Category: newspapers

Live from the Society of News Design conference!

Hey Journalistopians, I’m blogging from the Society of News Design’s annual conference here in Orlando, Fla. (conveniently located minutes from my new home!).

The SND conference this year officially opened with a keynote address by Robin Sloan and Matt Thomnpson, creators of the infamous online film EPIC 2014 that explores a dark future where the “Googlezon” has eaten the New York Times alive and become an inhuman tool in the thrall of politicians and interest groups.

That’s a helluva choice for a keynote address. Clearly, and by all accounts, this year’s SND conference has featured a greater emphasis on multimedia graphics and storytelling than ever before.

Sessions featuring some of the industry’s heavy hitters in online graphics are here for us to pick their brains, including Scott Horner from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Neil Chase from the New York Times and SND-award-snatchin’ UNC Chapel Hill professor and former El Mundo rock star Alberto Cairo.

Should be fun!

PLUS: Check out the official SND blog and Mindy McAdams’ online journalism blog for more from the conference.

Editorial board rocks the vote with video

Big kudos to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for posting full videos of the editorial board’s interviews with Florida’s gubernatorial candidates. The page features the entire interview with smaller clips broken down by topic (I’m sure THAT was fun to edit). [Full disclosure: I worked at the Sun-Sentinel in 2005.]

This is exactly the kind of thing at which online news sites can excel. These videos are a terrific example of promoting the democratic process and involving readers by opening the newsroom to them. Editorial boards are a ripe area of the newsroom that are just tingling with potential for the web.

If you haven’t already, check out the Spokesman-Review’s Transparent Newsroom iniative. Some may argue this approach is too much. I’m of the mind that newsrooms need more interaction with the public, not necessarily transparency; editorial boards are a great place to begin.

[via Online News Squared]

Scarborough: Online readership growing

Web readers can account for up to 15 percent of a newspaper’s audience, according to a recent study by Scarborough Research. The study analyzes the percentage of readers who only read the paper, readers who read both and readers who only read the Web version.

Check out the study [big PDF], a story from Editor & Publisher, Scarborough’s press release, highlights from PaidContent.org and a nice chart of the top 25 from Online News Squared.

E&P points out:

The research also bears out that audiences reading newspaper Web sites tend to be younger than those reading printed newspapers. Looking at some of the markets measured, The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, for example, reaches 30% of adults 18-to-24 online while only 22% of that demo reads the print product.

Not surprising by any means, but still food for thought as far as how we present stories and market news sites.

While you’re at it, check out this story about the Audit Bureau of Circulations. They’re putting out what’s going to be called a Consolidated Media Report to track readership for newspaper sites.
[Via Online News Squared]

My kingdom for a sat phone

Paul Conley spins a great “when-I-was-your-age” yarn about his encounter with a stubborn payphone in 1986 while trying to file a story for NPR.

In order to send my interviews to D.C., I had to connect my tape recorder to the pay phone. It was a cumbersome process that involved fitting a strange piece of gray-colored foam rubber over the mouthpiece. But I couldn’t get it to work…
And I struggled and fumbled with this for a long time until — believe it or not — a female sergeant based on Air Force One came over with a tool box to help me dismantle the phone and connect the recorder directly with a set of alligator clips.

I couldn’t help thinking about how I drove around downtown Miami during the recent Castro celebrations *attempting* to file video with a cell phone-based laptop connection. A Toyota RAV4 does not a comfy editing station make, and Starbucks with their Wi-Fi spots are a tough find in Miami (little Cuban coffee shops rule there). In order to prevent your personal information and data from being jeopardized, a fake phone number generator, like the one on phonegenerator.net, can be a life-saver.

The technology evolves, but somehow, the headaches seem to stay the same.

Gannett buys college paper FSView

In a suprising move, Gannett has bought up Florida State University‘s independent newspaper, the twice-weekly FSView, according to a report from Inside Higher Ed.

This news strikes close to home, as I was a former metro editor at the Independent Florida Alligator, another independent student paper nearby in Gainesville, Fla.

It’s generally quite difficult for college newspapers to support themselves as independents. It’s harder even to make the leap from being college-run to independent. Usually, it’s only possible at larger campuses.

The paper’s existence can be seriously threatened by the death or illness of the owner. A professional staff is difficult to come by. Competition from other local newspapers can make it a headache to retain the best student writers and editors.

Corporate ownership could be a saving grace. In Gainesville, the Alligator’s best writers are often swept away by the Gainesville Sun, which arguably offers more prestige but also little to no pay and generally lousier assignments (the pros usually take the really hot stories).
Perhaps being owned by a larger entity can provide some of that prestige and stability so that student editors can focus on doing good journalism. Furthermore, there would be a professional infrastructure for providing things like national advertising, information technology and even a network of professionals for guidance.

But corporate ownership could also diminish the independent voice of student journalists, which often gets them in trouble with student groups and school officials. Will Gannett be willing to stomach the fallout when a paper does something highly controversial like, say, publish the “f-word” in a cartoon? An incident like that would certainly trickle up to affect the corporate parent’s good name.

During the protests and boycotts resulting from the Alligator cartoon, much of the campus called for the heads of the paper’s editors. For better or worst, they kept their jobs and learned many a lesson in having to deal with readers’ adversarial sentiments.

A corporation would likely have dropped the axe.