Teaching Online Journalism

Rethinking journalism education

Mindy McAdams — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:00:15 +0000

A new journalism concentration at New York University promises to take an innovative approach to j-school:

Studio 20 expects all applicants to have a keen interest in journalism and improving it, a strong command of written English, a devotion to high standards in reportage and verification, and a familiarity with creative uses of the World Wide Web. It also requires applicants to have obtained competence in at least one of the following three skill sets:

Capturing audio and editing it, or

Video recording, production and editing, or

Web skills (which could be production, design and coding, or Web journalism and blogging).

I found the three divisions of prerequisite know-how especially interesting. I like them.

First, I like it that still photography is not among them — it is not a sufficiently advanced digital skill to quality you for this program.

Second, I like the separation of presentation and data skills (No. 3) from the multimedia reporting skills (No. 1 and 2). Why? because too many folks think teaching “online journalism” means teaching HTML and CSS. What about the act of reporting? That is not done with HTML.

What I disagree with: Including mere “Web journalism and blogging” in No. 3 opens the door to a lot of people who are too scared of technology to succeed in this program, in my opinion. I’ve seen a lot of students who started up a free Blogger blog and barely even know how to add a link, let alone anything more challenging, to their online work.

Augmented reality apps: A business model

Mindy McAdams — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:04:45 +0000

One key to selling advertising is your ability to assure the advertiser that people will see his or her ad. One of the problems with Web sites — especially news Web sites — is that they have so many pages. The chances that someone will see an ad (if it appears on just one page) are lousy.

One key to news and information in the 21st century is user participation. Think YouTube. Think Wikipedia.

Augmented reality lets you hold up your phone (or other mobile device) and see information about what is right in front of you in the world. So I was thinking about advertising, audience metrics, and user involvement.

The app that makes sense to me is one that’s keyed to a particular, defined geographic area, and one entity must control the app for that area. Maybe it’s one app for all locales, and the entity leases it from the vendor. I think a monopoly in each location would be necessary — not only for the profit end, but for the convenience of the users. They won’t bother checking three apps for a review of one restaurant.

The content of the app would not be only reviews — it can include photos, experiences, coupons, and (yes) ads. But to make it super-appealing, it can’t be ads only. That would never provide enough value to the audience.

So the app feeds both ways, right there on the street. Point the camera at the building or landmark or whatever — then tap the image on your screen. Then you’re in the node for that physical site. Immediately you have a choice — your own choice — to see paid-for content (e.g. from the restaurant, or from the city government, say) or unpaid content (from users, from journalists); you also have the choice to input content from the same screen, the same node. So immediately, everyone is equal — you, the user; the advertisers; the content producers, the public, the journalists.

You could even become a “fan” of a node — thus receiving a notice whenever any new content was added to that node.

Users can add new nodes. It would be as simple as adding a location to “My Maps” in Google Maps.

Putting the user experience first

Most of the content producers would be users just like you (think Yelp). But content can also be supplied by the entity that controls the app — and that content can be so labeled. I would hope that would mean added value — journalists signing their names to a restaurant review should, in theory, lend some credibility to that review. In the beginning, the app could be seeded with this kind of non-advertising content (like a guide to the “best of” that city).

This is not an earth-shattering idea, but I was thinking that the ease of two-way information flow really is a key to success in today’s information environment. I don’t want simply to consume content; I want the opportunity to add, contribute, comment, or correct. I want that option to be as easy and up-front as the existing content itself.

I also envision a much nicer experience — for the users — concerning the advertising. Instead of making users angry by interfering with the content they want to see (floating ads, pop-up ads, etc.), this app can give them clear choices — view coupon, view menu, view special offers. (This would be vastly preferable to having my phone thrust ads at me when I pointed it at something.)

Each view of a node can be tracked. Each visit to the node can be tabulated. I think the opportunities for selling would be fantastic — the whole process could be automated. The advertiser pays a small fee to have the privilege of viewing all visits to a node. This is like micro-metrics for local businesses. The fee is necessary because you want it to be monthly or yearly, and you want it tied to a true identity. The account can be modified to allow advertisers to input and update their own coupons, etc. Then they pay per ad, per length of time, per update, etc. But it’s all hands-free for the entity that owns the app.

Keeping it clean and good

Users and content producers (e.g. journalists) also need to be registered users before they can input anything new, but the app should be free, and views and contributions should be unlimited. In other words, the whole system is purely supported by ad dollars. But it’s ultimately local — that’s what makes the whole thing work. One of the things I love about Yelp is that I can click a user’s name on any review and see all the other reviews posted by that person. This allows me to better judge whether I should trust that person’s opinions.

The part that’s not hands-free (or hands-off) is the curation. Someone in the organization that manages the local app needs to be paying attention to traffic and usage patterns. If it’s left untended, it will go to ruin as quickly as an unweeded garden. Spammers will rule. Advertisers will game the unpaid content. It will all turn to junk. (Users should be able to flag bad content too.)

There’s extra value to be extracted from tracking the usage patterns: An increase of activity on a certain street, or a single node, should alert the managers to the potential to add value — and also bring in new advertisers. An upsurge in traffic to a certain bar means that other businesses nearby ought to be paying attention. It’s time to target them and sign them up for an account.

Oh, and just because I’m calling it an “app” does not mean it’s for the iPhone only. This content would feed into one single database (for the local manager/owner). The contents of that database can be served up on an iPhone, a BlackBerry, a Nokia phone, or even a Web page. The contents can be served whether the serving app is interactive or not. And if I were buying this from a vendor, I would want to make damned sure that I own and control the local data, and it’s in a portable format!

Update (10:40 a.m.): Forgot to mention that I had these ideas while reading an excellent post by Dan Conover: New media virtual interview No. 2. It includes a segment about augmented reality.

RGMP handout server outages

Mindy McAdams — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:27:15 +0000

A number of you e-mailed me (thank you!) about difficulties in accessing the PDF of the complete Reporter’s Guide to Multimedia Profiency.

I am happy to report that the guide is definitely online and available. There have been a couple of server outages (the Web server went offline), but rest assured, this will always be corrected within a day or two at the most (on a weekend, it might not be fixed until Monday).

Playing with dynamic mapping

Mindy McAdams — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:07:36 +0000

Above you should see a map of the location of the ONA09 hotel. It is fully zoomable — it’s a full-feeatured Google Maps embed. Try it out.

This was done with the WP-Geo plug-in for WordPress, which we learned to use in the session titled “Dynamic Content Mapping.” Here is the PowerPoint for this session.

Seeking a business model for journalism

Mindy McAdams — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:12:34 +0000

I came across this chart on a blog authored by three Australian business scholars:

The original comes from Steven Johnson’s presentation at SXSW earlier this year, and when I followed the link to his post, I remembered reading it. But I guess I didn’t really spend much time on the chart that time around; I didn’t remember the chart at all. Now I’m thinking it’s a pretty neat representation of this “ecosystem” of news and information.

Tim Kastelle points out that “the functions that seem to make money in these type of systems are aggregating and filtering” — and thus when we brainstorm about new business models, we need to look deeply at those functions.

What I like most about the chart is that it tries to represent the news environment as it is now, without skewing it toward some idealistic model that doesn’t reflect reality. What I don’t agree with is those one-way arrows — everything in this model flows in two directions now.

Defining journalism now

Mindy McAdams — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:04:02 +0000

During my 11 years as a copy editor, I spent a lot of time with my nose in a dictionary. I doubt that I ever looked up the words journalism or journalist. Today, prompted by a question on Twitter, I did.

The online entry for journalism is dated 1828 (that does not mean it’s never been updated, but …):

(a) the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media
(b) the public press
(c) an academic study concerned with the collection and editing of news or the management of a news medium
(a) writing designed for publication in a newspaper or magazine
(b) writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation
(c) writing designed to appeal to current popular taste or public interest

I found all of that unsatisfactory. Leaving aside for a moment the lack of acknowledgment of online media — what about television and radio? For heaven’s sake, even in the 1970s, we admitted that broadcast journalism was (at least some of the time) real journalism.

Writing! Seriously, I don’t think I’ve considered journalism to be limited to writing since I was an undergrad print journalism major 30 years ago.

I replied to my Twitter friend David Lee this way when he asked me for my definition of journalist:

Tough question! Journalist = person who gathers, then reports, information w/o self-interest.
Of course, that definition of “journalist” could also describe a researcher.

I know there’s been a lot of discussion in recent years about who is a journalist and who is not. In some countries, you’re a journalist only if the national government has issued you a press card — a card that government can also revoke at will. That’s a situation I hope never to see in my own country.

We’d be better off if we defined a journalist as a person who does journalism — but we will need a better definition of journalism than Merriam-Webster’s current one.

Buzz words of the moment

Mindy McAdams — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:12:38 +0000

I’m referring, of course, to “real-time Web” and “augmented reality.” The second such terms hit the mainstream press, we are likely to be bombarded by them for weeks or even months. A Time magazine cover story is probably in the works. (Or have they already done it? I haven’t seen a Time cover recently.) Jon Swartz has already weighed in on the real-time Web in USA Today.

GigaOm and ReadWriteWeb wrote about the real-time Web in relation to Google earlier this year (RWW in January; Om in May). Bernard Lunn (RWW) offered us the plane crash and rescue in New York’s Hudson River as a case study of the real-time Web in operation; he also highlighted Twitter’s role in the phenomenon. Kevin Kelleher (Om) defined the real-time Web as “the difference between discovery and search, between the ‘Now Web’ and the ‘Then Web.’”

The idea is that the immediacy of your friend streams (via Facebook, say, or Twitter, or wherever you’ve configured your information flow) provides minute-by-minute updates whenever you care to pay attention. Swartz (USA Today) points out that much of this following is done via Internet-connected phones, such as the iPhone — you’re not tethered to a bulky computer while staying continuously in touch with everything. He also notes that the items in these streams tend to be quite brief.

I don’t think I need to tell you that this all has a direct connection to journalism. (How are journalists providing information to the public? How are journalists ensuring that their role as reliable providers of information is assured?)

As for augmented reality (which I was just reading about on Mashable), it requires a portable device (such as your phone) because it connects your location with extra data, coming from various sources, via the Internet. While both Lunn and Kelleher think that Google is lagging in relation to the real-time Web, that’s probably not the case with augmented reality — Google Maps is a prime engine for augmented reality.

With an augmented-reality application running on your hand-held device, you receive information about your surroundings. Ideally you can get it in a few different formats — not only as a map ( “You Are Here”) but also as a photographic image in 360 degrees. You can spin it around and see what’s available nearby. Points of interest are marked in some fashion. Tap a marker, and a bunch of additional details pop up. Tap a link, and a whole encyclopedia entry appears. (Really nice for people who like self-guided walking tours in foreign cities, I’d say.)

Advertising folks should be feeling super-excited about augmented reality. When I’m walking past a restaurant, it can reach out and send me a discount coupon on my phone.

In this video, Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray shows us how augmented reality works on an Android phone: “Pretty soon, you’ll be able to walk down the street of pretty much any city in the world with your phone and read every building like a book.”

Thinking about a role for journalism in augmented reality makes us consider whether we should invest resources in consumer reporting (e.g., reviews) and whether there’s a value proposition for journalism organizations. It’s possible that the boat has already sailed (I’ve written before about how I love using Yelp to find restaurants when I travel in the U.S.) — but there’s also an argument to be made for unbiased reviews of businesses.

City guides are likely a poor choice for journalism organizations to undertake. When I’ve tried recently to use some online city guides compiled by newspapers, I was frustrated by numerous broken links and outdated information. To be useful for more than about 12 months, such a guide must be scrupulously managed, checked, and updated. That’s never going to happen in most of today’s newsrooms.

For a geekier take on the real-time Web, think Flash and Adobe Air. Yeah. Like TweetDeck. For geek-level background, see Brian Lesser’s April 2009 post at O’Reilly.com.

America needs Al Jazeera English

Mindy McAdams — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:49:00 +0000

I’m writing to highlight two excellent articles published this month about the international television news network based in Qatar:

Why I Love Al Jazeera, by Robert D. Kaplan (The Atlantic)
The Most Hated Name in News: Can Al Jazeera English cure what ails North American journalism? by Deborah Campbell (The Walrus)

Al Jazeera English ought to be included in all U.S. and Canadian cable and satellite TV packages. The reason why is summed up by veteran CBC journalist Tony Burman, managing director of AJE:

“The mainstream American networks have cut their bureaus to the bone,” says Burman. “They’re basically only in London now. Even CNN has pulled back. I remember in the ’80s when I covered these events, there would be a truckload of American journalists and crews and editors, and now Al Jazeera outnumbers them all.” The channel plans to open ten new bureaus in the coming year, including one in Canada. “At the risk of sounding incredibly self serving,” Burman says, “that’s where, in the absence of alternatives, Al Jazeera English can fill a vacuum, simply because we’re going in the opposite direction.” (Campbell)

Some North American commentators narrowly characterize Al Jazeera as a network of terrorists. If you know someone who ignorantly subscribes to that view, chances are he or she has never even seen AJE. If you want to see the caliber of AJE’s journalism for yourself, in the second paragraph of his essay, Kaplan has linked several excellent reports from AJE, which you can watch on YouTube.

Al Jazeera is also endearing because it exudes hustle. It constantly gets scoops. It has had gritty, hands-on coverage across the greater Middle East, from Gaza to Beirut to Iraq, that other channels haven’t matched. Its camera crew, for example, was the first to beam pictures from Mingora, the main town of Swat, enabling Al Jazeera to confirm that the Pakistani military had, in fact, prevailed there over the Taliban. (Kaplan)

Journalists who believe in journalism ought to get behind a campaign to bring AJE to Americans. It might go a long way toward counteracting the hate and misinformation generated by many of today’s so-called news programs on TV.

While we rightly lament the decline and fall of journalism institutions on this continent, we should also celebrate and support the good work being done — in some very dangerous places — by our colleagues working for AJE around the world.

Using iPod Nano for video interviews

Mindy McAdams — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:33:03 +0000

So you walk into someone’s home or workplace and do an interview. After you’ve finished taking notes, you whip out your iPod Nano and do a 2-minute video interview for the Web. This iPod is so small, you might lose it inside your pocket!

To test whether this new Nano (released last week) would produce usable video interviews, I tried it out with 10 of my colleagues in the College of Journalism and Communications. I wanted to keep the editing to a bare minimum, so I told each of them this: Name a place you have visited, when you went there, and one thing you did there. You’ll see and hear the different lighting conditions and sound quality.

I’ve been especially impressed by the audio, which is omnidirectional. I’m not wild about the image quality. My Canon PowerShot (still camera) does a better job with the visuals.

The biggest problems I had were stopping the recording (it does not want to stop!) and keeping the Nano steady. I’m pretty well practiced at keeping a little Canon PowerShot steady, but this was a lot harder. Let me know if you think it’s too shaky.

Here’s the Tech Specs page for this Nano — “H.264 VGA video, 640 by 480 pixels, up to 30 frames per second with AAC audio.” There are two models: 8 GB and 16 GB. Video capture runs at about 18 MB per minute. Battery life seems good so far.

The user’s manual for the Nano is online (PDF; 2 MB).

Moving away from sad and tragic stories

Mindy McAdams — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:40:48 +0000

Romenesko highlighted this Washington Post column by Howard Kurtz today. It immediately reminded me of a post I wrote in April: Sad and tragic stories, and photojournalism.

Matt Mendelsohn, a photojournalist, has been working for a year on a story about a woman who had both arms and both legs amputated, according to Kurtz. Now, this is not a hopeless story — the human spirit rises above tragedy and misfortune, and it can inspire us all. That’s one view, anyway, and it’s the view I have heard from several photojournalists when they talk about their subjects who have suffered from cancer, the death of a child, or other heartbreaking events.

Kurtz’s column explains how The Washington Post Magazine killed Mendelsohn’s story.

I have no complaint with the photojournalists, but as I wrote in April, I think stories like these do damage to journalism.

Now, the triumph of a plucky individual over great misfortune is more optimistic and “happy,” if you will, than a doom-and-gloom story about drug addicts or criminals who never rise out of depravity. What these stories have in common, though, is the likely effect on many readers and viewers. How terrible, we think. That poor, poor girl. Oh, my, how awful.

I think we need to draw a distinction between stories about individuals that result in that kind of feeling, and stories about a situation or broader issue of public interest that have the same end result.

Coverage of war or genocide or famine is also horrible — but very, very necessary. A tsunami, an earthquake, a flood — we need to see individual stories from these tragedies because we, the public, cannot cover our eyes and say, “Lalalalala,” and hope it will all go away.

The damage done to journalism by individual tragedy stories (unconnected to larger events) is that they drive people away. There’s enough difficulty in people’s everyday lives, they say. The news is such a downer.

Sometimes the news has got to be a downer. But not every downer story is a story the public needs to hear.

I think we need to adjust our thinking about what makes a good human-interest story — especially for photo stories — with an eye to keeping the public informed about things they really need to know. When it’s disturbing and awful and they need to see it, then show it. Otherwise, stay away from the horrifying, the grotesque, the random awfulness — and even the terribly sad.

There’s nothing wrong with making people feel good for a change.