What's the best video equipment for a student paper's first purchase?

(Preface: It's not about the technology. It's about the story and how you tell it. Technology is just a tool.)

Kevin Koehler, contributing editor at the Wake Forest Old Gold & Black, asked a question via Twitter Tuesday evening:

kev097 Need to recommend HD camcorder for newspaper today. Probably going with hard drive. Suggestions on models, accessories, research?

Kyle Hansen (TheSpartanDaily.com editor at San Jose State), Kevin and I discussed ideas via Twitter and I volunteered to post the equipment The Miami Hurricane plans to purchase before next fall:

• Canon HV20 a mini-DV, HD video camera (2) [should we get the HV30 instead?]
• Canon BP2L14 battery (2)
• Rode shotgun microphone (2)
• Sennheiser Evolution G2 EW100 wireless mic combo kit (1) [looks like this this has been discontinued from B&H]
  
• Includes EW100 G2 Combo System, EW100 G2 Lavalier System, ENG Handheld Microphone, Storage Case and Cables
  
• Hosa MIT-156 XLR to mini connector (1)
• EH 150 supra-aural closed back stereo headphones (2)
• Sunpak 7001DX tripod (2)
• Three-way pan/tilt head with quick release
• Tiffen 43mm UV filter (2)
  

This year we have primarily used Flip video cameras after starting off with point-and-shoots (Matt Bunch and I). These have worked OK, but the big problem was audio. The best quality videos came when we checked out equipment from the School of Communication.

And I've used my HV20, which I bought during spring break, for the paper. For example, a video of the PD press conference after a student died on campus:


(This is the pretty one the assistant multimedia editor, Matt Wallach, edited. Here is the quick-and-dirty version I posted right after the press conference, sans b-roll. I miked the chief with a lav.)

I love my HV20. It's not perfect, but it does everything I need.

More about video: Newspaper Video - Yahoo! Groups

Weigh in: What video equipment does your organization use? What do you think about The Hurricane's planned list?

Editor term comes to an end

It's over. One year. Fifty issues. Many, many great memories.

Monday's issue was my last as editor in chief of The Miami Hurricane. We made great strides forward this year in print and online, and I can't wait until our new Web site debuts in August (yes, I still need to do an update post on this).

I'd like to thank all of this year's editors for their hard work and wish those who are graduating the best of luck.

For the continuing and new editors, keep on rockin' the news -- you guys are going to do great things. Here's the new staff list:

Editor in Chief
Matthew Bunch (moving up from sports editor and blogmaster)

News Editor
Chelsea Kate Isaacs (promoted from assistant news)

Assistant News Editors
Erika Capek (promoted from staff news writer)
Edward Fishman (promoted from contributing news writer)

Opinion Editor
Joshua Newman (new)

EDGE Editor
Dan Buyanovsky (continuing in position)

Sports Editor
Pravin Patel (promoted from assistant sports editor)

Assistant Sports Editor
Christina Di Nicola (promoted from senior sports writer)

Photography Editor
Chelsea Matiash (promoted from assistant photo editor)

Assistant Photo Editor
Steve Root (promoted from staff photographer)

Webmaster
Brian Schlansky (continuing)

Multimedia Editor
Ryan Ondriezek (continuing)

Assistant Multimedia Editor
TBD

Copy Desk Chief
Nate Harris (promoted from copy editor)

I'm still undecided on what my role with the paper will be next year, but I plan to do something with online and multimedia. For one, Brian Schlansky and I will be working on the new site during the summer and beyond.

Now, back to working on a final project and (trying) to study for my two finals.

CommTogether right now, over...journalism

I'm a student in the School of Communication at the University of Miami, but you would think that the various journalism programs (print, broadcast and visual) speak different languages sometimes from the lack of collaboration that is present.

Yes, there have been several notable successes -- and I've been lucky to be in three classes this year that focus on convergence (In-depth reporting for convergent media, online journalism and interactive storytelling) -- but the level of cooperation is still not where it should be.

I kept all this is mind while devising a new final project for my CNJ 442 online journalism class, after the first plan regarding the new TheMiamiHurricane.com didn't work out a planned.

The result is a social networking site the class is developing using Ning:

CommTogether

The general idea came to me one night as I was chatting online with Hurricane Visuals Editor Will Wooten (check out his recent site redesign). Regarding the group name, which I love, credit goes to Kiersten Schmidt.

Here are details from the CNJ 442 proposal that I drafted and the class helped refine:

Goals

• Bring together in one forum the three journalism programs at the University of Miami School of Communication: print, broadcast and visual
• Recruit students, faculty, staff, alumni and prospective students
• Begin a conversation about the future of school’s journalism programs
• Conceptualize collaborative projects for classes, students, media outlets, etc.
• Take ideas and turn them into reality

Elements

• Profile pages: students, faculty, administrators
• Groups: programs, classes, projects, media
• Feeds: blogs, news, etc.
• Photos and videos
• Blogs: internal
• Comments

Action plan

• Discuss and decide on name for group (complete)
  
• Create network (complete)
• Create profile pages (complete)
• Create groups within network: programs, classes, media, organizations, etc.
  
• Invite/recruit students, professors, administrators, staff, alumni and prospective students (in progress)
  
• Table in the SoC courtyard
  
• Solicit ideas from everyone regarding the future of curriculum, organizations
• Conceptualize possible collaboration projects, way to converge
• Maintain the discussion
• Continue to recruit new group members

UPDATE: I forgot one very important reason for this site:

Students should have a voice in the development of curriculum.

Weigh in: Any suggestions/ideas for this site?

College Content Management social network

Last Saturday night I created a social networking site using Ning called College Content Management.

I've seen the power of Wired Journalists and NextNewsroom during the past few months and those served as my inspiration.

The idea floated around my head for a few weeks, but it was not realized until after I talked with Megan Taylor, online managing editor at The Alligator and Kevin Koehler, contributing editor (basically the online editor) at the Old Gold & Black at the NextNewsroom conference last week.

We talked extensively about each of our content management systems:

• The Miami Hurricane moving from College Publisher to WordPress
• The Alligator using Town News
• The Old Gold & Black using Expression Engine

It became clear to me that there's a desire among Web editors to share ideas, and gripe about their CMSes and, the day before I flew back home, the group was born.

The slogan: Because we all have to deal with a CMS.

The description: Do you have a Web site for your student media organization? "Yes." Mine does too. We should work together.

So, come one, come all student journalists, editors, advisers and anyone else who uses or manages a university/college news site.

And be sure to spread the word. I plan to start searching the Web for online editors' e-mail addresses to invite them, but any help would be much appreciated.

In my mind I'm going to Carolina

And so the music-themed posts continue tonight...

I'll be traveling to Columbia, S.C. for the SPJ region three conference in a few hours. This will be my third regional conference in as many years, at which I represent the University of Miami campus chapter and The Miami Hurricane.

Region three includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

Are you going? Let me know in a comment or via e-mail, greglinch[at]gmail.com.

Also, I'll be at Duke next week for the Next Newsroom conference. Drop me a line if you'll be there.

I love being a student and being able to travel to these conferences for free!

Stay tuned: I'll have my laptop there to liveblog and post general thoughts during both conferences. I will also have my video and still cameras.

Also, be sure to look for my Twitter updates during the conference -- and in general.

Weigh in: Would a tripod count against me as one of my two carry-on items? D'oh!

The CMSes they are a-changin'

Using a blogging platform for a Web site?

Yes.

After first planning to use Drupal, we've decided that it is no longer the best option for TheMiamiHurricane.com's new content management system.

So, (drumroll), we've decided to go with WordPress.

Why? In short, it is the better overall, long-term option. More reasons/details to come in a future post.

I'd like to thank Sean Blanda from Temple University. Sean's insights and advice -- via his blog, a session at the CMA conference in NYC that our news editor and adviser attended and an e-mail response to visuals editor Will Wooten -- helped us feel more confident in our final decision.

Some background: I started reading Sean's blog during spring break, particularly intrigued with the posts about the Temple News' experience with WordPress. Ironically, a day or two after reading some old posts, Will e-mailed me and brought up the idea of using WP after doing his own separate research.

Besides Temple, the Sagebrush at University of Nevada Reno also uses WordPress.

First map mashup for TheMiamiHurricane.com

It's not a technological marvel by any means, but it's an important first step to having interactive maps on TheMiamiHurricane.com - and later on the future site (expect an update post on that Thursday night, most likely).

As you can see, I used Google Maps.


View Larger Map

Why now to start?
As we were sending the paper to the printer, I was copyediting and came across a story in news about the Red Road Commons. I was disappointed to see there was no map requested (we need to do more print maps as well), so I felt inspired to just make a map for online.

Looking forward
We will definitely include more maps in the future. I also plan to expand this map by adding all of the on-campus dormitories and eventually popular off-campus.

One thing I need to play with and figure out: how to make smaller the windows that appear when you click the placemarkers.

Hurricane copy chief is Herald's newest online producer

Rafael Sangiovanni began writing and designing for The Miami Hurricane his freshmen year. Raph, as he is known, wrote for EDGE, the arts and entertainment section, through spring 2007.

He moved up to chief copy editor in fall 2007, his current position at The Hurricane, and was recently hired part-time as an online producer for The Miami Herald's Web site.

Here are a couple posts Raph wrote on Wired Journalists:

• One 'Wired' Journalist: anticipating the new experience
  
• I got to post my first story today: reflecting on his first few days
  

Here is a video of Raph talking about his experience so far:

Photographer alumna discusses multimedia

A not-so-old newspaper friend stopped by campus recently.

Allison Bezold-Diaz, who graduated from the University of Miami in spring 2007, spoke to my online journalism class last Thursday. She gave great tutorials on capturing/editing audio, photography/digital SLR basics and editing photos in Photoshop.

I sat down with Allison, a former Miami Hurricane photo editor, to ask her about the importance of multimedia and what advice she would give student journalists.

Here's what she had to say:

w00t, w00t: Visuals editor Will Wooten starts redesign blog

Let the Web design blogging begin!

Will Wooten, visuals editor at The Miami Hurricane, has started a blog about online journalism, specifically the redesign of The Hurricane's Web site.

Will is overseeing the aesthetic side of the project and will be posting updates and information about the redesign process. The blog will also act as a means for gathering feedback and discussing the new site.

And what is the name of this forum?

"Will's Blog."

Why such a simple name?

"The reason is, it is what it is. I don't want anything creative."

What about the design and color scheme?

"The serious bloggers are going to be using a reader anyway."

Unrelated, my favorite quote from Will came as he was updating his resume last semester. As he was finishing, he realized something:

"I forget to put that I was Time Magazine's person of the year in 2006 on my resume."

VIDEO: TheMiamiHurricane.com redesign

An introduction to the redesign process for TheMiamiHurricane.com, focusing on the content management system.

Converting to Drupalism

Drupal is looking more and more attractive as a replacement content management system for The Miami Hurricane's Web site. Our webmaster, Brian Schlansky, recently downloaded it and set it up on a virtual server on his laptop.

Here are some Drupal-related links:

• Newspapers on Drupal
• What can Drupal do for my newspaper site?
• Newspaper Sites with Drupal
• Now on Drupal HamptonRoads.com and PilotOnline.com
• Vanderbilt student media site opens up to the community » Invisible Inkling

College newspapers with Druapal (Media sites using Drupal):

• InsideVandy (Vanderbilt)
  
• The Hoya (Georgetown)
• Stony Brook Independent (Stony Brook University)
• Olivet College Echo Newspaper (Olivet College)

I'm going discuss Drupal's settings and modules in greater depth with Brian and post my thoughts. Stay tuned.

Background: Drupal is a free, open-source CMS and used by other newspaper for their site management, so it definitely seems like a viable option. We currently use College Publisher, which doesn't give us the freedom we would like and has been very frustrating recently.

Other CMS options I looked at:

• Ellington - a recommendation from Rick Hirsch, managing editor for multimedia at The Miami Herald. The Lawrence (Kan.) Journal World and Naples News, both of which have great sites, use this. The features looked great, but it just wasn't in our price range.
• Expression Engine - a recommendation from Kim Grinfeder, an assistant professor of visual journalism at UM. Looks nice, but isn't geared so much towards news sites.
  
• Joolma - an open source platform similar to Drupal, but it didn't stack up as well.
  
• Town News - used by The Independent Florida Alligator, which underwent a redesign during the summer. Looks like a good option, but has a price tag.
  

Weigh in: What CMS does your newspaper site use? Why is it good or bad?

Poynter site redesign process: A good model

I really like how Poynter is approaching their site redesign, it provides a good model for how TheMiamiHurricane.com, and others, should go about it.

Here's a video from Poynter's YouTube channel:



For more information about their redesign, check out the Poynter Online - Poynterevolution page.

School of Comm dean finalist for Syrcause spot

Here's a breaking news story I reported Tuesday night, thanks to an item from Romanesko:

Communication dean finalist for spot at Syracuse University (The Miami Hurricane)

This was the first local reporting of the story, which broke in Syracuse. It has more background and the first public comment from Grogg.

Back in action...sorta

The newsroom was abuzz for the first time in more than a month.

Editors abound. Couches pulled out. Ideas overfloweth.

It was great to see everyone again after break for The Miami Hurricane's first staff meeting of the semester. Old faces and new faces, all ready to get back into action (please excuse the cliche).

Here are some of the topics we discussed:

• Copyediting all possible content before layout, which will begin with first issue
  
• Outlook for multimedia this semester and what role the multimedia editor and assistant multimedia editor will play
  
• Preview of Web site overhaul, which will be a collaborative, semester-long effort; Art Director/Visuals Editor Will Wooten, Webmaster Brian Schlansky and I will take the lead, working with other staffers and Chris Delboni's CNJ 442 class
• New Sunday meeting structure
• Outline of SG spring election coverage timeline
• What everyone's favorite color is
• Adjustments to process for editorials
• Emphasizing the importance of blogs and being connected
• Highlighting that we are not just a newspaper, but a news organization
  

Weigh in: What would you like to see from the paper this semester?

Setting the stage for college newspapers online

An interesting look at the "stages" of community college newspapers online, though the breakdown is also easily translatable to a four-year, private institution like the University of Miami:

How to put the community college press online - Online Journalism Review (May, 1. 2007 by Rich Cameron)

I'd say The Miami Hurricane has reached the tail of the stage three beast. Looking forward to next semester, we'll continue to work on creating a better sense of community and concurrently plant at least one foot in stage four with even more breaking news, updates, online exclusive content and blogs.

Weigh in: What would you like to see from TheMiamiHurricane.com in the coming semester in terms of features, content, blogs, multimedia, etc.?

Online only: GOP forum coverage

News outlets descended upon the BankUnited Center at the University of Miami Sunday night to cover the Univision GOP forum. The Miami Hurricane was in the thick of it as well, with reporters watching the event from the media room and later roaming around with video cameras.

Read News Editor Karyn Meshbane liveblog the event from the press area.

Read the news story, watch the slideshow and related video here.

A taste of video

Since I've been talking about Web site-related topics today, I figured I might as well throw video into the mix.

Here is a video shot primarily by me, with a couple clips from Matt Bunch. Matt also did the editing and voiceover work. The package documents the full-day's experience for the final Miami Hurricanes home game at the Orange Bowl on Nov. 10. Enjoy!



Check out more videos from The Miami Hurricane on YouTube.

New drop down menu item

Well, I needed another study break and decided to add a drop down menu for blogs on the section bar. Here's a screen capture, but don't take my word for it, visit TheMiamiHurricane.com and try it yourself!

New online feature: Quick Links

Having a hard time finding the blogs page? Don't know where to find an application? Unable to get an RSS? Who's on staff? How do I post a calendar item?

All those questions are answered with TheMiamiHurricane.com's latest feature called Quick Links, which appear above the lead and featured story area on the homepage. Check it out: