Thoughts on Fish At Bay interactive storytelling class project and convergence

After a semester of work, my interactive storytelling class launched its site about fish in Biscayne Bay launched last Wednesday: Fish At Bay.

Hats off to our converged class of "print" and visual journalism students: Walyce Almeida, Maria Arroyave, Erica Landau, Brian Schlansky, Jen Shook, Jamie Straz, Alex Thacker and Jason Walker.

Our professors, Kim Grinfeder (visual journalism) and Sam Terilli (print journalism), did a great job overseeing the project -- and recruiting everyone. Also, thanks to our TA, Zeven Rodriguez.

To provide some background, Grinfeder and Terilli have collaborated the past two fall semesters with their Web production and in-depth storytelling classes, respectively. I was in the fall 2008 in-depth class.

With this spring's (experimental) interactive storytelling class, they took it to the next level of convergence. As far as I know, this was the first class at the University of Miami School of Communication to combine the talents of print and visual journalism students in one class.

I took advantage of the opportunity to get more experience shooting and editing video, as well as to become proficient with Final Cut Pro. I particularly enjoyed being able to work in so may areas:

• Write history story
• Shoot b-roll and take photos for history video
  
• Edit history video
• Edit and write cutlines for history photos
• Edit Delicate Balance video
  
• Shoot an interview for the Building on the Bay video
  
• Copy edit all stories
• Write about page
  
• Add p tags and hyperlinks (plus find links for) all stories
  

I'm usually critical of the lack of collaboration between the print and visual programs, but I've seen some very encouraging strides this semester.

Grinfeder and Terilli get it. Chris Delboni, my online journalism professor, and Michelle Seelig, the spring Web production professor, get it. (More thoughts on the online journalism class and our collaboration with the Web production class to follow).

So, what now?

Without a question, the interactive storytelling class should be a standard course, and it should be required for all journalism students at UM. Yes, that means bringing in broadcast as well. And there needs to be more converged classes, like an introductory storytelling class (more on this to come as well).

Resistance is futile. You must adapt.

Weigh in: What do you think of the Fish At Bay site?

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)

Visuals Editor
Shayna Blumenthal

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.

Mad Journalism

We had an assignment a few weeks ago in my online journalism class to do a "video bio." After two tries that involved yawn videos, I decided to try something completely different.

Sports Editor Matt Bunch joined me on April 7 to help shoot the third version. We put our heads together to get what you see in this final video. Enjoy!

Nevada Sagebrush uses Twitter to liveblog editor selection meeting

The Nevada Sagebrush (University of Nevada Reno) liveblogged its editor selection meeting Saturday afternoon using Twitter.

The tweets were very comprehensive and, needless to say, flooded my Twhirl window for the duration of the meeting, but it was all good fun.

Thanks to Chelsea Otakan for directing followers of her Twitter account to the Sagebrush's.

In an interesting twist, I recognized in an early tweet that one my fellow Miami Herald summer 2008 interns is on staff at the Sagebrush. It's a small world after all.

Weigh in: Does your news organization use Twitter?

Shameless plug: The Miami Hurricane's page.

(Since you're in the neighborhood, check out mine too.)

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.

NextNewsroom conference recap

Megan Taylor, managing editor for online/new media at The Independent Florida Alligator, and I had the same idea to recap the NextNewsroom conference, but she beat me to it:

NextNewsroom: Wrap-up

Megan summarized it all very well, so I won't repeat what's already been said except to thank Chris O'Brien for organizing what was hands-down one of the best journalism conferences I've attended -- and I've been to quite a few, thanks to The Miami Hurricane and UM's SPJ chapter.

I'd also like to thank Megan for providing the proper computer to stream video live using ustream.tv and later Yahoo!Live with my Canon HV20, which would have been impossible because I don't have a computer with a six-pin FireWire port. Her hand mic was another asset, helping us get pretty decent sound, and she played videographer for the first livestreamed session before I -- sadly -- gave back her MacBook Pro.

I couldn't have done it without her. And besides the awesomeness that is livestreaming video, this is a great testament to the importance of working as a team. I've done mojo/backpack journalist/one-man-band coverage of events before, but backpack journalist-squared is hands down the better way to go.

For more great coverage of the conference, as Megan also cites, check out Bryan Murley's CoverItLive blogs: day 1 and day 2.

Weigh in: What did you think of all the coverage?

NextNewsroom - Innovation for college media

Facilitated by Kathleen Sullivan



Notes from the board

What changes need to be made

• Different deadline reality
• Different sources for content
• Story doesn't end when it goes to print (continue the discussion)
  

Assets and obstacles to adaptation

• What can be delegated and what can't (address workload)
• Assign a team to a long running story
• Build an in-house wiki (not starting from scratch each year)
• Territorial attitudes towards space
  
• Interdisciplinary staff, not just "journalism" major or the equivalent
• Think about the mark they leave, legacy
• Workload, time management: Go for low-hanging fruit, make things doable
• Competition (either with other student people or local publications)
  

UT Arlington: once a week in print, five times a week online

NextNewsroom - How to change from the old to the new

Facilitated by John North, Knoxville News Sentinel

What is the new world?
"It's publishing now, we don't wait."

On the board

Old World:

• Print tomorrow or
• Print whenever

New World: Web, e-mail, text

• Publish now
• Publish now
• Publish now
• Publish now
• Print tomorrow
  

You [should] begin to work a story throughout the day. Start with a a few graphs early on and evolve the story slowly -- not a 15- to 20-inch update each time.

"We're talking about quick hits and things you can get up quickly."

Then, you can reach into that system and put it into the newspaper.

"For us, it's really been, 'Wow, you can do this?' "

Shannon Morgan, editor in chief, The Arbiter, Boise State

• "My focus to tell the stories in as many dimensions as we can."
• You also have to make sure the various elements are different.
• People thought, "Oh, she's just that multimedia girl -- she doesn't know journalism."

Megan Taylor, managing editor for online, The Independent Florida Alligator

• She recently wrote a story for the front page and people were surprised she could write.
• Regarding having staff do new media: "You can't just tell them what they have to do, you just have to do it."

North

"Universities are on the radar nationwide now. You guys can do amazing things. If you guys feel limited, you're not; there are no barriers." Wait until you get to the paid world to see limits.

For new media: "If you set that expectation, you will get the result you want. ... Once you start that little bit of synergy, it tends to begin to grow itself." It's not so difficult to push through that wall to find success.

Promotion/marketing:
Examples include promos, Web refers, etc.

"Sometimes you just have to be creative and think outside of the box."

SPJ region 3 conference update

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- It's day two here at the SPJ region 3 convention at the University of South Carolina.

Yesterday was great. New people, new ideas. I attended the following sessions:

• New Media Challenges: I learned a lot more about managing online communities.
  
• Preparing for Tomorrow's Newsroom: A very original and insightful presentation by Joe Grimm.
  
• Freelancing for the New Media Age: There was basically no mention of new media, but the freelancing tips were good.
  
• Reception: Chatted with students and others while eating chicken and brownie and sipping sweet, sweet iced tea.
  

I was unable to liveblog the events yesterday afternoon because there is no guest access to USC's wireless network. I took notes and post summaries of the events when time allows.

What's on deck today:

• One-man Banding
• Mark of Excellence luncheon
• Reporting by the Numbers
• The Changing Political Landscape

Then we fly back to Miami tonight and it's deadline tomorrow!

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.

Advice for bloggers, part one: Reader stats

I started blogging in November to discuss online journalism, journalism education and other related topics.

Since mid-January, I've also been using the blog to fulfill an online journalism class requirement because everyone in class is required to maintain a blog.

Professor Sam Terilli, who spoke to my class Thursday about law and the Internet (see related video), brought up a point that one of my classmates, Josh Newman, mentioned on his blog Friday:

"[Terilli asked] the question that, I think, made most of my classmates (including myself, excluding Greg Linch) squirm a little. 'How many people read your blogs?' ...Silence."

Josh goes on to mention Google Analytics. This is a great service, but it's only one way to measure how many readers you have.

I subscribe to all of my classmates' blogs via Google Reader and would recommend that they utilize FeedBurner, an earlier suggestion (How to...use FeedBurner) that the class has been using, to keep track of their subscribers.

FeedBurner is great for adding an e-mail subscription widget, something our professor required, but that should only be a preliminary step.

Explore the different tabs in FeedBurner, specifically "Publicize" and "Analyze" -- the latter of which shows you how many RSS subscribers you have. The number of subscribers is also available on the "My Feeds" page.

There's a lot that can be said about the question of increasing blog traffic and readers, so I decided to divide my thoughts into shorter posts.

Stay tuned...

UPDATE, March 23: I clarified above that not all journalism students are required to blog -- only the ones in the CNJ 442 Online Journalism class.

Other School of Communication students have their on personal blogs and may blog through the SoC's Web site.

Also, I should have mentioned SiteMeter as another option for blog/site analytics.

Journalism prof, former Herald counsel's advice for new (or any) bloggers

Sam Terilli, a University of Miami journalism professor whose background is in law, spoke with my online journalism class Thursday about law and the Internet. He has practiced law for more than 24 years, including 12 as general counsel at The Miami Herald.

After his talk I asked him what advice he would give to a student wanting to start a blog. Check it out his answer, which is relevant to any blogger.

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.

SPJ job/internship panel

Change of plan for the streaming, please use this link to watch:

http://umtv.miami.edu/site/live.php

Job/internship panel to be livestreamed today at 12:30 p.m.

I'll be moderating a panel today that will discuss what students need to know and do to prepare for journalism jobs and internships.

My money is on mindset and skillset, in addition to the fundamentals.

The event will begin at 12: 30 p.m. in Studio A of the School of Communication and is hosted by the UM student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (and organized by me!).

The speakers are:

• Rick Hirsch, managing editor for multimedia at The Miami Herald
• Michelle Morgante, assistant Florida bureau chief with the Associated Press
• Kathy Pellegrino, recruitment editor at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

The first part of the event will be a Q & A session with the panelists, each of which does recruiting work for his/her respective organization. After that, they will meet individually with students to provide personalized feedback, critique resumes, etc.

Inspiration for the livecast medium
After watching the livecast of a video strategy session (The Northern Short Course in Photojournalism) on ustream.tv, which Howard Owens teased on his blog, I thought it would be good to do the same with our session using that service.

And yesterday I saw Kyle Hansen's post LIVE Video! announcing that The Spartan Daily at San Jose (Calif.) State would be using ustream as well to broadcast a session Monday with the university president: The live video worked!

I had originally thought to do our livestream through the School of Comm's Web channel, but they don't have a player that I could use to embed the video.

Background
You may recall that this event was originally scheduled to take place during this year's Communication Week on Feb. 19. Unfortunately, we had to cancel because Fidel Castro decided to announcement that he was stepping down as president of Cuba that day.

Ask a question: Feel free to comment on this post or use the video player's built-in chat feature to submit a question, which requires registering with ustream.

Full disclosure: I interned at the Sentinel last summer and will be at The Herald this summer.

The discussion gets more interesting: Blogging about blogging, part deux

No, this is not a repeat post; this is "The Empire Strikes Back" version (sort of) to my last post, Blogging about blogging.

In that previous entry I linked to a March 12 post -- and a great follow-up -- by Howard Owens of GateHouse Media. With the first post, Owens responded to Dallas Maverick's owner Mark Cuban's explanation (March 10) of why he banned bloggers in the Mavs locker room.

Here are some of Cuban's comments from a March 13 post that came a day after Owens' remarks, most likely aimed at the general response to his March 10 announcement:

• "...newspapers having 'bloggers' is easily one of the many bad decisions that newspapers have made over the past 10 years."
• "Never, ever, ever consider something that any literate human being with Internet access can create in under 5 minutes to be a product or service that can in any way differentiate your business." [My reaction: really?]
  
• "A blog is a blog is a blog is a blog."
  
• "if I were marketing for them [The New York Times], I would be doing everything I could to send the message that 'The NY Times does not have blogs, we have Real Time Reports from the most qualified reporters in the world.' "
  

I comprehend his point regarding the Real Time Reports title, but this idea still seems contradictory to his "a blog is a blog is a blog" statement.

The Times' Saul Hansell responded earlier this evening with What I’ve Learned as a Blogger for The New York Times. Here are some of his points:

• "I’d say that blog is the name of a format for information and opinion that is roughly analogous to 'column' or 'newsletter.' The format itself doesn’t tell you whether the content is pedestrian or inflammatory, impressionistic or deeply researched."
• "...blogs are part of a conversation"
• "...blogs can be a great extension to articles reported initially for the newspaper"
• "One of the traditions of this place is an aversion to euphemisms. So call it whatever you want, but if it links like a blog, and is open like a blog, and interacts like a blog, then it is a blog."

These are all right on the mark, as is one of Owens' concluding remarks, which came before Cuba's more recent post: "So Cuban sells bloggers short, sadly."

Weigh in: What do you think of all these opinions? With whom do you agree?

Blogging about blogging

Several interesting blog posts about blogging have appeared in my Google Reader recently. Here are a few that I would recommend:

• 10 blogs your newspaper needs to rip off » Invisible Inkling
• Journalists who learn to blog help their online sites grow beyond repuporsed print news | Howard Owens
  
• Mark Cuban hits nothing but air in his stance on blog media | Howard Owens
• The Journalism Iconoclast » A blog for bloggers

Security, namely regarding WordPress, has also been a hot topic after MultimediaShooter.com was hacked and put out of business. See two of Pat Thornton's posts here (about the hacking) and here (discussing WordPress and security) for a taste of the discussion.

As a side note, if you're interested in online journalism, blogging, etc., you should subscribe to each of these bloggers -- they always provide great insight.

See who else I read by scrolling down to "Journalism Blogs" on the right side of the page.

Weigh in: What's you favorite blog?

Ricardo Lopez discusses video with online journalism class

Ricard Lopez, a Miami Herald visual journalist, gave a presentation to my online journalism class about video Thursday evening. He was joined by Candace Barbot, a photojournalist convert to video.

Ricardo last spoke at UM during Communication Week, leading one of the new media workshops and participating in the new media panel. Check out advice he and other panelists gave students here.

See examples of his work and be sure to check out Chicken Busters, which is everyone's favorite.