Journalism student names top 10 sites

Emily Kostic, a junior studying journalism at Rowan University, has put together a list of Top 10 Sites for Online Journalism Students on her blog, Journalism 3.0: The Future of Journalism According to a Member of the Facebook Generation.

I echo many of her suggestions for sites every journalism student should read. Check it out.

Kostic's blog itself is a good read for journalism students -- and a model for the kind of online reflection students should be engaging in. Recent posts include an interactive map showing where journalists have been killed this year, her thoughts on discrimination against online journalists and an interview with Danish journalists Poul Madsen and Henri Kastenskov of the Bombay Flying Club, an innovative production house that creates flash documentaries for the Web.

I love to see journalism students using blogs to share their thoughts about this changing field. I bet this kind of blog will help Kostic land a job as much as -- or even more than -- a traditional internship. It demonstrates to the world that she's reading about, observing, thinking about and commenting on the field. It also shows that she's acquainting herself with new technology. Good work, Emily Kostic.

College OTR enters college media fray

Here's another alternative to traditional college media: College OTR (On the Record).

OTR describes itself as "a new network of campus-specific blogs, written by students, for students, making sure that whatever happens on campus goes 'On The Record.' Think of us as your campus paper on crack -- quicker, funnier, and better-looking (even though we may be missing a few teeth)."

To date OTR includes bloggers from Boston U., Claremont, Cornell, GWU, Harvard, James Madison U, Northwestern, NYU, Penn State, Purdue, Stanford, Syracuse, Tufts, Vanderbilt, Vassar, Wesleyan, Yale and the universities of California (Berkeley and San Diego) Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri (Columbia), North Carolina (Chapel Hill), Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (Madison). The site, which is still in Beta mode, is planning to officially launch this fall.

Each school has its own home page like this:



The site is actively recruiting (according to CollegeWebEditor.com, student bloggers are paid $500 per semester).

Because it's not regional, I don't see this as a threat to college newspapers in the way BigLickU, SwoCol.com and The Loop are. It's hard to imagine these folks stealing our advertisers or even our readers in any serious way.

And from what I've seen of the content so far, I don't think we have to worry about our best and brightest staffers fleeing our newspapers to go work for College OTR. This site seems to specialize in unsubstantiated rumor, writing without reporting, goofy photo illustrations and not only anonymous sources but anonymous reporters.

Some examples:
* GWU: More Good Places for Hooking Up, Now with a Sexy Risk of Getting Caught

* University of Florida: Your boyfriend sucks... And apparently your best friend does too

Still, College OTR could beat campus newspapers to the punch on stories.

It's something for college media folks to keep our eye on--if only for lessons in what not to do.

What do YOU think of College OTR? Post a comment!