Teaching Online Journalism

Classroom helpers for j-school

Mindy McAdams — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:12:12 +0000

In the fall, when the new school year begins in the northern hemisphere, older posts on this blog find a new life. I’m so happy to see that people are finding useful things here!

These are some of the top posts from the past week:

Thanks for reading!

In the fall, when the new school year begins in the northern hemisphere, older posts on this blog find a new life. I’m so happy to see that people are finding useful things here!

These are some of the top posts from the past week:

Thanks for reading!

10 Rules for Visual Storytelling

Mindy McAdams — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:48:24 +0000

For some people, “visual storytelling” means photographs. For others, it means film or video. An epic movie such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy may spring to mind — and few would disagree with that as a fine example of visual storytelling.

In journalism writing classes, students learn: “Show, don’t tell.” When we provide a visual, that maxim carries even more weight. The less text or audio that an image needs to be understood, the better it is.

Some photojournalists think it’s best to let photos stand alone. Some like to publish their portfolios with no captions at all. This is a pet peeve of mine: I want to know more. I always want to know who, when, and where. Always! For me this is part of authentication, which is part of what makes it journalism and not interpretive art. A photo without a caption is not journalism.

Rule 1: Include basic factual details as needed for credibility. These might appear at the end of a linear presentation (video or animation), or below or beside a still image or graphic.

Another basic difference between journalism and art is literal truth. Whether the camera is shooting video or stills, the journalist behind the camera must not direct. As soon as you tell people what to do, you’ve changed the scene from fact to fiction. Portraits are the exception; they usually require some direction from the photographer.

Rule 2: Any reasonable assumption a viewer would make must be true. When we see a portrait, we assume it was posed. When we see someone jumping, falling, or raising a flag, we do not assume it was a re-enactment.

Where does the storytelling come in? It is possible for one image to tell a story, but it may be useful to think of the single image as an iconic work (think of the World Trade Center with dark smoke billowing, or Eddie Adams’s famous image in which a Vietnamese general shoots a man in the head) — a symbol, a condensation of meaning. A child who sees Adams’s photo today sees only one man shooting another — not the whole long tragedy of the Vietnam War.

Rule 3: A visual story requires more than one image.

In his chapter about photo stories, Ken Kobré wrote: “How does a picture story differ from a collection of pictures on a topic? A picture story has a theme. Not only are the individual pictures in the story about one subject, but they also help to support one central point” (Photojournalism: The Professionals’ Approach, 6th ed., page 232).

Like Kobré, I encourage students to write a headline for their visual story even before they go out to shoot. I go further and urge them to include a subject, active verb, and object in their working headline. “Scenes from the life of a medical student” is too vague to make a good story. “Medical student confronts all-night cram sessions, microscopes, and corpses” assures me that this story has a chance to be interesting.

Rule 4: Know what the story is before you start making images for it.

Visual stories can transport us — not only to another place, but inside another person’s life.

Visual stories often leave out a lot. This is part of their power, part of what makes them so effective. The best visual stories are compact, visceral, evocative.

Visual stories should be able to stand alone and make sense on their own. That does not mean they must be complete. I think this is one of the hardest things for journalism students to negotiate. If they try to cram in too much information, the visual story stalls, dragged down by the weight. If they fail to supply sufficient information and context, the story floats loose, inconsequential, pretty but meaningless.

Rule 5: Edit ruthlessly to pare away all that is unnecessary to the essential story. Background and context can be supplied in a linked text, in other separate components.

Rule 6: Ensure that the story makes sense if it stands alone. This does not mean it has to tell everything or “show both sides.” (I put that in quotes because it’s a huge fallacy to assume there are only two sides.)

Sometimes a visual story needs illustrations, charts or graphs, maps, diagrams. One of my favorite examples of great visual storytelling is a story from National Geographic and MediaStorm that integrates still photography, video, and information graphics in a tightly edited video format: Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma. Specifically I recommend the animated map sequence that starts at about 5:33. I think you will realize this as the map animation progresses: Nothing else, in any format, would tell this segment of the story as effectively.

Telling a story entirely with graphics is different from telling a story with photos or video. This too can be journalism.

Rule 7: A visual story does not require a camera.

When I was watching a 25-minute news program a few days ago, I experienced a small moment of sheer delight that was purely visual. It keeps coming back to me. The reason the three-shot video sequence was so successful was because first it showed me something appealing (a child’s face, at 14:25), and then a fuller view of something that seemed very familiar (a kiddie Ferris wheel, at 14:30), and then it surprised me by showing something unexpected about the same subject in the previous two shots (at 14:35).

Recently I watched the film The Story of the Weeping Camel, and I noticed how often a new sequence started by showing a close-up of someone’s hands or feet (or even an extreme close-up of a face) before cutting to a wider shot that revealed what was going on. In a quiet story set in a remote rural area, where not much happens, this technique worked really well to hold my attention.

Rule 8: Show things the viewer has not seen before, or show things in a way that is unfamiliar to the viewer.

Rule 9: Keep changing what the viewer is seeing. The visual brain will become bored if the image stays the same. Vary the angle and the distance — especially if the subject remains the same!

Finally, what makes a story a story? It has to move along an arc. If it’s flat — if it’s just a sequence of images and/or facts and/or events — it does not have the shape of a story. The shape is a mountain on which we travel upwards. The storyteller conveys us up that mountain, and when we reach the top, there has to be something there for us that made the journey worthwhile.

Ira Glass calls this the moment of reflection — when we stand on top of the mountain and see something.

For me, this is a hell of a lot more helpful than telling students their stories need to have a beginning, middle, and end. What does that mean? Every person’s day has a beginning, middle, and end — that doesn’t mean there’s a story in it!

The story must start with something (a strong visual) that makes us want to go up the hill. That’s the open. Then the story must hold on to us to keep us moving up, up, up (see Rule 9, above). Ira Glass says we do this by raising questions and answering them, one after another, until we reach the top. This question-and-answer process can be done visually: Show us something that’s not usual or typical (question; see Rule 8, above) and then show us a fuller or more complete version (answer). For video, the Five Shot Method provides a template.

The top of the mountain is the climax of the story — but it’s not the end. Don’t cut us off suddenly — don’t throw us off the summit! Make sure you leave us with a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of conclusion. Bring it to a point. The closing image should make us feel like we have really reached an ending. It can give us hope, or it can convey a sense of hopelessness. It can make us feel like this story continues, or the chapter is closed. It should leave us with a feeling of some kind.

Rule 10: Tie a single string from the beginning to the end. Pull it taut and high just before the end. Then release gently, stopping at the firm final knot.

Rule 1: Include basic factual details as needed for credibility. These might appear at the end of a linear presentation (video or animation), or below or beside a still image or graphic.

Rule 3: A visual story requires more than one image.

Rule 4: Know what the story is before you start making images for it.

Visual stories can transport us — not only to another place, but inside another person’s life.

Visual stories often leave out a lot. This is part of their power, part of what makes them so effective. The best visual stories are compact, visceral, evocative.

Rule 5: Edit ruthlessly to pare away all that is unnecessary to the essential story. Background and context can be supplied in a linked text, in other separate components.

Telling a story entirely with graphics is different from telling a story with photos or video. This too can be journalism.

Rule 7: A visual story does not require a camera.

Rule 8: Show things the viewer has not seen before, or show things in a way that is unfamiliar to the viewer.

Rule 9: Keep changing what the viewer is seeing. The visual brain will become bored if the image stays the same. Vary the angle and the distance — especially if the subject remains the same!

Ira Glass calls this the moment of reflection — when we stand on top of the mountain and see something.

Rule 10: Tie a single string from the beginning to the end. Pull it taut and high just before the end. Then release gently, stopping at the firm final knot.

Getting that first job in journalism

Mindy McAdams — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 14:20:50 +0000

Internships. Portfolio. Real work (not work assigned in a class). Not necessarily paid work — but journalism work that some respectable organization saw fit to publish, with your name on it.

Lacking these, a new journalism graduate is behind the curve. There are not so many jobs out there that you can afford to make excuses for why you didn’t get it done.

I came across a recent post by a young journalist: The Future Isn’t the Present: A J-School Grad’s Roadmap to Journalism. He says:

I did more-or-less what ‘the industry’ told me to do at the time. I was on all the social media sites, concentrated on multimedia/visual production … built my own arsenal of photography equipment, interned (granted only once …), worked with student media and generally did my best to reach out and start making some contacts in the industry.

So what’s wrong with that list? One internship. That’s the first glaring deficiency. And the other one, from my perspective, is a lack of emphasis on achievement.

If you want to tell me you’re good, you’re better than all the rest, then say something about what you have accomplished. Won any awards? Published a three-part series? Worked on a team with reporters, data journalists, graphics people, to produce a complex story package?

Show me that you have:

Taken the initiative, gone out of your comfort zone, hauled your butt out of the chair and went out to dig up something original and fresh.
Learned something all on your own that no one required you to learn for a grade.
Made sacrifices to ensure you are better prepared to get a journalism job than all the hundreds of others who have applied for the exact same job as you.

To be fair, the paragraph I quoted was not the young man’s “hire me” pitch. I’m just trying to point out that when you tell people how you did everything you were supposed to do, you don’t get any points for explaining that you were too busy to get more than one internship (for example).

There is some good advice in the post, and journalism students can learn from it. My favorite item:

Don’t wait until graduation to make connections – My biggest regret is letting graduation sneak up on me as quick as it did. It’s easy to do, but the earlier you can start networking the better.

From my observations as a j-school professor, a lot of students have this problem. Graduation seems to sneak up on them suddenly, and then they feel a terrible panic.

Start reading all the journalism job ads right now — even if you are a freshman this year! These three sites are really great for scoping out the available jobs in our field:

JournalismJobs.com
Mediabistro (requires free registration)
Poynter

Smart idea: Make it a habit to visit at least one of these sites once a week throughout the school year. Browse for about 15 minutes, and make some notes about what the employers are looking for — especially for the full-time jobs.

Internships. Portfolio. Real work (not work assigned in a class). Not necessarily paid work — but journalism work that some respectable organization saw fit to publish, with your name on it.

Lacking these, a new journalism graduate is behind the curve. There are not so many jobs out there that you can afford to make excuses for why you didn’t get it done.

I came across a recent post by a young journalist: The Future Isn’t the Present: A J-School Grad’s Roadmap to Journalism. He says:

I did more-or-less what ‘the industry’ told me to do at the time. I was on all the social media sites, concentrated on multimedia/visual production … built my own arsenal of photography equipment, interned (granted only once …), worked with student media and generally did my best to reach out and start making some contacts in the industry.

So what’s wrong with that list? One internship. That’s the first glaring deficiency. And the other one, from my perspective, is a lack of emphasis on achievement.

Show me that you have:

Taken the initiative, gone out of your comfort zone, hauled your butt out of the chair and went out to dig up something original and fresh.
Learned something all on your own that no one required you to learn for a grade.
Made sacrifices to ensure you are better prepared to get a journalism job than all the hundreds of others who have applied for the exact same job as you.

There is some good advice in the post, and journalism students can learn from it. My favorite item:

Don’t wait until graduation to make connections – My biggest regret is letting graduation sneak up on me as quick as it did. It’s easy to do, but the earlier you can start networking the better.

From my observations as a j-school professor, a lot of students have this problem. Graduation seems to sneak up on them suddenly, and then they feel a terrible panic.

Start reading all the journalism job ads right now — even if you are a freshman this year! These three sites are really great for scoping out the available jobs in our field:

JournalismJobs.com
Mediabistro (requires free registration)
Poynter

5,000 followers on Twitter

Mindy McAdams — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:30:56 +0000

Sure, I’m no Andy Carvin (NPR’s social media guy), but I do feel a little thrill when the zeros turn over. The screen capture above is from yesterday, July 31, 2011.

See my recent posts about Twitter and journalism.

Sure, I’m no Andy Carvin (NPR’s social media guy), but I do feel a little thrill when the zeros turn over. The screen capture above is from yesterday, July 31, 2011.

See my recent posts about Twitter and journalism.

6 Proposals for Journalism Education Today

Mindy McAdams — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 16:44:14 +0000

I’ve spent a huge amount of time this year thinking about and working on journalism curriculum. From developing and teaching a four-week program to train journalism educators in Africa in the practice of online journalism, to helping with a major overhaul of the undergraduate curriculum in my own department, to my current preparations to teach journalism at a university in Indonesia, I have been thinking a lot about what students need to learn today.

Here are six proposals in three distinct areas of journalism that are increasingly important today.

Data Journalism

My colleague Ron Rodgers sent me this post from the Guardian, and it has great value in its brevity and directness: Data journalism at the Guardian: What is it and how do we do it? It addresses 10 big themes that a journalism educator could build a whole course around, but you can read the whole post in about 10 minutes.

In contrast, a paper produced last August as the outcome of a conference in Europe about data-driven journalism is quite long — 78 pages. The paper, Data-driven journalism: What is there to learn?, provides many details in a very well organized format, and it includes lots of links to examples and tools (free tools!).

Moreover, there’s a new book to help us teach students about data! The video below explains it.

Proposals: (1) A journalism degree program should ensure that all students are introduced to basic data journalism, using current examples and demonstrating how to apply concepts. (2) A journalism degree program should offer at least one 3-credit elective course that focuses exclusively on data journalism.

Social Media and Participation

Just about everyone who teaches journalism is trying to figure out how to integrate social media into the mix. We all know that young people are already active users of social media — but that doesn’t mean they understand how to use those media ethically and effectively to do journalism.

Did you know that journalists in Al Jazeera’s Arabic and English newsrooms have had intensive social-media training? Read about it here. The same article discusses how social media links drive traffic to news websites.

As well as getting involved (if they choose) in newsgathering, verification and curation of news, readers and viewers have also become part of the news-distribution system as they share and recommend items of interest via e-mail and social networks. [source]

The phrase participatory journalism is not precisely defined, but I take it to mean that the audience participates in setting the agenda for news. This requires that journalists make themselves open to listening more, and listening to more sources (not only official ones), as well as making a commitment to go beyond superficial (and sometimes denigrating) man-on-the-street interviews.

Another important term is crowdsourcing. This is one kind of audience participation in gathering news — but not the only kind. This BBC story provides a good overview of crowdsourcing, and this article from the scholarly journal Journalism Practice discusses some excellent examples.

Proposals: (3) All journalism students need to learn how to use social media for specific journalistic goals. Assignments should focus on distinct uses such as identifying experts, crowdsourcing, and crisis mapping. (4) In any journalism program, the instructors must work together to eliminate unnecessary repetition in the program — for example, two or more required courses might have almost identical Twitter assignments or blogging assignments. This is a particular danger because it’s easy to integrate social media into almost any course — but redundancy risks trivializing the experience for students.

Presentation

This is not just a matter of design (as in “page layout and design”), and it should never be a mere afterthought in the production of news materials. A wonderful post by designer Andy Rutledge illustrates better than anything else I have seen why news websites — and many news applications for mobile devices — are more likely to repel readers than to attract them.

Sometimes I think the students who choose to major in journalism came to us through a time machine from a place where people still read text that is printed on paper. What’s especially strange is that most of these students do not themselves read any text on paper — but they imagine that someone will give them a job where they will spend all their time writing text, text, text that will not interact with any other media.

In the early days of print newspapers, pictures were added to help attract people who would buy the product and read the text. Formats and font sizes (among other things) make journalism more appealing. When the product is appealing, it does not drive people away.

Unfortunately, many online and digital news products since the mid 1990s have been doing just that — driving people away. Why was this permitted? Why didn’t the entire newsroom stand up and protest that the website was hideous, slow, impossible to read, horrible, offputting, unusable? They didn’t do it because it wasn’t their job — the way their stories looked was of no concern to them. As the readers abandoned them, the journalists continued to be silent and even ignorant about the destructive effects of bad digital design.

Educators could use this book, for example, and assign students to evaluate news web pages according to its principles: Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click?

Proposals: (5) Every journalism program needs a required course in visual design. (6) A journalism course in visual design must educate students in the principles that make an image, a frame, a page, and a screen appealing — or offputting. The course does not need to produce skilled designers; rather, it should produce journalists who recognize when a presentation of news or journalism is effective, and when it is confusing, difficult, and fails.

Here are six proposals in three distinct areas of journalism that are increasingly important today.

Data Journalism

Moreover, there’s a new book to help us teach students about data! The video below explains it.

Social Media and Participation

As well as getting involved (if they choose) in newsgathering, verification and curation of news, readers and viewers have also become part of the news-distribution system as they share and recommend items of interest via e-mail and social networks. [source]

Presentation

Educators could use this book, for example, and assign students to evaluate news web pages according to its principles: Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click?

Getting a journalism degree, getting a journalism job

Mindy McAdams — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:30:35 +0000

This is an endorsement I like to see:

I have never once regretted studying journalism. And I am not alone.

That comes from Elana Zak, writing at 10,000 Words on June 24. According to her post, she received a journalism degree in June 2007, got a job three months later, and has “been gainfully employed ever since.”

Her post made me think about several things:

Many successful journalists do not have a university degree in journalism.
Many graduates with a university degree in journalism will never have a journalism job.
Some people who study journalism at university are not well rounded in their knowledge.
Why does anyone go to university?

It might be helpful to examine each of these thoughts more closely.

Many successful journalists do not have a university degree in journalism

This is indisputable. If you aspire to become a professional journalist, you can do it via other routes. It will require hard work and dedication and tenacity — no matter which route you take (degree or no degree).

A long time ago, I worked with Jonathan Weber at a weekly business newspaper. Jonathan had not studied journalism in college — he earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. Read his brief bio to see what an interesting career he has had! Today he’s editor-in-chief of The Bay Citizen, a very interesting venture in nonprofit journalism.

I chose Jonathan as an example because while working with him in the 1980s, I occasionally observed something or another that reminded me he had not been trained — in school — to be a journalist. These were little things that an editor would catch and point out to him, or that he would ask about — never anything major. The reason I remember this experience: It taught me that someone with intelligence and commitment absolutely could learn on the job how to be a good journalist.

Many graduates with a university degree in journalism will never have a journalism job

There are many different reasons for this — maybe as many reasons as there are people! However, I suggest that one simple word explains a majority of cases:

Internships.

In the J-school where I teach, we see a lot of students who: (a) take no internships at all before they graduate; (b) take only one internship; (c) take one or more “low value” internships (see below). Of course, their professors counsel them not to make these mistakes, but all we can do is recommend.

I recognize the challenges — too many internships do not pay; most of those require the student to pay for college credits while taking the internship, creating a double hardship; in the current economic climate, many news organizations have reduced the number of internships offered.

These challenges do not erase the simple fact that most journalism jobs are off-limits to all applicants who have not completed at least one internship. No internships = no job. It really is that simple. Many students, it seems, refuse to believe this applies to them. These are usually the students who are obsessed with getting high grades — as if anyone in a newsroom would ever care what grade you got in any class! (No one but a graduate school cares what your grades were.)

Another key contributor to failure to get a job in journalism: Location.

Students who are tied to one town or city — or even to one state — severely limit their job opportunities. This applies to internships as well as to jobs. Those who are willing to move to the other side of the country — or even to a new country altogether — have hundreds more options and opportunities than those who refuse to pick up stakes.

It is not as if you can never come back. Imagine a recent graduate who lives in a big market where it’s harder to get a first job because the media organizations can be very selective. That person could take a position in a faraway smaller market, then in a year or two move to a bigger organization in another location. By the third or fourth job, that journalist could return to the big city and settle down there.

What is a ”low value” internship? These are internships at very small organizations, such as a local entertainment tabloid or a small, independent magazine with only one or two paid employees. Students can learn valuable lessons at these organizations, but just imagine how your resume will compare with the resume of another job applicant who has had an internship at a bigger, well-known organization.

Recently one of our students asked me for advice about which internship to take: an unpaid one at a big daily newspaper in her home city (she could live with her parents for free), or a competitive, paid internship in a faraway big city, also with a big daily newspaper. I appreciate that for a young person, the second option is more intimidating, and in this case the student’s parents were urging her to take the “safe” option.

You need to look at value when you face this kind of decision: Where will you learn more? Which newsroom will value you more (and teach you more)? Which internship will be more challenging? The answers to these questions should tell you which is the better choice.

Some people who study journalism at university are not well rounded in their knowledge

We see students all the time who seem to be fully focused on the goal (complete a bachelor’s degree) and ignoring the means to that end (learning new things). We see students who are diligently investigating which courses are an “easy A” and filling up their schedule with those courses. What a pity.

Pultizer Prize-winning data journalist Matt Waite once commented to me that he took a lot of courses in English and sociology while he was majoring in journalism as an undergrad — and he regrets that. It was like majoring in journalism and minoring in journalism and journalism, he said. I laughed — I knew what he meant!

As an undergrad journalism major, I took a lot of courses in the English department — mostly very enjoyable literature courses. Of course, I learned new things in those courses, but I graduated woefully ignorant of economics, political science, and modern world history. I’ve been working hard to catch up ever since.

Learn a non-European language. Go on a study abroad. Take an upper-level course in world art history, or world religions, or geography. Instead of a general sociology course, take a course in criminology or the U.S. justice system. Take a course that addresses national health policy or poverty.

The opportunity to study at a university is a great privilege, completely unavailable to so many people. The grades do not matter. The learning does.

A student who knows more about a broader range of topics is much better positioned to become a great journalist than one who has spent her time looking for an easy A.

Why does anyone go to university?

A lot of students and their parents seem to think the purpose of attending a four-year college or university is to acquire skills that will qualify one to get a job.

Acquiring skills that will qualify one to get a job is what students do in a trade school, or in a vocational program. See the first item above: It is not necessary to study journalism to become a successful and prominent journalist, and it never has been. (For many people, myself included, it makes sense to major in journalism and then pursue a career in journalism. But it’s not required.)

As Louis Menand wrote in The New Yorker earlier this month:

Society needs a mechanism for sorting out its more intelligent members from its less intelligent ones, just as a track team needs a mechanism (such as a stopwatch) for sorting out the faster athletes from the slower ones. Society wants to identify intelligent people early on so that it can funnel them into careers that maximize their talents. It wants to get the most out of its human resources. College is a process that is sufficiently multifaceted and fine-grained to do this.

College is, essentially, a four-year intelligence test.

But that is not the whole story. Menand goes on to offer a second, different “theory of college”:

In a society that encourages its members to pursue the career paths that promise the greatest personal or financial rewards, people will, given a choice, learn only what they need to know for success. They will have no incentive to acquire the knowledge and skills important for life as an informed citizen, or as a reflective and culturally literate human being. College exposes future citizens to material that enlightens and empowers them, whatever careers they end up choosing.

Some say education is wasted on the young (as some also say youth is wasted on the young). If we do not require young people to eat their vegetables — and to acquire other assets important to their mental as well as physical development — they will be stunted, ill, even permanently damaged.

Their ability to develop to their full potential will be compromised. Perhaps severely.

This might not be so terrible for a lawyer, say, or a doctor. In their graduate programs, they will acquire skills that will enable them to do their jobs.

For a journalist, it would be a great tragedy.

Referring to a study that is the subject of a recently published book, Menand noted:

The most interesting finding is that students majoring in liberal-arts fields — sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities — do better on the C.L.A., and show greater improvement, than students majoring in non-liberal-arts fields such as business, education and social work, communications, engineering and computer science, and health. … The students who score the lowest and improve the least are the business majors.

The ability to think creatively, correlate data, perceive connections among seemingly unrelated events, analyze information intentionally crafted to mislead, and other hard-to-quantify talents can be honed in a well-rounded liberal arts education at a four-year institution. These abilities can greatly contribute to one’s success in the journalism field.

This honing, however, can be sidestepped by those who choose to regard the university as a trade school — or a diploma store.

Related post: Why does anyone major in journalism?

This is an endorsement I like to see:

I have never once regretted studying journalism. And I am not alone.

Her post made me think about several things:

Many successful journalists do not have a university degree in journalism.
Many graduates with a university degree in journalism will never have a journalism job.
Some people who study journalism at university are not well rounded in their knowledge.
Why does anyone go to university?

It might be helpful to examine each of these thoughts more closely.

Many successful journalists do not have a university degree in journalism

Many graduates with a university degree in journalism will never have a journalism job

There are many different reasons for this — maybe as many reasons as there are people! However, I suggest that one simple word explains a majority of cases:

Internships.

Another key contributor to failure to get a job in journalism: Location.

Some people who study journalism at university are not well rounded in their knowledge

The opportunity to study at a university is a great privilege, completely unavailable to so many people. The grades do not matter. The learning does.

A student who knows more about a broader range of topics is much better positioned to become a great journalist than one who has spent her time looking for an easy A.

Why does anyone go to university?

A lot of students and their parents seem to think the purpose of attending a four-year college or university is to acquire skills that will qualify one to get a job.

As Louis Menand wrote in The New Yorker earlier this month:

Society needs a mechanism for sorting out its more intelligent members from its less intelligent ones, just as a track team needs a mechanism (such as a stopwatch) for sorting out the faster athletes from the slower ones. Society wants to identify intelligent people early on so that it can funnel them into careers that maximize their talents. It wants to get the most out of its human resources. College is a process that is sufficiently multifaceted and fine-grained to do this.

College is, essentially, a four-year intelligence test.

But that is not the whole story. Menand goes on to offer a second, different “theory of college”:

In a society that encourages its members to pursue the career paths that promise the greatest personal or financial rewards, people will, given a choice, learn only what they need to know for success. They will have no incentive to acquire the knowledge and skills important for life as an informed citizen, or as a reflective and culturally literate human being. College exposes future citizens to material that enlightens and empowers them, whatever careers they end up choosing.

Their ability to develop to their full potential will be compromised. Perhaps severely.

This might not be so terrible for a lawyer, say, or a doctor. In their graduate programs, they will acquire skills that will enable them to do their jobs.

For a journalist, it would be a great tragedy.

Referring to a study that is the subject of a recently published book, Menand noted:

The most interesting finding is that students majoring in liberal-arts fields — sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities — do better on the C.L.A., and show greater improvement, than students majoring in non-liberal-arts fields such as business, education and social work, communications, engineering and computer science, and health. … The students who score the lowest and improve the least are the business majors.

This honing, however, can be sidestepped by those who choose to regard the university as a trade school — or a diploma store.

Related post: Why does anyone major in journalism?

Journalists, take another look at Tumblr

Mindy McAdams — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:23:11 +0000

For a long time I had trouble appreciating Tumblr, but I think I finally understand its strengths — and I must not be the only one.

Tumblr is now one of the top 25 websites in the U.S., according to data from Quancast, as reported in a new article at TechCrunch. It gets close to 5,000 pageviews per second.

Tumblr can be used for traditional blogging, but that’s something of a misuse of the platform — if you understand blogging as a combination of thoughtful text posts on which readers can make comments to which authors can respond. Commenting, in particular, is very weak on Tumblr.

A misconception about Tumblr comes, I think, from looking at it as a blogging platform. In that light, it seems hobbled, clumsy, even painful to use. Managing posts and tags, for example, is ridiculously awkward when compared with WordPress. Managing pages is no less painful.

Have a look at how National Public Radio uses Tumblr, though, and you’ll start to get a clue. A post at ReadWriteWeb explains NPR’s rationale in launching a Tumblr site last year.

Tumblr is not a replacement for a traditional blog, and it’s not a substitute for Twitter. Tumblr is something else — part bookmarking tool, part FriendFeed, part scrapbook, part serendipitous newsfeed. Parts of its utility are the “heart” and Reblog features, which make it ridiculously easy to note that you like a post (instantly adding a Note to that effect to the post in question) and to instantly “retweet” with the ability to replicate photos, videos, quotes, links, etc. — while perfectly preserving the original source. Tumblr is thus more socially oriented than a traditional blogging platform.

For an excellent, lavishly illustrated guide to getting started, see Smashing Magazine’s Complete Guide to Tumblr (July 2010). Just this month, Tumblr made a few changes to its dashboard (your central base for using Tumblr) — for me, these changes were welcome improvements (but not all Tumblr users were happy).

If you haven’t yet given Tumblr a try — or if you looked once and then left — take a few minutes now to check it out.

Explore tags on Tumblr. Try, for example, the tag Libya.
Construct a search term with plus signs. For example, search for posts containing the phrase Committee to Protect Journalists like this: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/committee+to+protect+journalists (it does not search only for tags — it searches full text).
Sign up for Tumblr (read this first — IMPORTANT)* and choose a few carefully selected sources to follow. Then browse the posts on your dashboard once a day for three days in a row. You might find it addicting! (See the link list at the bottom of this post for news organizations on Tumblr.)
Read the transcript of a recent Poynter chat with with Matthew Keys, an online producer at a TV station in the San Francisco Bay area. Keys offers some great tips for how journalists can use Tumblr effectively.
Read this list of five reasons why Tumblr won over someone who initially disliked it.

* Note that your FIRST Tumblr blog (known as your primary blog) is less flexible than all the subsequent blogs you create under the same username. So think of that one as a personal blog — don’t make that one outward-facing. (It is very easy to make multiple blogs on Tumblr.)

Even if you decide not to use Tumblr in an outward-facing way (e.g., publishing and making yourself visible through a tumblelog), you might find it very useful for following topics (via tags) and/or for logging sites, videos, or other online items for your own use.

Extra: See what Nieman Journalism Lab has to say about Tumblr (several good articles!).

Update (12:48 p.m.): I forgot to mention how much I like the browse-ability of the Archive page for a Tumblr blog. See an example.

For a long time I had trouble appreciating Tumblr, but I think I finally understand its strengths — and I must not be the only one.

Tumblr is now one of the top 25 websites in the U.S., according to data from Quancast, as reported in a new article at TechCrunch. It gets close to 5,000 pageviews per second.

Have a look at how National Public Radio uses Tumblr, though, and you’ll start to get a clue. A post at ReadWriteWeb explains NPR’s rationale in launching a Tumblr site last year.

If you haven’t yet given Tumblr a try — or if you looked once and then left — take a few minutes now to check it out.

Explore tags on Tumblr. Try, for example, the tag Libya.
Construct a search term with plus signs. For example, search for posts containing the phrase Committee to Protect Journalists like this: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/committee+to+protect+journalists (it does not search only for tags — it searches full text).
Sign up for Tumblr (read this first — IMPORTANT)* and choose a few carefully selected sources to follow. Then browse the posts on your dashboard once a day for three days in a row. You might find it addicting! (See the link list at the bottom of this post for news organizations on Tumblr.)
Read the transcript of a recent Poynter chat with with Matthew Keys, an online producer at a TV station in the San Francisco Bay area. Keys offers some great tips for how journalists can use Tumblr effectively.
Read this list of five reasons why Tumblr won over someone who initially disliked it.

Extra: See what Nieman Journalism Lab has to say about Tumblr (several good articles!).

Update (12:48 p.m.): I forgot to mention how much I like the browse-ability of the Archive page for a Tumblr blog. See an example.

Branding: Should journalists build a personal brand?

Mindy McAdams — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:30:27 +0000

If you’re teaching journalism today, you must be aware of the discussion that surrounds branding.

If you’re a young journalist, or someone planning to enter the field of journalism, you need to understand what personal branding means.

On June 23, Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten wrote about this, and in summary, he said it’s a bunch of hooey. However, being an intelligent person, he also makes a very good point:

When I was a hungry young reporter … [my goals were]: 1) Get great stories that improve the world. 2) Get famous. 3) Get doe-eyed young women to lean in close and whisper, “Take me.”

Note the order. First came the work.

Now, the first goal seems to be self-promotion — the fame part, the “brand.” That’s because we know that, in this frenetic fight for eyeballs at all costs, the attribute that is most rewarded is screeching ubiquity, not talent.

It’s very important that new or would-be journalists take Weingarten’s point to heart. There won’t be anything to be branded unless you have some substance to market, and that means much more than a talent for writing glibly. Lots of people have such a talent. Many of them spend their lives writing for an audience of one.

“The work” is just that — work — and as part of the work, you have to get off Facebook and go outside and speak to real live people. You have to read, widely and voraciously. You have to be curious about those who live in skins other than your own. You have to learn what makes a good story and how to tell a good story well.

Journalism educator Owen Youngman put it this way:

[E]ffective personal branding turns out to be less about self-promotion and social networks than it is about accuracy, fairness and credibility. Whether the subject is a blogger in Portland, or a newspaper reporter in Kankakee, or a TV anchor in Florida, it turns out that the work creates the brand, and the brand then helps people find more of the work.

If you don’t like the word brand, you can substitute reputation. The reason we talk about this more today than anyone did back in the 1970s when Weingarten was starting his journalism career is that the pace and reach of journalism have changed quite a bit since then. Today someone who’s looking for a stringer to cover events in a hot zone might well turn to Google — and will that employer be able to find you?

Veteran journalist Steve Buttry responded to Weingarten’s column with this:

[B]randing starts with quality and hard work. But lots of outstanding journalists who did the hard work are losing their jobs. They are losing their jobs mostly because their industry has failed to develop new business models and new revenue streams in a period of disruption. But some of those journalists are losing their jobs or struggling to find new ones, in part, because they failed to show their value to their employers and their communities. Personal branding is about showing your value. It starts with quality and hard work, but if you don’t show the value, you can become undervalued. (Emphasis mine.)

That is the lesson new and would-be journalists need to learn so that they can make it in today’s media ecosystem.

Branding isn’t hooey — but it’s also not a shortcut to fame and admiration.

Update (June 27): Steve Buttry used Storify to compile a sample of the reactions to Weingarten’s column.

If you’re teaching journalism today, you must be aware of the discussion that surrounds branding.

If you’re a young journalist, or someone planning to enter the field of journalism, you need to understand what personal branding means.

On June 23, Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten wrote about this, and in summary, he said it’s a bunch of hooey. However, being an intelligent person, he also makes a very good point:

When I was a hungry young reporter … [my goals were]: 1) Get great stories that improve the world. 2) Get famous. 3) Get doe-eyed young women to lean in close and whisper, “Take me.”

Note the order. First came the work.

Now, the first goal seems to be self-promotion — the fame part, the “brand.” That’s because we know that, in this frenetic fight for eyeballs at all costs, the attribute that is most rewarded is screeching ubiquity, not talent.

Journalism educator Owen Youngman put it this way:

[E]ffective personal branding turns out to be less about self-promotion and social networks than it is about accuracy, fairness and credibility. Whether the subject is a blogger in Portland, or a newspaper reporter in Kankakee, or a TV anchor in Florida, it turns out that the work creates the brand, and the brand then helps people find more of the work.

Veteran journalist Steve Buttry responded to Weingarten’s column with this:

[B]randing starts with quality and hard work. But lots of outstanding journalists who did the hard work are losing their jobs. They are losing their jobs mostly because their industry has failed to develop new business models and new revenue streams in a period of disruption. But some of those journalists are losing their jobs or struggling to find new ones, in part, because they failed to show their value to their employers and their communities. Personal branding is about showing your value. It starts with quality and hard work, but if you don’t show the value, you can become undervalued. (Emphasis mine.)

That is the lesson new and would-be journalists need to learn so that they can make it in today’s media ecosystem.

Branding isn’t hooey — but it’s also not a shortcut to fame and admiration.

Update (June 27): Steve Buttry used Storify to compile a sample of the reactions to Weingarten’s column.

Journalists: How to get started with Twitter

Mindy McAdams — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:12:31 +0000

If you haven’t yet found any value in using Twitter, here’s what you should consider.

On the topic of WHY to get started, John Robinson (the editor of the News & Record, in Greensboro, North Carolina) wrote a very good piece for ASNE this week.

If you’re not on Twitter, you’re making your job more difficult. It’s a place where people are talking about things that matter to them.

John listed five key benefits for journalists who use Twitter:

Breaking news — I saw that Anthony Weiner was about to start his news conference from Twitter, prompting me to tune in. Shaq announced his retirement on Twitter, and Newt Gingrich declared his presidential candidacy there.
Networks — I hired two summer news interns when I tweeted that we were hiring. I also asked Twitter what I should tell you in this column. I got plenty of responses and provide a few links below that I was sent.
Interesting conversation — Everyone I mention below is interesting and will engage with you. Once you follow people in your community, it gets even better because they speak specifically about your journalism and what interests them. (That sentence is 140 characters.)
Interesting links about journalism — Twitter is where you’ll find the latest news and analysis of journalism issues. The links people have tweeted have led me to innovative ideas.
Story ideas — They’re all over Twitter if you look for them. And don’t get me started on the opportunity of crowdsourcing.

The above is quoted directly from John’s essay. I agree absolutely with his reasoning.

What John did not cover is the ways we are able to monitor and use Twitter.

Choose a Good Client App

If you just go to the website (Twitter.com) and use Twitter from there, it’s not very useful (you do need to go there to register initially). To maximize the benefits of using Twitter, you need to download a client. There are various clients (free and paid) for iPhone, Android, desktops (both Mac and Windows), and more.

I use TweetDeck on all my computers and on my iPhone (also available for Android, Chrome and iPad). It’s free. I like the way it lets me manage multiple columns so I can follow specific hashtags when news is breaking or a conference is under way.

An article at Tripwire magazine explains why many people like HootSuite.

In a recent post, Marty McPadden explains the strong points of 12 different Twitter apps, including those best for sharing photos or music.

The People You Follow

As John pointed out in his essay, the value in Twitter really is in whom you choose to follow. He provided a list of good people for journalists to follow, but I thought his list was too long for a newbie to appreciate.

If you still think Twitter is a waste of time, try this:

Unfollow everyone you currently follow.
Follow five or so headline sources you like (e.g., Al Jazeera English, BBC Breaking News, CNN Breaking News, The New York Times, NPR News, ESPN).
Check in a few times a day using your mobile phone.

I think this simple exercise will demonstrate pretty well why Twitter has value to journalists. It addresses only the first one of John’s five benefits — explore the other four on your own!