Many wondered why new media visionary Rob Curley would leave the prestigious Washington Post, one of the pillars of old journalism, for the Las Vegas Sun, a little upstart in the desert.
He explained why in a blog post last week.
"I’m more and more convinced every day that the Las Vegas Sun is the most interesting local newspaper in the nation — both to read and to work at," he wrote. For details read the post.
Mindy McAdams offered her thoughts on Why the Las Vegas Sun is So Great in a series of blog posts earlier that week.
Students trying to make a great local newspaper for their university communities can take lessons from the Sun. Go hyperlocal and use multimedia and interactivity to the max. The readers will follow.
Showing posts with label Rob Curley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rob Curley. Show all posts
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
10 Tips for Becoming a Wired Journalist
35,000 FEET OVER COLORADO – I’m flying back from New York City, where I moderated two daylong workshops on new media for College Media Advisers last week. After breathing the same air as new media visionary Rob Curley and hearing from other leaders in this field (see earlier post), I’m a little dizzy. And I’m even more convinced than ever that ALL journalists have to get wired or die.
And yes, that applies to you, the 53-year-old reporter calling yourself a “narrative writer” and you, the student who wants to write for magazines and you, the photojournalism educator who left the newsroom 10 years ago and just wants to teach kids to shoot.
Journalists who say “I want to write long magazine features” or “I’m not into the computer stuff” or “I just want to shoot pictures” are destined to find themselves without work.
Face it: We’re all new media geeks now.
With this in mind, here are tips for journalism students, professionals and educators on how to become a wired journalist.
1. Open your mind. It’s time to toss out your preconceived, 20th century ideas about what it means to be a journalist. Open yourself up to the possibilities of new media. This is not some flash in the pan or even something in the can’t-quite-see-it future. This is the way the media world works now and you better get hip to it.
2. Learn the lingo. If you don’t know RSS from CMS, look them up. You may feel like you’re studying a foreign language, but if you don’t learn what people are talking about you’re going to find yourself in the dust.
3. Get some training. Virtually any new skill you can add to your journalism toolbox is valuable. The Poynter Institute, the Knight Digital Media Center, the European Journalism Centre, the Center for Innovation in College Media, College Media Advisers and IRFA Newsplex are among the organizations offering new media training for journalists, educators and students. Or get some quality time with your friendly neighborhood geek – the lab monitor at your school, the multimedia professor in your department, your colleague in the computer science department, the database freak at your newspaper.
4. Train yourself. If you think you don’t have the time or money to invest in training (I’d argue can’t afford not to) the Internet, books, tutorials and the help menu that comes along with just about every piece of software will allow you to train yourself. Poynter's NewsU offers free or low-cost online courses in Multimedia Storytelling, Telling Stories with Sound, Online Project Development and other skills. If you can’t figure out how to do a particular thing, post a question to Google. The Internet has the answer to just about any question you could possibly ask – probably even the meaning of life.
5. Invest in equipment. Even if you see yourself as primarily a writer or editor, being a 21st century journalist means being armed with equipment to record news in a variety of ways. Every journalist should have a digital audio recorder, digital camera and some way of recording video, even if it’s just short video clips on a digital point-and-shoot. Reporters are now shooting photos and videos with their cell phones and posting them to the Web immediately, sometimes before a photographer can even get to the scene of the news.
6. Link up. Social networking is becoming an increasingly important part of journalism and all journalists should have a presence on a number of sites, especially LinkedIn, but also myspace, facebook, Wired Journalists, Twitter and other sites.
7. Get yourself out there. Even before you enter a newsroom (or, for journalism educators, even after you leave one) you can get your work out there by posting videos to YouTube, photos to flickr, articles to Web sites, posts to blogs. If a potential employer can’t find your work in a Google search (and yes, these have become a routine part of considering a candidate for a job), you don’t exist.
8. Create a Web presence. If you don’t already have a Web site or blog, it’s time to get one. Register your name – or something close to it – as a domain name at register.com and put some content up there. Every journalist should have at least a resume and some work samples up on the Web. Put up photos, videos, stories, anything you have that can show you have multiple skills and you’re not afraid to use them.
9. Stay current. With new equipment, software and applications being developed all the time, the possibilities for online journalism are literally changing by the day. It can be hard to keep up to date but you have to if you want to survive. To get up to speed, follow the leaders in the field, including the Center for Innovation in College Media, Wired Journalists, Mindy McAdams, MediaStorm,Ryan Sholin, Multimedia Shooter, Rob Curley.
10. Don’t despair. Yes, media outlets and media jobs are disappearing, but it doesn’t pay to wring your hands. Even while old forms of journalism seem to be dying out, new ones are rising, offering new possibilities for great storytelling and truth-sharing. Journalism is not dying out, it’s just changing. As Rob Curley says, “The most important part of the word newspaper is news, not paper.”
Do you have tips, resources or Web sites to share? Post a comment here.
And yes, that applies to you, the 53-year-old reporter calling yourself a “narrative writer” and you, the student who wants to write for magazines and you, the photojournalism educator who left the newsroom 10 years ago and just wants to teach kids to shoot.
Journalists who say “I want to write long magazine features” or “I’m not into the computer stuff” or “I just want to shoot pictures” are destined to find themselves without work.
Face it: We’re all new media geeks now.
With this in mind, here are tips for journalism students, professionals and educators on how to become a wired journalist.
1. Open your mind. It’s time to toss out your preconceived, 20th century ideas about what it means to be a journalist. Open yourself up to the possibilities of new media. This is not some flash in the pan or even something in the can’t-quite-see-it future. This is the way the media world works now and you better get hip to it.
2. Learn the lingo. If you don’t know RSS from CMS, look them up. You may feel like you’re studying a foreign language, but if you don’t learn what people are talking about you’re going to find yourself in the dust.
3. Get some training. Virtually any new skill you can add to your journalism toolbox is valuable. The Poynter Institute, the Knight Digital Media Center, the European Journalism Centre, the Center for Innovation in College Media, College Media Advisers and IRFA Newsplex are among the organizations offering new media training for journalists, educators and students. Or get some quality time with your friendly neighborhood geek – the lab monitor at your school, the multimedia professor in your department, your colleague in the computer science department, the database freak at your newspaper.
4. Train yourself. If you think you don’t have the time or money to invest in training (I’d argue can’t afford not to) the Internet, books, tutorials and the help menu that comes along with just about every piece of software will allow you to train yourself. Poynter's NewsU offers free or low-cost online courses in Multimedia Storytelling, Telling Stories with Sound, Online Project Development and other skills. If you can’t figure out how to do a particular thing, post a question to Google. The Internet has the answer to just about any question you could possibly ask – probably even the meaning of life.
5. Invest in equipment. Even if you see yourself as primarily a writer or editor, being a 21st century journalist means being armed with equipment to record news in a variety of ways. Every journalist should have a digital audio recorder, digital camera and some way of recording video, even if it’s just short video clips on a digital point-and-shoot. Reporters are now shooting photos and videos with their cell phones and posting them to the Web immediately, sometimes before a photographer can even get to the scene of the news.
6. Link up. Social networking is becoming an increasingly important part of journalism and all journalists should have a presence on a number of sites, especially LinkedIn, but also myspace, facebook, Wired Journalists, Twitter and other sites.
7. Get yourself out there. Even before you enter a newsroom (or, for journalism educators, even after you leave one) you can get your work out there by posting videos to YouTube, photos to flickr, articles to Web sites, posts to blogs. If a potential employer can’t find your work in a Google search (and yes, these have become a routine part of considering a candidate for a job), you don’t exist.
8. Create a Web presence. If you don’t already have a Web site or blog, it’s time to get one. Register your name – or something close to it – as a domain name at register.com and put some content up there. Every journalist should have at least a resume and some work samples up on the Web. Put up photos, videos, stories, anything you have that can show you have multiple skills and you’re not afraid to use them.
9. Stay current. With new equipment, software and applications being developed all the time, the possibilities for online journalism are literally changing by the day. It can be hard to keep up to date but you have to if you want to survive. To get up to speed, follow the leaders in the field, including the Center for Innovation in College Media, Wired Journalists, Mindy McAdams, MediaStorm,Ryan Sholin, Multimedia Shooter, Rob Curley.
10. Don’t despair. Yes, media outlets and media jobs are disappearing, but it doesn’t pay to wring your hands. Even while old forms of journalism seem to be dying out, new ones are rising, offering new possibilities for great storytelling and truth-sharing. Journalism is not dying out, it’s just changing. As Rob Curley says, “The most important part of the word newspaper is news, not paper.”
Do you have tips, resources or Web sites to share? Post a comment here.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Curleyize your student newspaper
WASHINGTON, D.C.--I’ve seen new media guru Rob Curley give basically the same speech four times in the past few years, but I always find his message inspiring. The gospel of hyperlocal coverage mixed with what he calls “multimedia overkill” that he delivered Friday at the ACP/CMA National College Media Convention here is one all student newspapers should heed.
Student media organizations may not have the legions of database whizzes and eager-to-please interns who have supported Curley’s innovations through the years at the Lawrence Journal World, the Naples Daily News and now at Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, but here are some things you can do to apply his philosophy to your student paper.
Do you have other ideas student newspapers can use to emphasize multimedia and hyperlocal coverage? Share them by posting a comment below.
Student media organizations may not have the legions of database whizzes and eager-to-please interns who have supported Curley’s innovations through the years at the Lawrence Journal World, the Naples Daily News and now at Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, but here are some things you can do to apply his philosophy to your student paper.
- Seek out the “nerds” that Curley says every newspaper needs. Go to your computer science department to find people who think it might be cool to create a searchable database of all the restaurants in your college town or to crunch the numbers in university salary records or other data.
- Strive for your own brand of “multimedia overkill.” That means creating videos, slideshows and podcasts about everything happening on campus, not just the big events, but the little ones – health fairs and routine games and the bands that perform on the quad at lunchtime every week.
- Create your own version of The Washington Post’s “On Being” series--two-minute videos about what life is like for regular Joes that has become one of the most popular features on the newspaper’s Web site.
- Make a series of virtual tours of your college campus. Take readers to the most outrageous dorm rooms, the coolest research labs, the messiest professors’ offices, the best places to kiss.
- Collect mini videos of professor’s lectures so students can see if they’d prefer Professor Chen or Professor Jones for Art History 101.
- Give more attention to college sports, creating video reports for every game and pages for each player like Curley’s staff does for the high school teams of Loudon County, Virginia.
- Link to data that already exists. When you write about professors like to their university Web pages so readers can read their bios, find out more about their research and get their office hours and contact information. If your campus is audiotaping or videotaping lectures and putting them on the Web, link to those, too.
- Create the partnerships with readers that Curley advocates by encouraging students to send in their photos, videos and other materials. Link to regular contributors' Facebook and MySpace pages.
- Encourage students who don't work for the newspaper to write blogs about specific aspects of campus life--dorm life, medical school, study-abroad programs, fraternities and sororities.
- Create resource guides to your campus like the ones at LoudonExtra.com These might include guides to student or community elections, student clubs and organizations, Greek organizations, local bands, local restaurants and/or businesses. Include photos, videos and useful information like hours, phone numbers and maps. Once readers know these guides are on your site, they will come back again and again to check information. You can update them each year or each semester.
Do you have other ideas student newspapers can use to emphasize multimedia and hyperlocal coverage? Share them by posting a comment below.
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