:Journalistopia

Bryan Murley over at Innovation in College Media has a great checklist of online-related tasks that college publications should be doing. But the list is also a good guide of tasks for those who want to get started in online media.

Every web editor and producer should at least be familiar with how each of these tasks are accomplished. The act of learning how to produce a Soundslide or contribute effectively to a blog will make you that much more useful in producing a great site.

So here’s Bryan’s list:

• • Have you got your news org. online?
  • Do you have a content management system?
  • Have you posted any videos online?
  • Have you included any audio soundbites in a story?
  • Have you done a photo slideshow?
  • Have you put up an audio slideshow (perhaps using Soundslides)?
  • Have you done a map?
  • Have you used weblogs on your site?
  • Have you uploaded source documents (PDFs, excel spreadsheets, etc.) to accompany a big story?
  • Have you used social media (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube) to market your stories?
  • Have you tracked what others are saying about you via Technorati or Google Blogsearch?
  • Have you used the web site to post breaking news online FIRST?
  • Have you moved the online editor out of the back office and into a position of authority?
  • Have you allowed comments on your stories?
  • Have you encouraged writers to write for the Web and include hyperlinks in their stories?
  • Have you tried something experimental?

See more of Bryan’s work at Innovation in College Media.

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More Journalistopia:

• Discussions on the future of journalism education
• Al’s Morning Multimedia in your inbox
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More details emerge about the Poynter Institute’s much-heralded Eyetrack 2007 study after a week-long seminar in St. Petersburg, Fla.

From the article:

“It turns out [readers] will stay even longer when reading online. The editors were also pleased to hear that the extra work of providing lively, illustrated teasers or telling stories in a graphic package pays off by attracting extra reader attention.

On the other hand, the finding that the 600 readers tested in the study regularly read jumps was unexpected.”

Make sure to browse through Poynter’s other content, including a series of audiocasts, as well as a history of the study and a video about this year’s study.

The study found the following results based on the preliminary release:

1) The largest percentage of story text read was higher online (77%) than in broadsheet (62%) or tabloid (57%) formats.

2) Print readers are more methodical, while online readers scan more by a margin of about 25%.

3) Sidebars, lists and QandAs boost reader understanding.

4) Online readers are drawn to navigational elements and teasers. Print readers are drawn to large headlines and photos.

5) Documentary-style photos get lots of attention. Staged photos, not so much.

More at Poynter’s ‘The Myth of Short Attention Spans.’

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More Journalistopia:

• Poynter Eyetrack 2007 study says online readers read deep
• Scarborough: Online readership growing
• Readership Institute Releases 2008 Readership Study

The 2007 Webby Awards nominees have been announced. Here are the nominees some of the categories related to news organizations. From the list:

For Best Copy/Writing:

Blog – Business

Blog – Cultural/Personal

Blog – Political

Magazine

News

Newspaper

Podcasts

Radio

[Via Journerdism]

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More Journalistopia:

• Webby Award winners announced (with news organization list)
• Oh, green, how magazines loathe thee
• The worst TIME magazine covers ever

Slate’s Christopher Hitchens published a clever column today about how American society has latched onto the words “you” and “your” in much of its marketingspeak. And we in the media are guilty as charged too, now that we’re constantly asking people to send us “your” photos/video/sudio/stories/blog posts.

From the column:

The next time you see an ad, the odds are increasingly high that it will put “you” in the driver’s seat. “Ask your doctor if Prozac/Lipitor/Cialis is right for you“—almost as if these medications could be custom made for each individual consumer. A lawyer or real-estate agent will promise you to address “your” concerns. Probably the most famous propaganda effort of the 20^th century, a recruiting poster with Lord Kitchener pointing directly outward and stating, “Your Country Needs YOU,” was only rushed onto the billboards when it suddenly became plain that the country concerned needed several hundred thousand recruits in a big hurry and couldn’t afford to be too choosy about who it was signing up.

In this age of citizen journalism, I suppose much of our talk has become “your” news Web site, “your” video, “Your” Live Breaking Action Night News Team. Surprisingly, the biggest coup for “you” was never mentioned — Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2006.

Have we also moved into the era of “Me” and “My?” We have MySpace, My Yahoo!, Google My Maps, My Times, My LA Times, and so it goes. Pity Malaysia, whose domain name country code is “MY.” At this rate, we’ll have people signing up for domain names under Malaysia just so they can get the “my,” much like people make the journey to Christmas, FL to mail holiday cards or how sex shops try to set up their mailing addresses out of Intercourse, PA.

I wonder if we’ll look back at this era and chuckle at our vanity.

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More Journalistopia:

• Have you checked your domain name lately?
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The non-profit Poynter Institute has just released the preliminary results of its Eyetrack 2007 study, and some of the findings may be surprising to those who think online readers merely speed through news sites.

From the Poynter article, titled ‘The Myth of Short Attention Spans’:

Readers select stories of particular interest and then read them thoroughly.

And there’s a twist: The reading-deep phenomenon is even stronger online than in print.

At a time when readers are assumed to have short attention spans, especially those who read online, this qualifies as news.

That was the predominant behavior of roughly 600 test subjects — 70 percent of whom said they read the news in print or online four times a week. Their eye movements were tracked in 15-minute reading sessions of broadsheet, tabloid and online publications.

The study’s overview found that:

1) The largest percentage of story text read was higher online (77%) than in broadsheet (62%) or tabloid (57%) formats.

2) Print readers are more methodical, while online readers scan more by a margin of about 25%.

3) Sidebars, lists and QandAs boost reader understanding.

4) Online readers are drawn to navigational elements and teasers. Print readers are drawn to large headlines and photos.

5) Documentary-style photos get lots of attention. Staged photos, not so much.

Poynter will be releasing a book in June with more details about the study, including the materials used. They’re also organizing a workshop for August regarding the 2007 Eyetrack study.

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More Journalistopia:

• Editors discuss Poynter Eyetrack 2007 study
• Scarborough: Online readership growing
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Why do we so often overlook the art of writing witty, compelling headlines and blurbs online?

Is it the breakneck pace of producing Web news? Is it the endless distractions of emerging technology? Does it really just come down to us not caring enough any more?

I’m reminded of Lucas Grindley’s post way back in November in which he highlighted the merits of so-called “Web monkey” work — the endless cutlines, blurbs and copy/pasting into a content management system. Howard Owens painted a bleak future for those limited to these tasks. Mindy McAdams called much of it robot work. And I sternly warned against the danger of students “becoming the Cutline Master.”

While I still advocate journalism students becoming as technically skilled as possible, we should all take greater care not to belittle the everyday editing that goes on. It is crucial yet thankless work. News sites don’t win Digital Edge or Online News Association awards writing engaging little bits like these.

But why shouldn’t this type of editing –when it is exemplary and consistent– be rewarded as well?

Nearly every time I drop by, I’m impressed and amused at the witty teaser text that compels me to click on Slate’s Web site. Here’s a sampling of today’s teasers:

Gonzales Deathwatch: Bet He’s Gone by Friday

Reading the World’s First Self-Help Book

Delay’s Hillary Smear

Full-Mental Nudity: The arrival of mind-reading machines

Slate is one of the exceptions. Granted, they have more exotic material than the average newspaper’s municipal stories and shootings. But are we really putting forth the effort? When Fark and Digg users are obviously spending time scrutinizing their headlines, why are we so often not?

While we relentlessly pursue the latest gadgets, the highest Google ranking, the newest software and the most efficient ways to produce — we cannot forgot to value the craft of placing sharp writing in those tiny boxes and headlines. We so often call them “users,” that we tend to forget that they are “readers” too.

To all the Cutline Masters, Web Monkeys and Content Management System Robots, I grant you a long-overdue salute.

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More Journalistopia:

• Taking stock of your multimedia skills
• Sigh. I’m a cut-and-paste ‘expert.’
• Alert: Internet Explorer 7 downloads automatically

Columbia Journalism Review’s Gal Beckerman has a thorough write-up on how the media’s prediction of John Edwards  closing down his campaign turned out to be astronomically wrong yesterday.

The culprit, as it so often is, was a reporter relying on a single source. The secondary culprits were nearly every other major news outlet who cited that report. Elizabeth Edwards even took a small jab at the media with her comment, “You haven’t turned out to be so reliable in the last 24 hours.”

Of course, it was all made possible thanks to the speed of Internet reporting. From CJR’s assessment of the debacle:

The problem, as we see it, is twofold. In spite of claiming to realize the power of the Internet – that’s why, presumably, Politico was able to lure big time political reporters like Smith away from newspapers – the reporters and editors who run the site still don’t realize how far their voice carries. We imagine Smith probably thought that a blog post couldn’t possibly make it farther than his own beltway readership. He should know better, and be just as careful about announcing such news as he would be in any other medium.But the bigger problem has to do with the Internet itself. By giving the impression that everything is immediately correctible, it lowers accountability, making it seem okay to take risks – like basing a story on one source. If a Web site like Politico wants to be taken seriously, it has to live be the same rigorous standards that most news organizations live and die by.

Lesson hopefully learned by all of us. Here’s the original post from the Politico blog, and here’s his apology.

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Make sure to mosey on over to Wired News for their list of seven essential Internet Explorer 7 add-ons.

At the top of the heap for us newsroom denizens is ieSpell, a little tool that spell checks all the text you input into a Web form. I have been anxiously awaiting a tool like this for IE, which is usually the preferred Web browser of content management systems everywhere. Firefox 2.0 has a similar function, which has certaii…er… certainly saved me a few times.

Of course, many of the add-ons are meant to replicate behaviors found in Firefox, such as the Inline Search (which, by the way, also works in IE6). But I suppose we’re all used to the imitating-Firefox bit by now anyway…

[via Lifehacker]

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More Journalistopia:

• Time Hack: Monitor News Sites with iMacros Firefox Plugin
• How to Save Your Online Clips
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I’ve been a longtime subscriber now to Al’s Morning Meeting, a daily e-mail newsletter (or RSS feed) providing excellent story ideas by Poynter’s Al Tompkins. But aside from his thoroughly researched ideas, Al has recently begun providing a daily dose of multimedia, which makes the list even more worth subscribing to for all us Web heads.

Today, Al highlights a slideshow from the Boston Globe about a Marine who took his own life after being refused a hospital bed for post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s a great example of an audio slideshow and of how the audio truly drives these pieces.

Sign up, and see if you enjoy. I know I do!

And for more audio slideshows, Flash graphics and other regular multimedia goodness, check out Mindy McAdams’ Teaching Online Journalism, Angela Grant’s In The Circle, MultimediaShooter and Interactive Narratives (which hasn’t been updated in a while but has a great archive of this sort of stuff).

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More Journalistopia:

• At SND: Where’s the story?
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Salon’s Gary Kayima has written a thoughtful, well-written (if somewhat long) piece examining how the outpouring of public commentary is affecting writers’ relationships with their readers. Also, make sure to browse through the comments.

Some highlights from his article:

“All of us — writers and editors and readers alike — are still struggling to get used to this cacophonous cornucopia of communication. It is a brave new world, filled with beautiful minds and nasty Calibans and everything in between. Its benefits are undeniable. But it has some downsides, too — not all of them obvious.”

“The information revolution has set off a million car bombs of random knowledge at once, spraying info fragments through the marketplace of ideas.”

“Formality? The context of online communication is more like being in your car in a traffic jam than sitting across a table from someone and having a talk — and it’s easy to flip somebody off through a rolled-up window.”

“Nasty and ignorant letters affect the reader, too. A few ugly or stupid comments in a discussion thread have a disproportionate impact. Like drops of iodine in a glass of water, they discolor the whole discussion and scare more thoughtful commentators away.”

“Forget the word “elite”: In our laudable all-American haste to trash bogus royalty, let’s not forget there’s a completely different category. It’s called professionalism.”

Thankfully, Kayima does not simply tear into message board users and does concede that certain controls can better the situation. For instance, Slashdot has a tiered system for weighing users’ contributions. Lifehacker requires you to ask nicely. Wikipedia has its own complex system and hierarchy of users.

Many in the online news industry agree that story comments, while excellent to have, often result in simple-minded, often boorish spleen-venting and do not constitute a true online community. Personally, I am not even slightly loathe to nuke a message board if the conversation takes an offensive or disgusting turn, particularly when it involves someone’s death.

However, through user blogs and other innovative tools, I believe it’s possible to elevate the conversation to something that is even more useful for both writer and reader.

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More Journalistopia:

• L.A. Times editorial board decries Google News comments
• Daily Star zaps reader comments
• Online tools for freelancers

Just caught an article that ran in yesterday’s New York Times about various local citizen journalism initiatives being carried out by individuals. (Also, make sure to check out David Carr’s interesting take on journalists blogging, and pay particularly attention to the section about news judgment being affected by page view metrics).

While Bob Tedeschi citizen journalism story is a nice look at the trend, I felt the story glossed over the profitability of the sites. About one site, Tedeschi writes:

“Readership [at WestportNow.com] is growing, he said, with between 5,000 and 7,000 visitors clicking on the site daily. Advertising revenues are also increasing, he said. Although the site still loses money, Mr. Joseloff said he hoped to develop similar sites elsewhere in Fairfield County.”

Aside from that line, the article gives no sense as to whether these other small hyperlocal sites will implode like Backfence seems to be doing. Of course, for those doing it strictly out of passion, then I suppose it doesn’t really matter, now does it?

And on a side note, let me give kudos to the Times for their new social networking features, particularly the permalink feature. Even though Michael Arrington angrily dissed it, I think it’s a great thing.

[UPDATE - Jan. 16] Liz George from Baristanet and Gordon Joseloff from WestportNow have responded in the comments. Tish Grier says on her blog that “the New York Times doesn’t quite get what citizen journalism is about.”

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More Journalistopia:

• TV station citizen journalism
• New York Times publisher: ‘I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years’
• GateHouse Lawsuit vs. New York Times Co. has Dire Implications

Do I hear $10 for “Saddam Hussein hanging?” $15?

PaidContent highlights a Wall Street Journal report on the growing trend in the U.K. toward newspapers bidding on sponsored links on Google for news events. Some American newspapers have gotten in on the act too, including the New York Times, Washington Post and USAToday, according to the article.

I have no qualms about training journalists to write search-engine friendly headlines. Those headlines tend to work better on the Web anyway, and Google is the biggest driver of traffic just about anywhere.

Nevertheless, the question is: If this trend explodes here in the United States, will even mid-size and small news sites have any other choice but to join the auction?

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More Journalistopia:

• Google News is in your neighborhood
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