the ice or used to terrorize my siblings), I was sold.

The rat story: On the night of the Panthers' 1995–96 home opener, a rat scurried across the team's locker room. Mellanby reacted by "one-timing" the rat against the wall, killing it. That night, he scored two goals, which Vanbiesbrouck quipped was "a rat trick." (Play on "hat trick", when a player scores three goals in a single game.) Two nights later, as the story found its way into the world, a few fans threw rubber rats on the ice in celebration of a goal. The rubber rat count went from 16 for the third home game to over 2,000 during the playoffs. [Wikipedia, hat trick explanation added.]

The sport is a mix of grace and violence that really appeals to me. It's really hard to play. It moves fast, but scoring is actually difficult. I hate watching most other sports, though I like playing pick-up games of just about anything, as long as no one expects me to actually be good at it.

But I was the only one in my family who really fell in love with the sport. I didn't grow up watching sports at home; we were allowed only minimal amounts of TV a week. And my violent reactions to hockey got the game pretty much banned at home. (I didn't do anything uncommon among a group of guys watching an American football game, but apparently that was enough.*)

In high school, my love for the game was reignited by a boyfriend whose parents were from Pennsylvania. Huuuuuge Flyers fans. I finally had a "safe space" to watch hockey. By then, the Panthers had been traded into suckitude, and I adopted the Flyers as my team.

I'm also a big fan of cheesesteaks (especially from Pat's), early American history, Pennywise (the Flyers goal song has been Bro Hymn since 2007) and the Reading Terminal Market. I've watched almost every game since 2002, and I really, really want to see the Flyers win the Stanley Cup this year.

*The Husband-Elect is a football (soccer) fan, so the distinction must be made.

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Why a Floridian living in NYC loves hockey and the Flyers

It's being billed as "Craigslisting the Associated Press," a reference to Craigslist's effect on the former monopoly by newspapers of classified ads.

From the Publish2 blog:

With Publish2 News Exchange, newspapers can replace the AP’s obsolete cooperative with direct content sharing and replace the AP’s commodity content with both free, high-quality content from the Web and content from any paid source.

With Publish2 News Exchange, we’ve created what the AP should have become, but can’t because of a classic Innovator’s Dilemma. The New AP is an open, efficient, scalable news distribution platform. We’re enabling newspapers to benefit for the first time from the disruptive power of the Web, and from the efficiency of content production on the Web.

It's a great idea. Everybody says so.

I'm going to nitpick a little bit. Kool-Aid is delicious, but too much will make you fat. Mind you, I've been using P2 to aggregate awesome links to journalistic stuff for over a year now, and I know a bunch of people on their team. I think they're great.

But somebody has some splainin' to do.

× Mr. Karp, you have a great company and a great team. Please refrain from the obvious butt kissage. TechCrunch approval is not worth your debasement.

× It was disappointing to hear Karp say that the end game would be an advertising network. Watching news websites flail to make ads work online is getting pretty old. I'd rather see the smart people at P2 find an innovative way to make money and to help news organizations do the same.

× Popular journalism blog Romenesko at Poynter Online posted a quickie on the new direction P2 is heading. What's interesting is a comment left on the site that points out a major aspect of AP's business that P2 might not be disrupting.

To paraphrase:

The AP is not just a news exchange, it also provides original reporting from all over the world to it's members.

I hadn't seen anyone else mention this, and I'm glad someone did.

Ryan Sholin, Director of News Innovation at P2, responded to this comment - sort of.

"There's currently no easy way for newspapers in a state or region or reporting on a certain topic in common to share their stories with each other with any degree of efficiency.

Or there wasn't, until now.

And there hasn't been any easy way at all for newspapers to bring the wide variety of high quality content available on the Web to their print readership.

Until now.

P2X bridges the gap between print and the Web by connecting natively to print publishing systems. We're doing it using familiar standards and formats that already plug straight into publishing systems.

There's no barrier to entry, and no cost.

Try asking a newspaper editor what they think of that."

eMedia Vitals does a better job of addressing this:

One feature of News Exchange that fell under the radar at TechCrunch is a story ideas database – basically an RFP for story assignments. Editors can post a request for coverage; other members can respond with an existing article or a commitment to write something.

It’s a good way for resource-constrained editors to pool resources to increase the breadth of coverage. “They can say we can’t cover this story ourselves, but if someone else is covering it, we will run it,” Karp said. “Editors at other publications can see that request and ask for the story as well.”

× One last thing: I don't understand exactly where the money goes in this thing. The best explanation I've seen so far also comes from eMedia Vitals:

Initially, the News Exchange will enable newspapers and content providers to freely exchange content, with no fees to Publish2. Newspapers can also use the service to extend existing paid content relationships through a “white list” feature in which a publisher defines who has access to its content.

As the platform scales, Publish2 will begin charging for its service in two ways: for paid content, it will take a portion of the revenue. For free content, it will charge a software licensing fee. Karp wouldn’t specify what Publish2’s cut would be, saying “the market will decide what percentage we charge.”

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Publish2 News Exchange vs. AP

First of all, a journalist who copies numbers off a press release and does a quick rewrite without looking up the actual study is not doing her job.

I suspect the reason that this happen is that 'journalists are afraid of math.' This second part makes me furious. If someone as bad at math as I am can understand statistics (nothing too complex, but I was a psychology student for at least 4 years before I got into journalism) then ANY journalist should be able to understand percentages and ratios.

So I was thinking about how the way survey stories are done can be challenged.

538

Someone has already made a start on this: FiveThirtyEight is a blog with the mission of:

Most broadly, to accumulate and analyze polling and political data in way that is informed, accurate and attractive. Most narrowly, to give you the best possible objective assessment of the likely outcome of upcoming elections.

It is written by Nate Silver, who follows a published methodology in his analysis and does his best to stay unbiased. Every journalist who writes about numbers or politics should be reading this blog.

Error Reporting

MediaBugs is a project for correcting errors and problems in media coverage. The site is currently in beta, focusing on the Bay Area. They have a section for reporting "faulty statistics or math" (though nothing has been reported to that section yet).

But I would like a more aggressive approach.

Doing it Right

What about a site where survey stories that had been published were analyzed along with the original data and methodologies from the surveys?

There are dozens of questions that can be asked about a survey to find out how valid it might be. But honestly, I'd settle for describing the results of the survey correctly. And it wouldn't hurt to point out that a sample of 3,000 women who walk into a particular store or buy a particular product is NOT a sample of all the women on Earth. It's barely an acceptable random sample of women who shop at your store or buy a product!

It might be easier to clone Mr. Silver and create sites on various subjects, since his currently focuses on politics. Easier than teaching journalists a little stats, a little scientific method and a little self-respect.

But I think it would be more fun to build a site where crap surveys can be exposed as, well, crap. And good surveys can be lauded. And the results can be reported CORRECTLY. Shoot, I bet we could even get all kinds of college students to help crowd-source something like this.

Worst case scenario, I guess I'd have to do it myself. After I take a refresher course in social sciences.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Introduction To Survey Research (slideshare.net)
• Getting What you Need From a Survey A Primer on Using a Survey to Gather Information (questionpro.com)
• Ethical and data-integrity problems in a study of mortality in Iraq (stat.columbia.edu)
• Study: public relations more important than ever in the new newsroom (newswire.ca)

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Fixing Survey Stories

I don't think very many people outside the news industry realize how many people meddle in the run-of-the-mill article before it gets published.

Sometimes, multiple reporters are involved. An editor, maybe more than one. Copy editors. Headline writers. Production staff. Etc.

First, why might it benefit people to know who had a finger in the pie?

My instinctive response was to yell "TRANSPARENCY," and leave it at that. But that's not good enough without explaining how this particular transparency would be useful.

When I ran this idea by Twitter, I got several responses:

@greglinch "I wonder if crediting editors/copy editors would have any effect on the number of errors."

@madshrew "Imagine a wire story. There could be upwards of 8-10 names on it by the time someone reads it. Not sure that would be fix."

@westendorf "I don't think it would be useful. I think it would only satisfy the egos of former copy editors, copy editors assns, etc."

The first idea comes closest to my original train of thought. The purpose of transparency is accountability, and if copy editors (production staff, etc.) had to put their names on everything they edited, maybe there would be fewer errors.

The second is a design problem, for sure, but I think it can be solved.

Solutions proposed:

@greglinch "What if the names appeared at the end, similar to how contributors are listed?"

@ahemphill "Metadata!"

As for the ego issue, as unappreciated as copy editors etc. often feel, what's wrong with a little ego boost?

There was a second motivation for the idea though: to increase the concept of journalism as a collaborative work, rather than an individual one.

As journalism becomes more participatory and collaborative, the trend is encouraged by giving credit to all who are involved in the process.

Related Reading:

• Collaboration is Queen
• News Organizations: How Transparent Can We Be?
• Product v. process journalism: The myth of perfection v. beta culture

What do you think?

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Ideas floated on Twitter: Article credits

Unfortunately, my adventures with Django only lasted a couple of days, as I was tossed into the deep end of the pool with Drupal this week. I'm working on building an e-commerce site, but the theme system in Drupal has my brain tied in knots. That's what I'll be working on for the next couple of weeks.

In other news, music is the future of journalism. Or Google Wave. Or tablet computers.

About a month ago, I traded my brick of a Creative Labs Nomad Zen Mp3 player for a Sony E Series Walkman. My Nomad lasted more than 4 years. If my Blackberry had better audio output (the volume on the Blackberry Pearl doesn't go loud enough to be heard over the sound of the subway) I'd have used that, but I heard about the Walkman from Dave Winer's Scripting News blog, and I love it. No, it doesn't sync with iTunes, but I don't want it to. The Walkman makes it easy to take in the podcasts I love while I'm walking or on the Subway. That's all I want it to do.

On the subject of podcasts, I regularly listen to Dave Winer and Jay Rosen on Rebooting the News, Dave Stanton & Co., on Journalism Now, as well as some basic news analysis like Talk of the Nation, NOW on PBS and On the Media. I also listen to the New York Times Front Page podcast, just to see what the Grey Lady thinks is important today.

I also discovered that the New York Public Library has a great digital collection that can be checked out and downloaded online. My recent bedtime stories (audiobooks have been my salvation from insomnia since I was very young) have been the works of Orson Scott Card. I read the Ender's Game series when I was in middle school, and again in high school, and again in college. But I never read Card's less famous work. I've enjoyed Lost Boys, Hart's Hope, Enchantment, and the Alvin Maker series immensely. Just my brand of fantasy+philosophy+sci-fi. I'm currently listening to Songmaster.

I realized something recently about my reading habits online. I use Google Reader to collect most of my news and information. Sometimes, I don't have enough time to read everything, so I "star" things that I want to read later. The problem is, sometimes when "later" arrives, instead of reading and synthesizing something, I just bookmark it in Delicious. So now I have over 2,000 bookmarked items, a large part of which I haven't even read. Lame.

In the same vein, I've been thinking about how I use Publish2. Most of the things I link to on P2 are blog posts and news articles relating to journalism. What people are doing and thinking and seeing for the future of the industry. I want to be able to share more fluidly, and while P2 can import shared items from Google Reader, not everything I share among my GR social circle is P2 material. At the same time, maybe I should go back to the slow method, take my time to add comments and quotes and tags, so my links will be more valuable.

On the subject of links, I have to confess that one of the reasons for this blog post was to test out Apture, a plugin that lets me add videos, images, Wikipedia, links, maps and more with just a few clicks. I have to say, I'm likin' it. Another reason is that I've been out of the blogging groove for a long time, and this is yet another attempt to get back into it. I've been busy, and sometimes Twitter is so much easier, but I really think that it's important to maintain the practice of long-form writing.

I think this blog design is one of the problems, though. It's intimidating to think that I have to find images of a certain size for each post. And the design makes me feel like each blog post has to be an essay, instead of a few short paragraphs of thought. I'm not sure what the solution might be yet, but don't be surprised when things start looking different around here.

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Rambly Rambles, Updates, and Stuff

From September 19 - 25, I spent most of my time volunteering for MediaStorm's Advanced Multimedia Reporting Workshop.

I teamed up with Paolo Black, Melissa Pracht, Scott Lituchy and MediaStorm Producer Bob Sacha to tell a story about two young men who have made a career out of street entertainment. My role was to transcribe all the audio that was collected during shows and interviews.

I got to sit in on training sessions and lectures, and watch the MediaStorm team work their magic. And it was absolutely magical.

Talking the story over with the team showed me exactly how powerful a story like this can be and how we can learn from each other during its production. We all had our strengths and points of view, which contributed to a stronger piece than any of us could have produced individually.

I got home each day ranting about some new insight: interviewing techniques that get the subject to respond in complete sentences or the beauty of the extreme close-up. I looked at other MediaStorm projects, watching for the details we had talked about.

When I saw that my name was going in the credits for the project, and that I made a cameo in the Behind the Scenes production (at about 8:08) the grin on my face was big enough to fit an XL pizza.

There are parts of the experience I don't want to remember. The ringing in my ears and the ache in my neck after transcribing for hours at a time. The frustration I felt as I watched the other members of the team working with high-end gear I can't even dream of having. That doesn't mean I won't volunteer again. But next time, I'm taking a bottle of Aleve with me. And a point-and-shoot.

I started taking photos and shooting amateur videos long before I fell in love with journalism. In college, I took photography classes, including a study abroad trip to Berlin. I also did some independent study and in-class work with videography. Not to mention my work with both mediums at The Independent Florida Alligator, as I struggled to get reporters to get video and create audio slideshows along with their text articles.

So I caught the multimedia bug long ago. But once I lost access to the SLR and HD cameras, it got harder to be interested. I'd see a cool photo opportunity, but I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't afford to buy my own gear.

During this time, I turned to programming. I became more interested in data and applications and code than I had been with framing and sequences and lighting. Programming is a cheaper pursuit, and I've always been geeky enough to find the resources and teach myself.

Now, though, I catch myself walking around and seeing everything through a camera lens again. I wish I could afford even some low-end gear, because I know that otherwise, my interest will wane again. I will miss out on an aspect of storytelling every bit as important as programming or writing.

And although all the industry advice, including what I learned at MediaStorm, pushes specialization, I still want to know how to do it all.

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

I caught the bug at a MediaStorm Workshop

Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), in partnership with Education Writers Association and the Student Press Law Center, is launching a program to share investigative reporting skills with college and university students that they can apply to covering campus issues.

Seventy-five students from around the country will be selected to receive full scholarships to participate in the Campus Coverage Project.

You'll learn how to:

• Use the Internet as an investigative reporting tool.
• Read budget documents and find the stories that matter.
• Prepare for tough interviews and come away with the information you need.
• Analyze your school’s performance to see how it measures up.
• Examine athletic programs—and their funding.
• Use legal tools to pry open foundations, auxiliaries and other secretive campus institutions.
• Examine issues on your campus in the context of national debates on higher education.

Qualified students are those with experience reporting for campus-related news outlets who have at least one year of coursework remaining.

Apply by Oct. 12, 2009 for a full scholarship to attend a three-day Campus Investigative Reporting Workshop and participate in a year-long program that offers ongoing training and opportunities to learn from top reporters from throughout the country. Space is limited.

For more details and an online application, go to www.ire.org/campus.

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Investigative Reporting Workshop for College Students