Thursday, May 15, 2008

Editors' survey reflects growing agnosticism about news platforms The World Editors Forum has begun posting its 2008 Newsroom Barometer -- the results of a survey of more than 700 newspaper editors on the future of news -- including predictions about integrated print-Web newsrooms and the rise of multimedia and multi-skilled journalists.   Meanwhile, the forum's weblog is running a series of interviews with, as its name might suggest, some of the world's top editors. It's fascinating to compare the responses to the question "How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?" Hint: Almost all say they've considered themselves "news" or "information" organizations for some time, "newspaper" being just a "distribution channel." Even true-believers in journalism seem to be turning to what one calls an "almost platform-agnostic" integrated newsroom. (That link goes to a preview of New York Times digital news editor Jim Roberts' presentation to the forum's conference in Sweden next month.) Here's the list of interviewees, including already-posted transcripts and publications expected to participate: - The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US) - Financial Times - Dan Bogler (UK) - Guardian (UK) - Washington Post - Jim Brady (US) - Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada) - The Times (UK) - The Economist (UK) - Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland) - Le Monde (France) - Die Welt (Germany) - The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India) - Asahi Shimbun (Japan) - JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea) - The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia) - The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand) - Punch (Nigeria) - El Tiempo (Colombia) - Clarin (Argentina) - Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE) Thanks to Mich Sineath's AEJMC Members Forum for pointing out this discussion. 12:15:40 PM    comment []

Monday, May 12, 2008

The Web video express train don't stop here... School's out and my summer blogging will be limited or obsessively compulsive... I haven't decided yet. But here's some "other journalism" that just flew in the e-mail window from a reader who noticed the blog's title -- a visitor from www.LiveNewsCameras.com "The concept is simple, let people watch news as it happens anywhere in the world... raw, unedited on your computer at work or home," says the e-mail from Andrew Finlayson at FoxTV.com "It officially was made public on Super Tuesday (although we had been tinkering with how to do it for months) with just a couple of feeds focusing on the Republican and Democratic candidates," he says. Now the site has 150 streams, and Finlayson predicts the total will double soon. Alas, I can't get any of them to work on my iBook and http://www.radnetva.com/ municipal WiFi here at home. The connection just grinds to a stuttering stop when the page loads, attempting to automatically stream some video and open a chat window on my screen at the same time... without giving me a choice in the matter. I'll try it again from the office to see how it works with the university's broadband connection, and how the originators keep all that video from being videobabel. Here's more from Finlayson's mail: "We streamed the hearings about Iraq, we streamed the Pope almost from the moment he arrived to when he went home... nothing unusual about that... but we also stream the presidential candidates live every day... sometimes two or three times each a day as they go around the country. No one else is doing that." "Imagine what will happen when every mobile can stream live video... We are working with such a phone right now. Every major news story could be shown live from a dozen different points of view." He says the site's informal motto is "'Veritas odit moras,' from line 850 of Seneca[base ']s version of Oedipus. It means 'Truth hates delay.'" That reminds me of another old proverb, sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, but old enough to have been quoted this way by an English preacher in 1855: "If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, 'A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.'" For online journalism, I wonder if there's a connection to "re-booting" the computer when all that new media locks it up? For the less bandwidth-deprived, here's another interesting video project from my long-lost distant cousin, Robb Montgomery... a report on Camp VideoJournalism, a hands-on training program that Visual Editors sponsored in partnership with Viewmagazine.tv and Newsvideographer.com. 11:52:16 PM    comment []

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Summer reading aggregator This is where I'm posting links to things I plan to read and/or write about once I'm through with end-of-semester grading and sorting-out... Expect this list to get longer... Degrees in the Past. "Ultimately, to change the media industries, we've got to change our universities," says my old friend Vin Crosbie, without giving away all the secrets of what should change. "Although the youngest professors are for change," he says, "so are a great many of the oldest. It's those aged in between who are most obstructive, those who worked in the media industries during the 1990s before entering academia." Since I just arrived here at Radford by a circuitous career route, I'm one of the oldest and newest... and in a new School of Communication, so change is in the air. I'll know by July 1 how many of my older (in service to the university) colleagues are interested in the university's recent offer of a  "workforce transition" early retirement option. A Primer on how to read your online newspaper after the paper stops using paper. 8:39:17 PM    comment []

Sunday, April 27, 2008

What it takes to work at NYTimes.com Khoi Vinh, design director of NYTimes.com, has been answering questions from readers for the past week. One of those readers, Omar Yacoubi, offered the question our Web design students are most likely to ask: Q. What course of study would you recommend at the graduate or undergraduate level for someone looking to work in your field? Or, failing that, what practical experience do you think most prepared you for your current job? The design director answered in terms of what he looks for when hiring, not in terms of a literal "course of study" -- but he went beyond design and technology to a couple of "skills" that make me glad Radford's Web design curriculum and the journalism curriculum are in the same school. One is "sound news judgment based on a deep understanding of current affairs"; the other is an ability to give "plainspoken explanations" of the tasks at hand. Here's the full text of his answer to that question... I've added italics to indicate the whole block is a quote, and I've broken part of it into bullet points and highlighted a couple of things. But don't miss the full Q&A column, which runs to nine pages if "printed" as a PDF file. Khoi Vinh: "It's actually quite a complex mix of varied skills: an ideal applicant would have very strong traditional graphic design skills; in-depth training in usability and interaction design; practical experience coding XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and Flash; a commercially viable comfort level with database and application programming; and last but not least sound news judgment based on a deep understanding of current affairs. "Mind you, almost nobody possesses this exact combination of skills. If there's a school or curriculum somewhere that's turning out these kinds of candidates regularly, I'd be very interested to know. (Besides, I tend not to pay nearly as much attention to where a candidate was schooled as I do to that candidate's portfolio of work samples and practical experience.) "So obviously I look for people who can combine as many of these skills as possible. I'm not sure it would be fair to say that any one skill is more important than the other because they're all vital, but I can say that having a particularly weak foundation in traditional graphic design -- lacking an understanding of typography, color, composition and visual storytelling -- more or less disqualifies one immediately. "There are a few other intangible qualities that I look for, too. The ability to effectively articulate one's ideas about design is a big plus; translating design's subjective nuances into plainspoken explanations is a critical requirement for this job. Agile problem-solving skills are also an imperative; being able to think about a design problem in a larger context than one's own role as a designer only makes it easier to pull off ambitious solutions. And maybe most important of all is enthusiasm for the work; there's no substitute for a designer who feels truly invested in the work." Here's that link to the full article again. Related links: Khoi Vinh's personal site Subtraction 7.0 currently discussing his own problems keeping up with online news November '07 Q&A with Web newsroom editor Fiona Spruill June '07 Q&A with digital news editor Jim Roberts 8:13:34 PM    comment []

Monday, April 21, 2008

Redefining 'newspaper,' local alternative goes online-only New River Voice, started last year as a biweekly print publication with a Web site, is making the transition to Web-only publication. Editor & Publisher Tim W. Jackson, an adjunct journalism prof at Radford, announced the change in the latest issue, along with a note saying the print edition had about 15,000 readers, but not enough advertisers and "essentially no advertising sales representatives" to change that. He said he plans to keep offering "progressive news and views and the best reviews that the NRV has to offer" at http://newrivervoice.com and would like to resume print publication someday... meanwhile advising readers to grab the last print issue as a collector's item "and sell it on eBay in 10 years and make lots of money." That's probably not something you will ever be able to do with a Web site. (If so, this link to my old Web news employer might be worth a bundle: http://nando.net) The Web site image of the last print issue's lovely cover of a growing, green Earth, has this ironic note at the bottom: Happy Earth Day, New River Valley! Read this issue's From the Editor to find out how the New River Voice is going to save paper. Recommended Web-only role model, using a "sponsorship" idea instead of traditional ad sales, NewHaven Independent; see its about pages for more on its journalistic goals and pass-the-hat business model. PS Doug Thompson has a nice write-up at Blueridgemuse.com, under the headline "Reality Bites The New River Voice." 1:37:47 PM    comment []

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Radford 2008 grads will 'walk' and hear from 'A Good Walk...' expert Just as we prepare for the fall launch of our new School of Communication, a nationally known journalist will be this year's commencement speaker here at Radford University -- John Feinstein of NPR, of The Washington Post, and of many bookstore shelves and New York Times bestseller lists. Among other things, he's probably Radford's first commencement speaker to have been called both "a pimp" and "a whore" by a major figure in the world of sports. "I wish he'd make up his mind," Feinstein said of coach Bob Knight's comments, "so I'd know how to dress in the morning." More to the point, Feinstein said Knight's complaints were that his reporting was too accurate -- particularly his reporting of Knight's locker room language (a phrase I mean both literally and figuratively). I'm not much of a sports fan, but I'm a fan of good storytelling and accurate, detailed reporting, and of journalism that cares about underdogs and human drama. I think Radford's grads are in for a treat... As Radford President Penelope Kyle says in the school's press release about graduation, "John Feinstein's lucid writing and commentary on American culture and sports mark him as a natural for a university commencement. We're delighted and honored to have him." (I wish she'd added something like "... especially in a year when we are recharging our commitment to teaching journalism, communication and media studies with a new School of Communication," but that might be seen as padding the press release.) For those who aren't graduating yet, or who just want more preview of Feinstein's personal storytelling style, the Library of Congress has a video of the half-hour Feinstein speech in which I found that anecdote about Knight. Given at a National Book Festival a few years ago, it also includes Feinstein's frank critique of athletes' attitudes toward writers, as opposed to ESPN interviewers. For more of his humor, frankness and love of sports, a few of his books are The Last Amateurs: Play for Glory and Honor in Division I College Basketball, Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers, Civil War, Army vs. Navy: A Year Inside College Football's Purest Rivalry, The First Coming: Tiger Woods: Master or Martyr and A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour The Majors: In Pursuit of Golf's Holy Grail. Feinstein's NPR biography, and story links. His recent columns from the Post, and a collection of older basketball columns. 2:47:23 PM    comment []

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Tartan Day Came and Went Play the pipes lowly. We missed it. National Tartan Day slipped by over the weekend when we weren't looking. Well, I wasn't, anyhow, despite being both a Montgomery and a "Robert Bruce" thanks to my Glasgowegian grandmother. I just lost track. And this was the U.S. National Tartan Day's tenth anniversary, too! Alas, even its "national events" Web page only lists 2007 events. So much for commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, "which asserted Scotland's sovereignty over English territorial claims, and which was an influence on the American Declaration of Independence," according to the Tartan Day Web site. Could be there's just a Lott less enthusiasm for the event since the departure of Sen Trent Lott? He proposed the original Tartan Day resolution in 1997 and presided over the giving of awards to the likes of Sean Connery in past years. However, if you missed April 6 and want to sip a non-partisan single malt or tilt your kilt in honor of Scottish culture, it's still Tartan Week -- at least in New York City. Or maybe you have some use for the "Scottish Theme Wedding" page's collection of Tartan Day lore. (Yes, it opens with a picture of a Tartan Day ceremony at the Alamo.) Closer to home, Arthur Herman, associate professor of history at George Mason and author of How the Scots Invented the Modern World, was among the speakers at an RSVP event in Washington on Friday at the Heritage Foundation. Maybe The Tartan (http://thetartan.com), Radford University's student newspaper, should give him a call and look into doing something about Tartan Day, Tartan Week and Tartan whatnot next April, Radford being "The home of the Highlanders" and all. A search of the paper's archives online doesn't show any references to "Tartan Day," but then neither does a search of its kindred publication http://TheTartan.org at Carnegie Mellon University. You'd think a college newspaper with a national holiday named after its namesake, would get inspired by the idea. 11:10:14 AM    comment []

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