CoPress makes it to round two of the Knight News Challenge
Kevin announcing the news on Twitter.
About one week after CoPress submitted an application for this year’s Knight News Challenge, we found out today that we advanced to the second round.
I did a happy dance in my chair.
Kevin Koehler (@kev097), who toiled into the late hours of the night last Sunday to polish the application, announced the good news via Twitter (see photo).
A little background on the project, quoting our application:
CoPress is a collaborative project to invigorate online student media through community, software, and knowledge. A single organization providing Web support, we will fill a gaping need for college publications, providing the tools they lack to thrive in the digital revolution, and platforms for innovation.
For a more detailed overview, visit the CoPress about page. For all the juicy details, check out our meeting notes.
Also, be sure to check out our application, leave a comment and give us stars if you think we’re cool.
An updated and expanded application is due in a few weeks, so we’ll be adding more details before then.
Special congratulations to Daniel Bachhuber, our fearless leader who started the group and is just plain awesome.
UPDATE, Nov. 12: Check out the CoPress post on the news, We’re in: Knight Challenge round duex.
We’re not in Kansas (City) anymore: An ACP/CMA recap
My conference craziness for the semester finally ended on Sunday.
This past weekend I attended the Associated Collegiate Press/College Media Advisers conference in Kansas City, Mo.
The Miami Hurricane sent six people, four from the newsroom and two from the business office.
Other UM student media also sent staffers, including five from the Ibis yearbook and one from Distraction magazine. The respective Hurricane and Ibis advisers also attended.
(Quick shout-out to Hurricane adviser Bob Radziewicz, who learned some iMovie and Audacity at the conference, yay! And he got Twitter on his own. Follow him @caneadviser.)
Another UM professor, Rich Beckman, was the conference’s first keynote speaker on Thursday (Mark Glaser of MediaShift was the keynote on Friday).
Rich started his talk by discussing how the newspaper industry fell behind with the Web. But, instead of harping on the negative, he mostly offered advice for the hundreds of students and advisers in attendance.
Video excerpt of Beckman’s keynote, shot by Anthony Pesce.To summarize Rich’s advice:
- You still need the basics — writing and editing across platforms, legal and ethical grounding
- Everyone needs to know audio and video content gathering, editing and storytelling skills
- Photojournalism and photo editing skills and the ability to produce audio-driven photo galleries and stories
- Understand audience, usability, social networking, etc.
- You need multimedia storytelling skills
- Skills are given. Once you have them, you need to learn how to use them
- Take advantage of what the Web is good at (interactivity, availability, etc.)
- Use your publications to test your skills
- Follow people, not organizations, when looking for good examples of journalism
- Find mentors
Rich also discussed how multimedia design and infographic skills as well as multimedia programming and producing skills will land you the best (and best paid) jobs at top news organizations.
Besides the familiar faces, I got to see some new faces and meet some people in person for the first time, including Andrew Dunn, Anthony Pesce (whose video is embedded above) and Miles Skorpen. I’d known each through Twitter and the latter two from CoPress, so it was great to hang with them at the conference.
I also had a mini reunion of sorts with David Grant, editor of the Collegiate Times (Virginia Tech) and Kristen Daum, editor-elect of the State News (Michigan State). The three of us were part of the Al Neuharth Free Spirit scholarship class of 2005.
Speaking of awards:
- The Hurricane didn’t win an online Pacemaker, but we got a pretty plaque for being a finalist. So, we’re looking to next year’s competition, when we’ll be entering the new WordPress site that Brian Schlansky and I created last summer.
- Will Wooten, Hurricane visuals editor in spring 2008, won a third place page one design award for the “Do Not Rush the Field” cover
Sneak peak at next project
I’ll be playing producer and leading one of five video teams today for an Election Day 2008 multimedia project, which is being organized by the UM visual journalism program. The group, which also includes seven still photo teams, is being led by vis-j faculty Jim Virga, Kim Grinfeder and Rich Beckman.
We’ll be working in the West Grove and later putting together a site with all the stories, expected to launch soon after the election is finished. Note: This is not live coverage, but instead a documentary-style project.
I’ll write a recap post with my thoughts and a link after it launches.
Until then, follow the project on Twitter. Alex de Carvalho (@alexdc), who is one of the project’s other coaches, and I (@greglinch) will be live tweeting using the hastag #grove.
My first video of the year for The Miami Hurricane
Thursday night I finished a video about the UM student production of Cabaret (see related tweets), which I shot on Monday and Wednesday.
This is my first video of the year for The Miami Hurricane, where I advise online and multimedia production, and I plan to shoot more throughout the school year.
What’s noteworthy about this piece is that it’s the first time I’ve used Soundtrack Pro to fix the audio after editing the footage in Final Cut Pro. I’d previously only used Soundtrack for audio projects.
The video is online with a story by Nick Maslow and is on my Vimeo page. It also appears in a nifty widget on the sidebar of my site.
For more information about the musical, visit the Ring Theatre’s site. Enjoy!
National Writers Workshop: Highlights and notes
What? Another conference, you ask?
Greg with Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts. Photo by Lilly Echeverria.
Yes.
This past weekend (Sept. 19-21) I attended the National Writers Workshop in Fort Lauderdale, an annual conference hosted by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Among the speakers (A-Z):
- Dave Barry - Miami Herald humor columnist and author
- Roy Peter Clark - director of the writing center, dean of the faculty, senior scholar and vice president at the Poynter Institute
- Leonard Pitts, Jr. - Miami Herald columnist (see photo)
I liveblogged the conference using Twitter and updates can be found by searching greglinch + NWW or NWW.
I’ve posted on Google Docs my notes from a Saturday morning session by Jacqui Banaszynkski, Knight chair in editing at University of Missouri School of Journalism.
I’ll be taking about a month to catch my breath before the next conference, a trip covered by The Miami Hurricane:
Associated Collegiate Press and College Media Advisers conference in Kansas City, Oct. 29 to Nov. 2.
I’ll be flying up on the evening of Oct. 30 and leaving Nov. 2. The Hurricane is sending a total of eight students, plus our adviser.
Related Posts
- Conference craziness: Looking back at SPJ and forward to ONA
- Greetings from Indianapolis!
- NextNewsroom conference recap
Using Twitter to cover Barack Obama event on campus
What could be better than waking up to the sweet sound of a little bird chirping the news? (see photo below)
Beginning at around 8 a.m. Friday morning, I will use the The Miami Hurricane’s almighty Twitter account to liveblog a Barack Obama rally at the University of Miami.
The event, “Women’s Rally for the Change We Need” rally, will take place on the main campus in Coral Gables.
To easily find the related tweets, search miamihurricane + obama.
Read The Hurricane story, Obama to campaign on UM campus Friday; will focus on women’s issues.
Watch the UMTV livefeed online.
Doors open at 9:30 a.m. and Obama is scheduled to speak at 11:45 p.m.
Tickets, which were available online, sold out in less than two days of the university announcement on Tuesday, according to a university e-mail newsletter. Because more tickets were allotted than the BankUnited Center (our basketball arena) can hold, there is likely going to be quite the crowd early Friday morning.
I’ll be there to provide updates and photos using TwitPic.
Background
This will be the third large-scale event I’ve used Twitter to liveblog for The Hurricane, the first two being a baseball game last spring and the first home football game this fall when we played Charleston Southern University at Dolphin Stadium.
For the football game tweets, you can search for miamihurricane + football on Twitter. Also, I liveblogged the bus ride to the stadium (search for miamihurricane + bus).
For fun
Check out some random photos I’ve snapped using my photo and uploaded to TwitPic.
