I'm standing outside the Dallas Morning News building.

• Working on a newsroom social media strategy, best practices and how-to guide with Travis Hudson (more on this in a future post)
• Reporting, including a front page story on the DTV transition and following the story of an abandoned newborn
• Managing the Facebook page
• Occasionally managing the Twitter account
• Occasional online producing
• Worked with more than a dozen journalists, individually or in pairs, to better use social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Helped produce live coverage of American Idol audition coverage, working with another Web producer, reporters at the scene and managing community collaboration and contributions
• Contributing ideas to the interactive team, Problem Solver column and overall organization

And today I filmed a video for a feature, reporting alongside a another Web intern working on the article.

One of my backburner projects that’s now moving to the frontburner is re-imagining and rebuilding the DMN’s John F. Kennedy page.

I’ve been brainstorming and researching since before I arrived and, now that things are kicking into gear, I’d like your help and feedback.

For the first post in this series I’d like your thoughts about the following before hearing mine or anyone else’s ideas:

Current JFK page from 2004

1. Who is the audience/community?
2. What is the purpose of this page/section?
3. What story are is it telling?
4. What’s the best way to tell the story?
5. What content should be included? (More than 45 years later, we have loads of stories, obits, journalists’ accounts, photos, TV broadcasts, front pages, documents, etc.)
6. What do you want to see when you first arrive?
7. How do you want to navigate through this?
8. With all of this, how can we engage people and foster quality conversations?
9. How can we best integrate community content and comments?
10. How can we best keep it dynamic and alive?

The first multimedia committee meeting for the project is Thursday Wednesday (July 29).

Know anyone who may have good insights? Pass it along! Many thanks in advance.

I swung by the Dallas Morning News building during my Sunday excursion and snapped this photo at a stop light. I, of course, parked and walked around.

In less than an hour I will begin a new adventure as an online intern at the Dallas Morning News.

That’s right — as of Saturday afternoon, I’m in Texas! After two stopovers at DFW in the past year, I finally have the chance to explore the state.

I left from my parent’s house in Fort Lauderdale and drove the roughly 1,300 miles to Dallas, switching off with my uncle.

Along the way we, stopped in Tallahassee and New Orleans. I’ve posted some photos on TwitPic along the way (the one above is an original for the blog).

As I’ve mentioned before, this will be my fourth internship — the third at a daily. But this will be my first online internship and I’m very excited for the opportunity.

What’s to come in the next 12 weeks? We shall see.

Stay tuned.

Joining Publish2: Ryan Sholin, Greg Linch and Howard Weaver

I am extremely excited that I will be part of such an innovative organization, which now also includes Ryan Sholin as director of news innovation and Howard Weaver as a member of the board of directors. Needless to say, that pair is a one-two punch of journalism awesomeness.

And, yes, this was not a traditional job application. I am honored to have been selected from a group of extremely talented journalists as part of the “I am the future of journalism” contest. As you may recall, I posted a link to my entry here in January (actual entry):

My entry for the Publish2 “I am the future of journalism” contest

I plan to post more thoughts soon and would like to end by thanking Scott Karp, Tammi Marcoullier, Josh Korr and the rest of the Publish2 team.

Why? Because you can’t get enough of multimedia.

To try to satisfy your hunger for awesome information about awesome storytelling, we’ll be livestreaming the new round of lunch speakers at part two of two of Beyond Bootcamp.

(The “we” is Trevor Green operating the three built-in cameras and mics from the control room, me in the room with my laptop managing the livestream/chat/promotion and the UM School of Communication’s equipment and facilities.)

We’ll also be streaming Friday and Saturday’s lunch speeches. Information about speakers will follow, but both will be from noon to 2 p.m. EST.

Watch the Thursday speech by West here (not visable in RSS feed) or at:

• http://www.mogulus.com/greglinch

Follow all Beyond Bootcamp tweets:

• http://www.greglinch.com/multimedia/beyondbootcamp

Please share the livestream and other links on Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, IM, etc.

Newspaper reporters, editors and others listen as Miami Herald Multimedia Editor Rick Hirsch gives opening remarks at Saturday's workshop. (From my camera phone, TwitPic)

This is the first in an occasional series called “Tips from a J-Student.” Posts will focus on ways journalism students can better prepare themselves for jobs, internships and other opportunities.

Click here for my Top 10 list of tips.

I know I’ve said this before in some form or another, but (in my Mel Brooks voice):

“It’s good to be a student.”

About 50 newspaper and other media professionals gathered at the University of Miami’s School of Communication on Saturday for a day of online and multimedia training sessions, sponsored by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors and Florida Press Association.

For the second consecutive year, Matthew Bunch (@matthewsbunch) and I volunteered for the event. Deborah Acosta (@deborahacosta) a first-year graduate student, also volunteered.

Yes, we helped unload a car. Yes, we helped set up breakfast. Yes, we handed out name tags and programs. 

But why?

Well, there was free breakfast and lunch. More importantly, it was an opportunity to see old friends, meet new people and learn something (sessions were also free for volunteers).

For example, I met University of Florida journalism professor Dave Stanton (@gotoPlanB) after months of hearing about him from former students and Orlando Sentinel senior producer Danny Sanchez (@DannySanchez) after following each on Twitter for awhile.

As for learning something new, I was able to attend a session in each of the three time slots (more details). It just so happened that all of them were led by Miami Herald journalists:

• Spreadsheets and databases – Rob Barry, investigative reporter and database specialist; Stephanie Rosenblatt, multimedia developer
• Online story planning – Paul Cheung, deputy multimedia presentation editor; Niala Boodhoo, multimedia business specialist
• SEO and you – Suzanne Levinson, director of site operations

I wish I could have attended all the workshops, but I picked the ones where I thought I would learn the most. 

So what good does this do you?

Find out if your school hosts any professional development events. Most UM journalism students have no idea this opportunity – though limited to a few volunteers – exists at all.

If there’s not such an event, see what you can do to lobby for workshops or some other opportunity to network and learn (somewhat related: a shameless plug for Sean Blanda’s efforts to bring BarCamp NewsInnovation to Philadelphia). 

But the overall lesson is to take advantage of any available opportunity to improve your skill set, make new connections and continue relationships. And, if that opportunity doesn’t exist, try to make it happen.

Upcoming opportunity: From Jan. 3 to 10, Knight Char in Visual Journalism Rich Beckman will host his annual Beyond Bootcamp workshops at UM for the first time.

Students have the (paid) opportunity to assistant in one of the three-day sessions. I’ll be helping out with the video narratives sessions, Jan. 7 to 10. Of course, I plan to blog about this event.

Looking forward: Several upcoming posts in this series will related to applying for summer internships. Although it’s too late for many summer opportunities, I hope these posts will help students applying in the spring and beyond. 

Weigh in: Have you found any similar training or networking opportunities at your school? If not, what kind would you like to see?

Screen shot of dallasnews.com

Who shot J.R.?

Was there a second shooter on that grassy knoll?

What will George W. Bush do in his retirement?

I intend to answer those questions and more this summer as an intern at The Dallas Morning News!

It’s an online internship, but I’ll primarily be working under metro as a multimedia reporter. Split between breaking news and other projects, my role will include writing stories, shooting video and doing other kinds of mischief.

This will be my fourth news internship – third at a metropolitan daily. I plan start soon after I graduate in May.

I can’t wait!

What should I see and do in Dallas?

Read about my experiences at The Miami Herald last summer:

• Internship: First day, first story at The Miami Herald
• Second Miami Herald video: Campers cook with the pros
• Two more Herald videos: Parkinson’s patients boxing and an unemployed couple
• Crazy cook Lenny makes for a fast-paced, fun video
• An obligatory end-of-internship post: Reflecting on my Miami Herald experience

New ONA site

Tah-dah! Another social network!

The Online News Association officially launched their new Web site (see right) Monday evening.

If you’re a member with full access, or even a non-member just perusing, you can tell this site is big step forward.

Here are some of the features, as outlined in an e-mail from ONA President Jonathan Dube:

• Networking features, including discussion groups that connect members by region and area of interest, giving you the ability to have one-on-one conversations and to chat in real time.
• An easy-to-navigate membership directory – searchable by name, type of organization, areas of expertise, and more – enabling you to more easily network with people with common interests.
• A Career Center that allows members to post and search job openings.
• A new training section with innovative digital presentations tagged by topic, source and medium. This section features videotaped sessions from ONA’s sold-out 2008 annual conference, with tips on the latest techniques in multimedia storytelling from the New York Times, Washington Post, USA TODAY and the BBC, among others.

So why I am blogging about this? Earlier this month I was asked to be the student group discussion leader, a role I enthusiastically accepted. 

I’ll be posting there a couple times a week in order to start conversations on topics such as classes, cool projects and internships. The group has six members so far, including two pros. 

If you’re a student ONA member, please join us!

If you’re a student interested in online journalism, I highly recommend joining ONA. I joined in April and think ONA is a group often overlooked by student journalists (read about membership benefits).

For only $25 a year, you can’t say no.

One benefit is that you get a heavily discounted conference registration — we’re talking less than half the pro rate.

And if you saw my posts or tweets about this year’s gathering in D.C., you’d see why the experience is so valuable. I went to a number of great sessions, but more important are the connections you make.

NETWORKING IS KEY! (see No. 8)

As someone in the midst of an internship – and soon job – search, I can’t emphasize that enough.