I am enormously proud to be a part of the team that is reinventing the way news content is distributed.

Monday at TechCrunch Disrupt, Publish2 CEO Scott Karp announced the company’s newest product, the Publish2 News Exchange. The entire Publish2 team sat huddled around laptops throughout our various locations in the U.S., cheering him on through our backchannel IM conversation. It was a momentous day for which we’ve all been working very hard.

We placed in the top five for the startup battlefield competition (Congrats to the winner, Soluto), and have gained tremendous momentum in the past five days. From here, we’ll continue to sign up beta users, roll out a full launch, and revolutionize publishing as we know it.

Here’s a video of Scott’s presentation:

Everything you need to know about the News Exchange

• We’re calling it P2X for short.
• The goal of P2X is to disrupt the publishing business, notably the monopoly created by the Associated Press
• We’ve created an open marketplace for news content distribution
• Any content producers can contribute to the exchange — bloggers, independent/freelancers, and, of course, newspapers and other news organizations
• Content creators set the terms and rates
• We want to “Craigslist” the AP (i.e. take a multimillion dollar monopoly, downscale it and make it more efficient)
• There’s a “story ideas” feature that lets multiple newsorgs request reportage on the same budget item
• The platform integrates with print publishing systems through an automated FTP setup
• Although it seems counterintuitive for us to focus on print, but it’s vital because it’s the only way to disrupt the AP. We’re creating a bridge for newspapers now as a starting point for a better tomorrow. (Scott says — and I most certainly agree — that news brands will survive after the death of print)

What others are saying

These are just a few of my favorite tidbits from bloggers and tweeters around the web in response to the launch of P2x. This morning Ryan Sholin posted a far more comprehensive list of reactions.

[...] they are courageously pivoting into a new business model but based soundly (as far as I can tell) on the learnings and proximity they have had with publishers and journalists in the last few years. It doesn’t hurt that their CEO is a domain expert and that they have a strong advisory board. I believe in lean startup thinking but I don’t believe that pivoting blindly will usually lead to success -Darryl Siry

One feature of News Exchange that fell under the radar at TechCrunch is a story ideas database – basically an RFP for story assignments. Editors can post a request for coverage; other members can respond with an existing article or a commitment to write something. -Rob ORegan

The beauty of News Exchange is it opens the door to bring non-traditional content into traditional products. As with any new venture, particularly one that turns tradition on its head, there will be bumps, even moats, in the road. But the prospects of lively yet professional content from new voices are too much to ignore….AP can no longer stand on its laurels and take baby steps in re-inventing itself. That clock stopped ticking earlier today. Logan Molen

Because the News Exchange is still in beta and has yet to be rolled out, there are some missing features. The big one publishers will be concerned about is being able to track how your story is used by your subscribers. … However, Sholin said a form of analytics will come … The goal, he said, is to provide news orgs with data on how their content is used, and as News Exchange gets rolled out, Publish2 is going to play with different variation of analytics and reporting though it may require a manual effort from news orgs using the content. -Vadim Lavrusik

And this tweet from Ryan Sholin sums up what we have to look forward to over the next months:

ryansholin: My job right now is talking to brilliant journalists on the phone all day and show them cool new tools. I love my job.

Intrigued yet? If so, sign up for beta or email contact@publish2.com if you have questions.

More videos from TechCrunch Disrupt:

Yes, this post is a bit delayed, but now that I’m on a flight home to Cali, I finally have a moment to finish it.

My BCNI experience finished with a bang thanks to Major Highfield‘s roundtable discussion on news site design and mobile news design. For those of you who don’t know Major, the former newsie is now the mobile tech lead for ING Direct. His roundtable was an open discussion about what works and what doesn’t in current news design, and a look forward at new ideas and trends.

He identified the following most common types of design we see in news:

Column Design (NYT)

Very reminiscent of print design, “column”-based news sites have thin vertical modules. The most well-known example is the New York Times.

Grid view (CNN)

The grid news design has less emphasis on hierarchy and gives equal balance to story display. Although Major used CNN as the example, I’ve included Newser as a more ideal example of the grid layout.

Buckets (MSNBC)

Bucket designs group stories by topic beneath a main header.

Lists (Digg)

Timeline view or “river” view are also common terms for a list layout which is as it sounds: A list of headlines, like Digg.

Combo package (Toronto Star)

The Toronto Star combines these different possibilities by offering the user different modes of viewing news, although Major noted that this isn’t ideal UI. The Toronoto Star manages multiple layouts from which the users can choose their favorite:

Major said you should push out the best user experience and not force the user to choose. Based on the heavy emphasis the Star’s designers put on evidence-based design, I’d venture to guess that they’re collecting data about which display is used most often in preparation for something radical. But that’s just a guess.

Combining advertising with editorial design

Traditionally, display ads thrown into random columns and headers of news sites was the preferred advertising style online, as adapted from a print model. The new type of advertising comes in the form of embedded ads (i.e. ads displayed inline with the rest of the editorial content). We see this manifesting in LA Times’ decision to sell keyword ads within articles this week. A bad example of this can also be seen on CNN.com:

A good example of embedded advertising is in the free desktop version of Tweetie:

I think the reason CNN’s embedded ads fail is because CNN isn’t being honest with its customers. Tweetie clearly labels its ads as such and implements them elegantly into the design of the app. It also helps that the ads are very targeted at the user. CNN’s embedded ads try to look like editorial content and it’s deceitful. They’re also not very useful or pretty.

Takeaways

So the point of all this is that news sites still suck. One nugget that really stood out was in our conversation about news site navigation. We still categorize stories under sports, arts, news, opinion, etc. because this is how the print product was laid out. But is that what’s relevant to readers? I know that when I browse news, I don’t care about the topic. I care about the timeliness and its relevance to me, no matter what “section” it falls within. I don’t necessarily want to read about crime and sports, but if it’s happening within a three block radius of me, then I do care. So maybe instead of categorizing news sites into traditional categories, we can make the main navigational elements more relevant with categories like “time” and “location” (see the Spokesman Review for a great example of this).

One revelation that came about for me during this discussion (which might ironically deem this entire blog post irrelevant) is the fact that news design doesn’t matter at all when we’re all subscribing to news via RSS. Is there really any type of news site experience that will be more convenient and relevant? Am I ever going to want to visit 40 different sites each day, all of which are designed differently, and hunt down news that’s relevant to me within each of those sites? Or would I rather leave my Google Reader extension active in the browser, open in it in between tasks, quickly be presented with news I already know is relevant to me (distraction-free), and carry on with life? The latter is the news consumption pattern that fits best into my daily routine and allows me to consume the most news in the least amount of time. The fact that Google Reader’s social features push me the most relevant news being shared by the people I follow only increases its relevancy.

So maybe the question we should be asking ourselves as news designers isn’t how to make our sites better, but how to create an experience that surpasses that of the Google Reader experience. And maybe that’s the topic of another post. Stay tuned…

Howard Weaver was at BCNI to talk about a new news model in Hawaii from the Honolulu Civil Beat (an outlet from Peer News) that wants to challenge the notion that “people won’t pay for content” (disclosure: it is a venture to which he was a consultant and he now has a diminishing role).

The site will focus on community news in Honolulu and charge a $20/month subscription fee to access content. There will be a few-dollar fee to even access the site because the founder, Pierre Omidyar, believes in a capitalist economy that won’t be sustainable if you give anything away for free from the start.

All Howard’s opinions were his only. He does not represent Peer News or the Civil Beat, although he was a consultant for them.

“Why is a Facebook beer worth more than your news story?” Howard asked in a recent blog post. People pay for fake gifts on Facebook, but won’t pay a dollar for a news story. This is a problem. We first have to answer it before moving on to charge for content.

The basic premises for adopting Civil Beat’s model:

1. It has to be an online newsorg that has no production costs
2. The news has to be a niche product, an “elite” niche
3. As a result, there’s a need for hyper-efficiency
4. There has to be a focus on technology (only 5 reporters, but two programmers).

What is the atomic unit of journalism?

An atomic unit was a “news article” in the past. But an atomic unit of journalism is going to change radically in the new era of journalism. News can’t be “articles” but a service. The Civil Beat is drastically changing the way they view the final product.

The atomic unit of journalism is tied to co-creation.  We see evidence of their mindset in the fact that the job title for their staff members is “reporter hosts”  (because reporters are servants in the process of gathering the news).

An important part of the news site is the living story. Although Google launched “living stories,” Howard noted that they were really like topic pages. Peer News wants to approach stories realistically. For example, if there’s a new zoning law, it’s based on something initiated 10 years prior. A traditional news aritcle throws in background information in a few grafs, but the living story doesn’t assume the reader will do his/her own background research. The living story is fully contextual.

Why he thinks it will work:

• Small staff is hyper-efficient on open source tools, so the production costs are drastically cut
• They’ll be reaching a unique, elite niche for which professionals like real estate agents will want to and be capable of paying

Some people in the audience were skeptical about the paywall. A few questions that were asked:

• How can a democratizing force also be sustainable financially? If you charge, is it still democratizing? Howard made the comparison to broccoli (deep, investigative, valuable stories) and curley fries (fluff, generic, cheap, reporting). We can’t babysit society and ensure that they’ll read what’s good for them, but we hope that they have strong enough judgment to know that it’s good for them.

Plugging into the already-existing blog network

Although the Civil Beat doesn’t intent to include advertising, Howard’s suggestion to them would be to connect with local blogs and build an ad network. The Civil Beat will cover elite topics, but not nightlife and food and entertainment, etc. If local blogs can fill that space and they can share advertising, everyone would profit.

The site will launch officially with full content May 4.

Last week I had somewhat of an identity crisis.

As I briefly contemplated redesigning my website, I threw together a quick mockup in Photoshop. The nameplate across the top read: Lauren Michell Rabaino: designer/journalist.

Then I paused. Wait– am I still a journalist? Was I ever really a journalist? Hell, what is a journalist?

And, like any other intellectually conflicted moment in my life, I tweeted.

I received a lot of responses from the twitterverse, but the general consensus is that yes, I am indeed still a journalist. The responses from twitter can be categorized into two types:

1. The people who share the same sense of distance from the act of reporting, but still call themselves journalists.

“I still call myself a journalist and I don’t even work in the field anymore.” - P. Kim Bui

“I haven’t written in a year, but I still consider myself both a designer and journalist.” - Leo Post

“Definitely still a journalist. we have to broaden the definition. I havent reported in a while.” - Gabriel Sama

2. The people who tried to rationalize why I could still be considered a “journalist.”

” You still care more about journalism than half the people I know in the field. I think the title fits.” -Juana Summers

“If you apply journalistic practice to our work, you’re a journalist. Applies w/ design, online, producing, etc.” - Brian Manzullo

“If you were a newspaper designer you’d consider yourself a journalist. Why any different designing for a journalism app?” Scott Karp

But none of these reasons seem good enough to me. Does caring about a topic make you an expert and professional of that topic? I care about climate change, but I’m not an environmental scientist. I also apply ethics to my work, does that make me a philosopher?

The reason all the people in the first set of responses consider themselves “journalists” is because at some point in some capacity, they’ve all worked/written for a news publication. Traditionally, that’s been a good determinant (and the only determinant) in qualifying whether someone is, indeed, a journalist. But now, contributing to the finding, organizing, and distribution of news can take many different forms (like, for example, building a news app used by journalists).

This might start to sound like a discussion on citizen journalism, but it’s not (although it is a related tangent). I’m not addressing this discussion at the bloggers out there who have no affiliation with a traditional news outlet and questioning whether they are journalists. I’m directing this conversation at the people who have worked at newspapers and been trusted reporters — when they stop reporting, do they still get to keep the title?

My answer, after much contemplation, is yes. As long as we stay committed and passionate about the act of journalism, we can keep the title.

I am a journalist — not as a profession, but as a way of life.

It’s a way of life for many of us. Increasingly, society tweets happenings that are relevant to others or take photos of crashes from the driver’s seat with an iPhone.

But that’s not what I mean when I say journalism is a way of life for me; it’s embedded deeply into the way I think and approach news consumption.

After working at my high school newspaper, a few local papers, my college paper, as a radio reporter, etc., there is a journalistic nature to my thought processes that I will never lose. It’s a trait that distinguishes me from a “citizen” journalist. I think about leads and transitions when I read a news story, analyze use of sources, think of missing gaps. Although this process is not unique to a trained journalist’s news consumption habits, in my case, my habits are defined specifically by my background in journalism. And at any point, I would be able and willing to jump into investigative reporting, sifting through court documents or transcribing hours of notes.

But that’s not to say that the random dude on a metro with a video camera who records a murder isn’t a journalist; I would most certainly consider him one too. Would I expect him to put “journalist” on his Twitter bio, though? Certainly not. And that’s where we get to the next point of discussion…

The journalist spectrum

So what is a journalist these days? There are many answers to this question. I’m a different kind of journalist than the on-call beat reporter for a local TV station, and she’s a different kind of journalist than the kid with a Flip Cam.

There are different kinds of journalists now.

Initially, I was inclined to place them in a hierarchy as follows:

But there’s a problem with categorizing journalists into any form of hierarchy; you imply that there are journalists who are more valuable or credible than others. This is an entirely false assumption.

In shaping a new definition of “journalist,” we need to place the different types on a spectrum. A spectrum accounts for the differences among the different kinds of journalists, but also gives them equal value:

Although still imperfect, the spectrum approach gives more clarity to the different kinds of journalist in the new era of news. Of course, there is tons of overlap among the different aspects (citizens can investigate; pros can capture news with their iPhones).

Under this spectrum, nearly everyone is a journalist because everyone has something valuable to bring to the table. Trained, experienced, traditional journalists can curate, contextualize and investigate, and that job is enhanced by bloggers, tweeters and YouTubers. There is a need for both, but we’re still working on finding the appropriate balance.

What does “journalist” mean to you?

Inspired by Mark Luckie’s recent post about great holiday gifts for newsies, I thought I’d throw in my two cents. I recently read Jeff Jarvis’ What Would Google Do and recommend it as a last-minute holiday gift– for both techy journalist friends and non-journalism family members.

It’s the perfect last-minute gift for anyone with a slight tinge of geek in their blood or the old-fashioned curmudgeons in need of enlightenment. If you’re not sold, here’s a quick little taste of what the book is about:

If that doesn’t hit the spot, Brady Teufel has a great list of journalistic, creative non-fictions that would also make for great Christmas presents.

Happy Holidays, everyone. See you in 2010.

While checking e-mail on my stroll to work this morning, I stopped dead in my tracks. Twice.

The first gasp of disbelief was after reading an e-mail from ostensibly one of the most “old-school” journalism professors at Cal Poly requesting the help of yours truly to integrate social networking into his curriculum. The second was from another very traditional professor who is willing to pay me $15/hour to produce videos to supplement her lectures.

In the same morning, two professors showed interest in breaking away from tradition. What’s going on here? Is there some kind of revolution underway? Are they finally starting to understand?

I blame (or thank) the $584 million budget deficit hitting the CSU.

Before the budget crunch hit California, professors saw no direct impact of being stuck in their ways. Their students were the ones feeling the hit with job losses after college. Now, it’s a little different. Here at Cal Poly, our multimedia professor was recently put on tenure track and we brought a second multimedia professor on board — that’s right, a new professor during a hiring freeze and faculty cuts. That means we’re getting serious about change. And professors are probably realizing that if they don’t catch up, they’ll be replaced by a younger, more tech-savvy generation.

So, while a few videos and knowledge of social media won’t save journalism, at least it’s a step forward. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I was listening to Biz Stone (a founder of Twitter) talk on the Colbert Report about the fact their social network has no business model yet. He made an interesting point that totally made a light bulb go off in my head: there is a difference between value and profit.

Right now Twitter is building value, the profit will come later.

What are your thoughts on this? Shouldn’t there be at least some plan for profit, no matter how valuable your product is?

That’s the issue with newspapers right now. The product is valuable, but online, you can’t make money off it. The value doesn’t necessarily guarantee profit. 

Does that mean news online isn’t valuable? Or maybe we’re just looking for profit in the wrong places. Thoughts?

Tuesday was the first day of my entrepreneurship class, which I’m taking in case I decide to work at a start-up or create a nonprofit. Although the class has nothing to do with journalism directly, I think about every concept in terms of news.

The professor, Johnathan York, described the four stages of entrepreneurial growth using an airplane metaphor: 

Stage 1: Opportunity

Are the circumstances right? Do you have the fuel? Do you have the passengers to board the plane?

In terms of journalism, the circumstances are absolutely right because there is a need for a new model. The old model is failing and that is the fuel. The passengers (readers) are there and will always be there. In fact, there are more passengers now than ever. 

On a less theoretical level, you’ll need to get your hands on money and staff to put your non-profit into action.

Stage 2: Launch

You have the materials, now you need to get off the ground. This means coming up with a business model that will work. 

In journalism, this is the toughest aspect because current online models aren’t working. You’ll want to look toward new, innovative models like the Voice of San Diego (a non-profit, online-only organization) or Spot.Us (community-funded journalism).

You’ll have to launch a model that doesn’t fall into the same path as traditional newspapers.  Print advertisements will not transfer to online, so you’ll have to come up with revenue models beyond advertising.

For example, the San Diego Union-Tribune recently hosted a live chat in its Marketplace web site.  Three real estate professionals answered questions from first-time home buyers over the chat. This simple, interactive form of advertising let users connect directly with agencies, which says more about their brands than a banner advertisement ever could.

We need to think beyond static images and into truly innovative forms of advertising that consumers will actually pay attention to. 

Stage 3: Growth

You’re off the ground — how do you stay in the air?  If you try to stay in the air using the same techniques you used when lauching, you’ll crash. 

In other words, get your content out there and give it value. Gain readers. Use social networks to promote yourself and find ways to accumulate more revenue. 

Stage 4: Harvest

If you make it to stage four, you’ve done well — but it’s not over. How do you land safely?

In any other business model, “harvesting” would be selling and getting a return on the value of your business. For a news organization, you wouldn’t want to harvest by selling, but by ensuring that your business will continue to bring in long-term revenue. 

A news organization doesn’t want to just “land safely.” That’s what put the industry in a tough place to begin with. They got comfortable with what was working and didn’t move beyond it when they needed to. Harvesting the value of your news organization will mean continuing to stay ahead of the curve, and constantly thinking ahead.

The National Scholastic Press Assocation (high school version of ACP) announced its annual online pacemaker finalists, and for the first time since before I was editor in chief there, the Grizzly Gazette did not place.

I’m not going to say I’m surprised by this. The Grizzly Gazette — the online-only newspaper for Granite Hills High School in Porterville, Calif. — is produced and maintained 100 percent by students. The problem: they update by hand in Dreamweaver. That’s right, no content management system.

With multiple updates a day, there’s a huge focus on the technical end and not so much on the content. I’m not saying that the technical aspect isn’t important, but it’s not a web design class; it’s a journalism class. The flashy stuff is worthless when the content is no good.

By using a CMS, the students could focus on producing high-quality content, including (not limited to) video and slideshows and podcasts and — dare I say it — writing! A CMS won’t entirely forfeit the students’ ability to learn the dynamics of HTML and the web, it just takes away the redundancy of adding a new row to the top of the page and inserting a fresh thumbnail and hyperlink with each new article. Instead, students can focus their technical expertise on more advanced skills.

I hope with this year’s loss, the students (and adviser) realize it’s time to move on to a content management system like WordPress or Drupal. 

Advice from a college j-student

Now to the real point of this blog post (now that I’m done preaching about their need for a CMS). Yes, Pacemaker awards make for good bragging rights, but the real value of being involved with the Grizzly Gazette is the freedom to innovate. 

Upon reflecting on my days with the Gazette, I realize that the environment I was so accustomed to in high school is exactly what college journalism education needs right now. Evan Hackett (the Gazette advisor) had the idea of starting an online-only newspaper, despite criticism from the school district’s IT administrators that it would be too hard. They literally laughed in his face. Because of his indestructive optimism (and stubborn persistence), I came into college ten steps ahead of the rest of my journalism peers. 

He took it upon himself to learn Dreamweaver and get students motivated. In Mr. Hackett’s classroom, the word “No” didn’t exist. We tried new things and broke the rules and went against every expectation that anyone ever had. 

In high school, I never realized that I was producing the future of journalism. I didn’t realize the industry was changing or struggling. I didn’t realize how groundbreaking it was that I was part of a leading student news site or that teaching myself HTML and Photoshop would have so much value. 

College journalism school is in desperate need for educators like Hackett. We need people who are willing to stay up with the times and force students to do the same. We need teachers who let their students take control and try to learn with them as they go. We need more Evan Hacketts in the college world.

So, Grizzly Gazetters, this post is for you. Let this be an opportunity for you to seriously assess the news site. Find out what works and what doesn’t. What are your weaknesses and how can you improve? Most of all, how can you innovate? Do things that the professional and college worlds haven’t thought of yet. 

Trust me, the rest of the journalism world is struggling. In high school, you have nothing to lose. There are no major advertisers at stake. You’re not pressured with the lingering fear of getting a job. You’re free to experiment and bring fresh ideas to the rest of us. You’re free to make mistakes without terrible repercussions. Take advantage of it while you still have a teacher who will let you get away with anything and support you along the way. 

Nothing is holding you back. So hold your heads high, restructure, re-prioritize and have a strong comeback next year.

This week’s #collegejourn chat resulted in a plan to help professors get on board with the 21st cenutry:

Who: Professors, students, journalists, professionals
What: “Bring a professor” chat
When: Sun., Feb. 22
Where:  www.collegejourn.com
Why: To discuss ways to modernize college journalism education 

Us vs. them

I hate to make this us vs. them, but to be honest, this is an us vs. them situation. Some would argue that “we’re all in this together,” both the professors and the students. But it’s not that way. The students and the industry are in this together. But the professors aren’t impacted directly. If they fall behind, they don’t see the direct consequences of falling behind and thus have no incentive to change. 

It doesn’t have to be us vs. them though. Professors can eliminate the us vs. them by taking the risks students are expected to take.  The classroom should foster that innovation, not hinder it. We can take the risks together. 

“Communication in a communication department would be a start,” said the Mustang Daily managing editor Giana Magnoli when the topic came up in our newsroom. And that’s what #bringajprof chat is about. Bringing that communication between staff and students to a national worldwide level. 

I recently wrote a blog post that sums up the changes I’d like to see in journalism education:

1. Scrap print as a track: There is no such thing as a purely print publication. Thus a solely “print” concentration is pointless. Replace it with a “multimedia” track and keep very minimal print aspects involved.
2. Make video a must for all concentrations: Public relations and news editorial both need to know video editing. Broadcast students who already know how to shoot/edit video need to know how to get it on the Web. All three need to know how to live stream and incoroporate a live chat. 
3. Create a class about social media: Not about platoforms or social networks, though. A class about the community, the conversation, the two-way dynamic of the Web. 
4. Create media business course. Joey Baker said it best in his recent blog post: ”What we need more than anything else is a business model for our industry that is sustainable. Why need students not only to be aware of the problem, but contributing to the brain storming that will eventually lead to a solution.”

At Cal Poly, we’re adding a “new media” track to our journalism department (as a supplement to broadcast, editorial and public relations). But in an economic crunch when money and resources are low, we shouldn’t create a new track– we should revamp existing tracks. 

Current situation:

There is one “new media” class in our entire journalism department: applied multimedia reporting, JOUR 410. I put “new media” in quotes because that phrase bugs me. It’s not really new anymore, is it? That already puts us behind the curve when we’re thinking of it as something new and emerging. It needs to be integrated. It needs to be like breathing. When it’s “new,” it’s scary. Students don’t like scary.

This solitary multimedia class is not a required course; it’s an elective class open to all tracks within the journalism major. It’s taught by the ONE tech-savvy professor in our department, our savior, Brady Teufel. 

From blogging to podcasting to soundslides to flash to video editing to HMTL to content management systems, students are expected to learn it all in one 10-week session. Each of those topics separately could fill a cirriculum for their own separate 10 week courses, so you can imagine how rushed it is. That’s not the way to learn. You can’t edit one 30-second video and expect to be a pro. But when we only have one professor and one class dedicated to multimedia– what other options do we have?

To give you a feel for a few classes that are required for all journalism majors: writing for the media, mass media in a multicultural society, mass media law, visual communication, journalism ethics

Print concentrations: copy editing, public affairs reporting, feature writing, advanced newspaper reporting

Broadcast concentrations: Broadcast news, broadcast announcing and editing, ENG reporting, advanced radio reporting, advanced TV reporting

Public relations concentrations: Intro to public relations, advanced public relations writing, public relations campaigns, advanced public relations practice

If our department really wants to take a proactive “new media” approach to prepare its students for the world ahead –while being economical and saving money/resources — this is how it should be done:

1. Scrap print as a track

Although the technical name for the track is “news editorial,” internally, it’s a print track. Instead, it should be called the multimedia concentration, although it would be ok to maintain a few print elements. Why scrap it? Because there is no such thing as a purely print publication (and if there is, it’s sure to go bankrupt soon). 

For example, students are required to take a feature writing class with a basis in writing 2,500 word features. For students who want to go into magazine writing, it’s great — but it should be an elective. A required class that could replace it would be a class about newswriting for the Web, since it will be valuable to every concentration.

The curriculum for a web-writing class could include:

• Blogging
• Tagging posts/articles
• Using keywords
• Hyperlinking
• Writing effective headlines
• Effective, web-based research (RSS feeds to find story ideas)
• Engaging in discussion with your readers
• Crowdsourcing via social networks to find sources
• Commenting on other blogs/drawing readership

…just to name a few.

2. Make video a must for all concentrations
Combining talent and resources with the broadcast track, the multimedia track should require students learn how to shoot and edit video. In addition, broadcast students should know how to get their video on the web, since most of them have the editing/shooting down, but are clueless about what a flash player is. PR students need to take a video shooting/editing class too– because what better way to represent a client than to do something viral on YouTube? The concepts apply across all three concentrations. 

Structure for the video class:

• Video shooting basics
• Coordinating teams to shoot video
• Video editing (Final Cut)
• TV broadcasting basics
• Exporting/uploading video to the Web
• Incorporating video with 3rd parties (Google Maps, timelines, etc.)

3. Restructure JOUR 410 (Applied multimedia reporting)
This class, which currently touches briefly on many facets of new media, could be more focused. Under the current circumstances, this cannot happen, but if we split it up among professors, it can work. With video taught in a broadcast class, JOUR 410 can focus on three basic topics:

1. Slideshows/Soundslides
2. Podcasting
3. Interactivity: Livestreaming/Live chats

You all probably know from Twitter, but for those of you who don’t: I was chosen as the first intern for the Center for Innovation in College Media.

It’s a huge honor to be a part of the organization, but now it’s time to get to work. I have big plans (which Bryan said were perhaps over-ambitious), but I know I can follow through with it all. 

In addition to interviews with media professionals and discussions with students, I have tutorials in mind which will be part of my “Nationwide Classroom.”

How it works

• We post a tutorial
• You take your tutorial to the newsroom/classroom
• Implement what you learn and post it to our comments
• We feature the best work as a result of our tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiuG1H7pQ4c

My resume

My portfolio

My Twitter

My blog Continue Reading →

Time and time again, student journalists in my college newsroom ask where the value is in Twitter. 

“It’s just another social thing,” one guy told me just yesterday. 

Then something like this happens and changes everything:

The photo was posted to TwitPic via Janis Krums @jkrums, a guy who happened to be in the right place at the right time. 

Along with his photo (in fewer than 140 characters) Janis tweeted: “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.”

And as our mobile phone picture-taking-quaility continues to improve, so will the value in on-the-go journalism. Janis’ photo, taken from an iPhone, is far better in quailty than the frame grabs taken from local news stations.  His photo was also the first to appear on the web — and, as usual, I found out about the crash on Twitter before CNN ever sent out my news alert.

There’s a lot of talk these days about whether Twitter, blogging and microblogging are the future of journalism. I’m not sure if I’m ready to make that claim, but times like these validate that it’s a hell of a supplement.

At the end of last year,  Emily Kostic (web editor of Rowan University’s The Whit) wrote a blog post about New Years Resolutions for college newspapers. A few things struck me on that list:

• #5 Get away from College Publisher
• #6 …and in the process go Web First

Getting away from College Publisher

That’s right: I said it.  After a recent conference call with Adam Hemphill and Miles Skorpen of CoPress, it’s official. The Mustang Daily is switching to WordPress.

The switch away from College Publisher is something I’ve wanted for the Mustang Daily since before I was even a student at Cal Poly. Not that College Publisher is bad; it’s a great starting point for newspapers who are trying to learn the dynamics of the Web. We used to be that paper. Now we get it. Now we’re ready for new things. We’re ready to generate our own revenue and move on.

Plus, WordPress is open-source. College Publisher is far from it.  If we want to make changes, we have a world of developers to turn to. With College Publisher, change comes in the form of submitting a query to their support team.  That makes it less than easy to be innovative.

This summer I started seriously considering WordPress as a CMS and built a mockup. But there’s a huge difference between saying, “This is what I want to do,” and actually doing it. 

Our former online editor created a Joomla mockup last year, just as I had done with the WordPress, and after getting the “Ok!” from our general mananger, his plans went nowhere.

Why? Fear. Fear of not being able to pass down an open-source CMS to future online editors. Fear of failing. 

That was the same concern that came up when I proposed the idea of moving to WordPress. 

To me, it’s a non-issue. If my future replacement doesn’t “know” the system, then he/she has to learn it.

We’ve all been new to it at one point. The fear of learning something new is possibly what got the journalism industry in the position it’s in now.

After news that CoPress would start hosting college newspapers, I had the final push the editor-in-cheif and I needed to convince our general manager that we’re done with College Publisher.

It’s really a great deal: cheap hosting (off-campus, so we don’t have to follow strict ADA rules and pay the school for space), a support network (so that we’re not relying only on me), and a solid relationship with leaders in college journalism. 

Tentative plans set our launch date for March 14.  Cross your fingers for us. We couldn’t be more excited. 

Structural changes to the Mustang Daily

With our big redesign come huge structural changes. With College Publisher, we were limited to posting stories based on the date of our print issue (although, to be fair, CP5 has improved).  With WordPress, we’re ready to move to a 24-hour news cycle where we’re posting news continuously.

Even if your newspaper isn’t planning a major overhaul, you should still consider ending your shovelware methods. 

It’s what your readers expect from you. Most students are getting their news online from the local paper, CNN, NYTimes, etc. They’re used to getting news updates all day long, and it shouldn’t be any different with a college newspaper. News doesn’t stop during the day just because the print issue isn’t done.

Of course, the change isn’t as simple as posting news updates throughout the day. The way our process is structured requires copy editors to come in around 5 p.m. to start reading over stories. With their red pens, they sit at a table and edit stories that have been printed out.

Hours are wasted between the first Word Doc printout and the flat printout. Copy editors aren’t done with the final changes until 10 p.m. each night (which is when I post the stories. That’s just wrong). 

 I have a few problems with this method:

• Why are the copy editors only coming in at night? Future (meaning this spring or summer) structural changes to the Daily will require copy editors on duty all day long to edit stories as they come in.
   
• During a time when the Web dominates the news industry, why is it our last priority? The web should always be the number one priority on every editor’s list. Not a place to dump stories that don’t fit in print or an after-thought at the end of the night. And while most editors tend to agree, they sure have a hard time putting it into practice.
   
• Why do copy editors need to use a red pen on a printed Word Doc? What about a little thing called a computer? Editing on paper seems so primitive.  Slowly, the Mustang Daily staff has started using Google Docs for assigning article and photo assignments. And WordPress makes editing articles online even simpler.
  As Greg Linch wrote on the CoPress Blog, stories can be edited on WordPress, rather than through multiple Word Doc revisions. This means the copy editors don’t have to come into the newsroom to copy edit. All they need is a computer and internet access.
   
• Also, as Greg notes, when print designers are ready to layout their pages, they simply pull the already-copy edited versions of the articles from the CMS.  It saves time and everyone wins.

Breaking an age-old tradition

Another way the Mustang Daily is breaking the rules this quarter is through implementing a “track” system for our reporters.

Because the Mustang Daily reporters are enrolled in a class (taught by student editors), they get credit for writing. So the syllabus is structured like any other class: you do a little of everything so you can be “well rounded.”

Traditionally, it’s always (and I mean forever) worked this way– Each quarter (10 weeks) every Mustang Daily reporter writes:

• Four news stories
• Four arts stories
• Three sports stories
• One feature story (1,000+ words) 
• An opinion piece
• + four miscellaneous (from any section) 
• Last year, we added a multimedia requirement to that list. Starting in summer 2008, it jumped to two multimedia pieces.

But now we’re breaking the rules. We’re switching it up. Reporters are now on a track system, which works like beats. We have sports writers, news writers, arts writers and general reporters. Each reporter will do two multimedia pieces for their respective tracks.

The system is seemingly common-sense. Reporters build up their contacts in their tracks and get story leads. They get the kind of experience they’d have in a real newsroom.

We made the switch because we had crap stories for our sports section. Reporters who knew/understood sports couldn’t write for the section because they had to fulfill news/arts requirements, and news/arts writers who knew nothing about sports were trying to cover soccer games. It doesn’t work that way.

Yet somehow, for uncountable years, the system continued. Not because it worked, but out of fear of change. Because the world supposedly wanted journalists who could cut out diverse clips to paste into their portfolios.

Well the industry is changing. Physical clips don’t exist (or at least they shouldn’t). Students need experience that reflects the real industry as close as possible. College newspapers need to mirror those industry changes, or even better — come up with innovative changes the professional industry hasn’t yet.

I challenge you to look at aspects of your newspaper that have always been the same, and ask yourself if those strategies still work. And even if you think they do work, come up with ways to make them work better.

Change is the only way to win. Are you up for it?

I’ve always learned that e-mail interviews are an absolute last resort. The criteria: the interviewee has to be on the other side of the world, on a spaceship or in jail.

But as e-mail and other web-based networks (Twitter, Facebook) become such a huge part of the communicative landscape, e-mail interviews don’t have the same “unprofessional” vibe they used to.

I’m not suggesting that an e-mail interview should entirely replace a phone or face-to-face interview, but it’s a great supplement.

Freelance journalist Kim Lisagor said in a recent conversation that she was shocked when reporters e-mailed her regarding her book, Disappearing Desinations. As a traditionally-trained journalist, she always saw e-mails as a last resort too. 

But she made an interesting observation:

“The only articles that were accurate were the e-mail interviews,” Lisagor said.

The great thing about e-mail interviews is that you can pull quotes directly from the e-mail, verbaitim.

Ways to effectively use e-mail interviews:

• As an introduction: If you have some time to work an a story, shoot your primary sources a quick e-mail. Let them get the gist of your story. Tell them to be expecting a call from you. I’ve found that this makes my sources a lot more comfortable, and that means a better interview. You can do this introduction through Twitter or Facebook too.  Example: “Hello Mr. Doe, I’m a student reporter at the College Daily and I’m just giving you the heads up that I’ll be calling you soon to talk about an article I’m writing. I’m interested in investigating faculty salaries and I know you’ve been vocal about the topic in the past. Looking forward to talking to you. 

• To get the basics. Names, places, times, etc. If you have this in an e-mail, you can always resort back to it, directly from the source.
   
• As a fact-checker: Are you unsure about a few statistics or a sequence of events? Rather than finding the time to meet in person again or facing the difficulty of trying to sort out details over the phone, e-mail can be the best way to see the facts straight-forward.Example: Hello, Ms. Doe. I am the College Daily student you spoke with earlier. I want my story to be accurate, and I was hoping you can confirm a few facts:
  • CSU employees will maintain regular pay until the budget is passed
  • The support budget consists of federal money remaining from the 2007-08 school year
  • When that money runs dry the CSU will pay employees from student fees Thanks in advance for the clarification!
    -Student journalist 

When you shouldn’t use e-mail interviews:

• Really hard news. If there is a scandal with the mayor, it’s likely that an e-mail response would be written by a PR person. To get to the root of it and fish through the BS, phone and in-person will produce the best results.
• Really fluffy features. If you want to capture the sparkle in someone’s eye or tone in someone’s voice, e-mail just won’t do the trick. That doesn’t mean cut it out all together. You can still use the e-mail to do an introduction to your subject, then after the interview, send an e-mail to get clarifications you need.

E-mail may last forever. Once sent, it can be forwarded to strangers. So keep it professional at all times.

Identify yourself as a reporter.

Apply the same critical thinking and fact-checking skills that you would to any other information source.

Verify your sources and their online identities. Remember, e-mail addresses can be faked.

Steve Enders, Cal Poly alumnus and senior product manager at Yahoo! News, gave a keynote lecture Thursday at Cal Poly’s journalism week and shared some interesting perspectives.

A few things Steve emphasized:

“I never thought I’d be where I’m at today. I graduated with an interest in newspapers. I wanted to be a reporter and editor.”

If you’re going to get into journalism, you need to be ready to change. It’s a constant evolution, and if you’re stuck in your ways, you’re not going to last long. Have an open mind. Accept new challenges. Steve’s career path is a perfect example of flexibility:

• He graduated in 1997 with a journalism degree
• After graudation, he worked at Metro, a newspaper
• After Metro, he switched gears to Click, a magazine
• Made a huge leap to television, working for Tech TV
• Finally made the jump to the web with Yahoo

• World’s No. 1 news Web site in terms of unique users to the site each month
• Only 10-15 employees on the editorial staff
• Processes 13,000 pieces of content every day
• About 10 percent is original content, the rest is aggregated

“Now we’re starting to care about, ‘Well, if you’re interested in a story, I probably am too and I’m going to read it.’”

Promote yourself using social networks that most people are already using and familiar with. It will drive traffic to your site, (it’s something I’ve previously blogged about; it’s good to know a professional agrees)

• Put your newspaper on Twitter
• Start a Facebook page for your publication
• Upload your video to YouTube

While Steve as a speaker did very well overall, I was disappointed with the low student turnout. Instead, random guests of the older generation (people who aren’t impacted by the changing industry) showed up and asked questions like “Can you track searches directly back to my name?” or, my favorite: “So, is it like deadline all the time?” Um, duh?

Students should have taken advantage of the opportunity to make an industry connection and get a glimpse into what the industry is like right now (what it’s really like, not what we learn about in class).

On a happier note, I had somewhat of an epiphany during the lecture. Although I’ve recently been pessimistic about journalism as a whole, something Steve said stuck with me:

“What an exciting time to be getting into this industry.”

That statement goes against a lot of sentiments I hear from professionals and peers. A fellow journalism major with a public relations concentration told me yesterday, “I’d be terrified to be in print journalism right now.” It’s the general attitude most students at Cal Poly — and the industry as a whole — have.  Sure, we’re going through a tough time, but it’ll come around, and aspiring journalists are going to be the people who fix it.

The industry isn’t dying. It’s changing. And the upcoming generation of journalists gets to redefine news and its delivery.

Guest blog by Ryan Chartrand

The problem

Newspapers have made some pretty desperate moves in the last few years. They’ve cut pages, cut staff, cut paychecks, but then decided to try to add social networking to their Web sites.

Sure, it was a great idea; the problem was they were too busy cutting and scrambling to notice that it was just another desperate attempt at “innovation.”

The turning point

And as much as I didn’t want to believe it, the turning point came in May 2008. When the once-messiah of digital journalism Rob Curley jumped ship from Loudon Extra, the forerunner in innovative community sites attached to a newspaper Web site, newspapers started to rethink the idea of community sites.

I work at a major newspaper in a major California city that felt the effects only a month later. Our community site hadn’t even left its “beta” stage before the paper abandoned it…partially (there are still some advocates left in the building, likely to be laid off soon anyway).

The saddest part of this little memory in digital journalism history is that a lot of people thought community sites would be what saved newspapers.

Bringing the community together in a fully-interactive space where they could have profiles, post pictures/video, talk to people with similar interests, become more politically active, etc. were all possible through these community sites once they got off the ground.

Sadly, “off the ground” was a marketing dream that eventually turned into “buried in the ground.”

The blame

So who’s to blame for newspapers’ last hope? The site that already offered all of this, of course: Facebook.

Newspapers rarely hire the right people for the Web, and they suffer because of it. At my paper, the technology used to develop the community site was clunky, bland, and not nearly as robust as Facebook.

Facebook has always been and always will be clean, easy to use, consistent, and very robust in its capabilities.

With that in mind, here’s what people wanting to get involved with social networking were faced with:

While newspapers had a lot of features to offer similar to Facebook (not nearly as many, of course), it seemed silly to join a social network that had 10 people while all of your friends partied in the Facebook castle next door. There’s simply no way to compete with these massive networks that have already claimed the territory.

Some newspapers were semi-successful in their attempts at generating communities, but the costs of maintaining these sites rarely exceeded the gain.Should newspapers completely abandon this innovative idea then? Is it truly hopeless? Once again, the answer lies in the beast that is Facebook.

Giving in

If you can’t beat ‘em, you might as well join ‘em. I really think newspapers are focusing their efforts in the wrong part of town, and if they actually went to where the people are, they’d have the potential to bring in the community they desire.

Should newspapers actually make the switch to Facebook, they’re going to need developers to build them applications. CNN and New York Times have a few cute applications, but nothing that really helps engage people, as they’re mostly RSS-generated info. (Although I must say, CNN’s public forum connection to Facebook is quite brilliant).

Considering the amount of information a newspaper receives daily, coming up with innovative ideas for applications should be simple; finding people to develop them, however, won’t come easy.

The future

But just imagine applications like the Washington Post’s blog Buzz Map (a map that geocodes keywords from blogs and news stories and places them on a map according to the keywords) that would also pull data from what its “fans” are saying on walls and notes. If a newspaper offered a dozen of applications like this on its profile and distributed them to fans’ profiles, people would actually be interested in connecting and “friending” a newspaper (which seems impossible, I know).

Or an application that shows breaking news or live blogs on your profile. People want ways to make their own profiles come alive, let alone the newspaper’s profile. And just to make advertising happy, how about an application that feeds off of the paper’s classifieds, showing the latest jobs or private party cars posted?

These are just a few random ideas, the point is that there is plenty of room for creativity and rethinking the newspaper and how it can be applied into a social network.

Online journalists think that because they’ve made poor replicas of Facebook that they’re being innovative and saving newspapers. What we need to do is put newspapers into an actual social network with actual people and see where truly innovative ideas can take the industry.

The idea of online communities merging with newspapers shouldn’t be abandoned quite yet; at least not until it’s tested in a real, populated social networking environment.

I think we could see a much stronger connection develop between newspapers and their communities through this relationship with Facebook. If we could just leave the tent outside and go where the communities really are, if we could just serve people the way they want to be served and where they want to be served, rather than trying to take them away from their networks, newspapers really could still have hope online.