Angry journalist: "I check my brain at the door."

I came across a very depressing blurb today at AngryJournalist.com. And before I share it, I do hope that this person is completely in the minority. I mean, we all know that times are dire in many respects and that things are changing, but this comment made me want to go home and go back to bed. This from Angry Journalist #6911:

I have become numb.
After 10 years of working my way up as a reporter, I now do the minimum.
I surf the internet for about five or six hours a day, chat with co-worker for another hour or so, and drive aimlessly around town. Somewhere in between I’ll make a few calls, check the fax and spend 15 minutes writing a story.
Funny thing is - editors love it. I check my brain at the door and just do whatever they say.
Back when I cared and devoted myself to writing the best stories I could, everything was a fight.
Now, I do almost nothing and make $18 an hour.
That makes me very angry.

These are the people we need to invigorate. If you happen to know Angry Journalist #6911, please send them my way. I want to talk to him or her about blogging, crowd-sourcing, friendfeed, twitter and brainstorm some new interesting ideas that will get buy-in from the top. This cannot happen if you give up, as this person has. It makes me sad. And if editors "love it," well shame on them.    

What is your advicce to this angry journalist? Come on, leave a comment. We need to start a conversation. 

  

The Fall of Newspapers

There's an interesting debate taking place on a blog I read frequently. 

In this particular post, Jeff Jarvis maintains that the fall of journalism, is indeed, journalists fault.

Here is a paragraph from the blog post:

"It is our fault that we did not see the change coming soon enough and ready our craft for the transition. It is our fault that we did not see and exploit — hell, we resisted — all the opportunities new media and new relationships with the public presented. It is our fault that we did not give adequate stewardship to journalism and left the business to the business people. It is our fault that we lost readers and squandered trust. It is our fault that we sat back and expected to be supported in the manner to which we had become accustomed by some unknown princely patron. Responsibility and blame are indeed ours."

Ask yourself....did you play a role in this?

Now go read Jeff's post for yourself, and be sure to add BuzzMachine to your blog aggregator.   

-AngelaConnor

Is content still king?

Absolutely.
Because without content, there would be no Google News or Yahoo News or wildly popular and successful blogs, and the news readers or aggregators such as Bloglines and Google Reader would essentially have no function to perform.

So, while I am a firm believer that content is king, I also think it's important to define exactly what type of content fits the bill because all content is defintiely not created equal.

A post by Jeff Jarvis got me thinking a little more about this today. He maintains that the building block of journalism is no longer the article and I think he is 100% correct.

According to Jarvis, the new building block of journalism needs to be the topic and the "link" is king. Read it for yourself. You just might be sold.

Talking Twitter with BeatBlogger about microblogging the news

Normal 0

Patrick Thornton of Beatblogging.org called last week to talk about how I use Twitter to cover trials.

It resulted in this post and podcast.

Also look up Patrick on Twitter @jionoclast.

Knowing and growing your personal brand

As journalists, we are all very much aware of the importance of the company brand. Many of us work for years hoping to climb the journalism ranks to one day be associated with a brand we covet.  The New York Times, ABC News, the Washington Post, Washingtonpost.com, Dateline NBC, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and a host of others.

But consider this. In today's media landscape, you are our own brand.

It's a concept that we have to embrace so that we can mange it and use it to our advantage. If you don't manage your own brand, or at least start building it on your own, Google will do it for you . And you might not like the results.

With rampant layoffs and an unstable economy, we have to be more than our current title at our current workplace. If and when those no longer exist, how will you market yourself? Will anyone know who you are based on your web presence? Do you even have a web presence beyond the extent of which your news stories are posted online? If you answered no to any of those questions, please read on.         

Chris Brogan, one of my favorite bloggers, has written an ebook about this very topic. It is appropriately titled: Personal Branding for the Business Professional. I've read it several times, and while I thought I was doing a pretty good job with my personal blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts, LinkedIn, Friendfeed, Upcoming.org and Plaxo accounts, I could be doing so much better. I am now working on an e-book and I hope to squeeze in some other tips presented in Brogan's.

So, start thinking about who you are professionally and how you might want to convey that using some of the social networking tools available. And don't assume that you have to take advantage of every single platform. That would be a full-time job on it's own.

And if this seems all too overwhelming and you'd like more basic ideas or help along the way, I can certainly help or tap into the vast network of people I've connected with on various platforms for more information and ideas. 

If you find this concept intriguing, let me know either in the comments area or via e-mail and I'll blog about it more often.

 

-AngelaConnor

Hot links this week on online journalism

Normal 0

Jack Lail says "We'd get more readers if we gave them less frickin' news to read": “The news junkies, however, are the users that move the metrics and we focus even more on what they want because they are generating more pageviews and longer times on site. And thus we have less of what more casual news consumers want. Sort of like drinking ourselves to death?”

 

"We Were Print" – the blog of “former and soon-to-be-former print journalists” – chronicles the dark humor that is our business with links to this week's Doonesbury.

 

Don Himsel gives us the latest generation of point-and-shoot cameras as News Videographer.

 

Mindy McAdams reports on a session she attended on pro video at the Online News Association’s annual conference.

Best of online journalism: from D.C. to Middletown

Normal 0

"Fixing D.C. Schools" is the kind of project I still remember seeing for the first time on Washington Post.com.  It covered every aspect of the public schools in D.C., from the maintenance of the school halls to student scores.  It told stories across the multimedia platforms.

 

No surprise it won the Knight Award for Public Service during the Online Journalism Awards.

 

See the awards site for the complete list of winners, then linger for a while to marvel at some inspiring work, including "I Didn't Do Murder," by the RecordOnline.com, from The Times Herald Record (Middletown, N.Y.), which won best investigative piece for a small site.

 

Let these influence your next project.  Better yet, show them to your editor.  This is the kind of work we should be striving to produce in the digital age.

SPJ Convention all a-Twitter with new media and online journalism learning

Normal 0 Random notes from the SPJ National Convention which ending Sunday …

Some SPJ members may see the organization as still being for a bunch of old newspaper dudes. You may think curmudgeons rule, but you couldn’t tell that by attending the workshops and sessions in Atlanta.

“People are getting new media here and loving it,” Molly McDonough said. “I don’t get that back in my newsroom.”

I would agree.

SPJ has kept its high-tech ambitions a secret to some, however.  That’s evident this week, after SPJ’s Convention struggled with lower attendance, but the Online News Association, meeting this week in Washington D.C. sold out in advance.

Nevertheless, I didn’t talk to one person who came to Atlanta already a devotee of online and new media who didn’t rave about the conference and promise to return next year.

A few of the highlights:

Sree Sreenivasan on “Figuring Out Blogs & Whatever’s Next” – Every journalist should have a blog and know how to use it. Post often. And keep it short.

• “If you can’t sell it in six words, you can’t do it in 6,000,” he said.

Sreenivasan had a handout of links, but its also online.

Howard Owens on Reinventing Journalism, included his 10 Things Journalists Can Do:

Among them:

• Include informed insight and personal voice.
• Stop competing for scoops and awards
• Cover people not processes
• Be kinder.
• Be smarter.
• Emphasize accuracy, honesty, and transparency.
• Be the guide. Be the filter. There is a fire hose of information. Help your readers find it.

Molly and I got a great reaction on our "60 web sites in 60 minutes".

• It included a showing of Facebook with this live update: “Molly is thinking Ron should pick it up a bit or we won't get to 50.”

People picked up Twitter for the first time and kept people updated on the convention

Want to find out what you missed? Or maybe you were there and want to pick up some sessions you missed. 

You can from two of my new friends:

Rene Gutel wrote some great blog posts about the sessions she attended.

So did Jeff Cutler

And as always, you can read the reports from the talented students covering the convention on The Working Press.

Don’t expect SPJ to retain its curmudgeonly image forever.  We’ve put together a Digital Media Committee, which I’m co-chairing. You’ll see other of our members posting here in the future.

After all, nearing its 100^th birthday, SPJ is the original social network for journalism.

 

Think C-Span is dry? Their on-line coverage of the political conventions is anything but

If you haven’t checked out what C-Span is doing with the Democratic Convention, you’re missing some exciting journalism.

The convention hub includes not only the videos you’d expect, but also blogs from nearly every state and Twitter feeds from just about everybody on the convention floor.

Project manager Leslie Bradshaw of New Media Strategies explains the concept and how it’s different from what other news media outlets:

“While some news organizations will be promoting their own content and looking to partner with online giants, C-SPAN is taking it to the people …

“That’s right folks, we are linking to state bloggers, national bloggers, news-affiliate-bloggers, Utterz users, Qik'ers, Twitter'ers … as long as we can get our hands on the content and it is relevant to the conventions at hand, we will work to feature it. Think about the kind of implications this has from both an efficiency-of-information-market as well as a sociological perspective — folks who may have never been interested in the conventions but who love technology can be turned on to one through the other.”

C-Span is providing a universe of different voices, some professional journalists, others citizen journalists, reporting through a variety of media.

Follow Leslie on Twitter to look behind the scenes of this innovative coverage.  They’ll  be doing the same for the Republic National Convention next week.

While you’re at it, also check out DNC Journalists on Twitter, an aggregation of professional “tweeters” compiled by Steve Myers at Poynter.

Forget, just for a bit, this is a major convention with a press corps of 10,000 journalists. There are some great ideas here newsrooms could adopt for their own local “major events.”

Your byline becomes a valuable commodity online

We all have to live up to our bylines. Credibility rules and people need to trust the words following our names.  But we bylines may never have been as valuable as they are right now.

Last week, the journalism chat on Twitter turned to need to develop a new skill: attracting readers. It reminded me of a story that caught my eye on the newsstands in Wired: “Internet Famous Julia Allison and the Secrets of Self-Promotion.”

With Allison as its cover girl, Wired wrote:

“The New York Times has profiled her, and New York magazine has called Allison — a dating columnist for Time Out New York and former editor-at-large for Star — "the most famous young journalist in the city.’ "

Julia Allison is kicking your butt, but it has little to do with her being a journalist. Her site, xojulia.com, is her ”life cast” -- what she’s doing now. She’s Twitter on steroids.

And we could all learn from her.

That’s where the discussion on Twitter picked up, started by Howard Rheingold and Jay Rosen  over essential skills.  Rosen:

“Publishing used to be the barrier. Now that publishing is easy, getting your stuff picked up, linked to is an essential skill.”

Scott Rosenberg, formerly of Salon, added on his blog that it’s a skill most of us who work in print or broadcast are “occupationally blind to” because we are used to the media outlets we work for serving up audiences for us.

“They cannot see this because, all their working lives, the business of gathering their audience has been handled for them ... This privilege disintegrates out on the Web once you leave the protective umbrella and traffic supply of a media company.”

Even working for an established media company brings challenges for individual reporters, photographers and multimedia journalists who are now judged by the number of page view we get.

Yet as Dan Gillmor pointed out, many journalists are squeamish about going after their own readers, and rightfully so:

“Self-promotion should make you slightly uncomfortable. The best journalists know the absolute necessity of humility; when accomplishments lead to hubris, that's when trouble arrives. (I suppose this is true of every walk of life.) That's why self-promotion should never be motivated by pure ego, or resort to the kinds of slippery tactics that journalists love to expose in other fields.”

That’s what we can learn from Julia Allison.  Writes Wired’s Jason Tanz:

“It's easy to dismiss Allison as little more than a rank narcissist — and many of her vocal online critics are happy do just that. But come on, admit it: You've spent a good half hour trying to pick out the most flattering photo to upload to your MySpace page. You struggle to come up with the mot juste to describe your Facebook status. You keep a bank of self-portraits on Flickr or an online scrapbook on Tumblr or a running log of your daily musings on Blogger. You strategically court the gatekeepers at StumbleUpon or Digg. You compare the size of your Twitter-subscriber rolls to those of your friends. You set up Google Alerts to tell you whenever a blogger mentions your name. See? Self-promotion is no longer solely the domain of egotists and professional aspirants. Anyone can be a personal branding machine.”

The personal brand of our bylines are becoming our most precious commodity.  It is what will stay with us through circulation crises and layoffs.  As Rosen said, publishers used to hold the key. They provided the audience.  But could those roles be shifting, in favor of the content providers – those who report?

Cindy Stanford thinks so.  We met on Twitter, and I like to describe her as pursuing her PhD in social networking. She’s a doctorate student at Wichita State in the psychology of human-compter interaction. I sought her out following the reaction I received to my Twitter coverage of murder trials in Wichita. I wanted to know what I should do next. Should I only use Twitter for news coverage?  Should I post about my personal life?

Stanford I suggested I do both.

“People are becoming more aware and cognizant of where their information is coming from,” she said. “In the future, you’re personal brand is going to become important."

It’s something we all need to be thinking about as we move forward in our journalism careers.

To that end, Wired offers some fun tips on how to build an audience through Facebook and Twitter.

My favorite is a suggestion on how to get the most out of Twitter, from Joshua Allen of Denver, who today has 4,447 followers:

"Every single Twitter post you write should be something that could get you laid, ruin a marriage, or bring a tear to a fat little kid's eye."

For the record, my wife doesn’t necessarily agree that’s a good idea.

Cut to video: the continuing path of on-the-job training

I’ve been doing video for more than a year, and now I’m teaching it?  But wait: I’m still learning.

Go figure.  This is the world where we work.  More on that in a bit.

Every time I work with video, I learn more.  That’s not surprising. But it’s what I’m learning that surprises me.  Not only is it sharpening my skills, increasing my speed, but it’s also teaching me more about the people around me and what they will.

That’s one reason I love journalism: the reaction.  You used to get it eavesdropping in coffee shops or the breakfast café: reader voyeurism.  You’d see where they paused as they turned the pages of the newspaper and listened to their comments about the stories. If you were lucky, you’d hear something about your story.  Good or bad, at least they were talking.

“What are people talking about?” an editor used to say, as a way of spurring story ideas.

“Well,” I would answer, “if it’s not what we wrote in the paper this morning, we’re not doing our jobs.”

Now, we don’t have to lift our butts out of the chair.  We can track our page views and time spent and see exactly what draws attention.  Usually, it’s a cat playing a piano on You Tube (10 million and counting) or as we found locally, yodeling cats.

We can read their comments, right on the computer.  They can talk to us.  OMG!

I carry a video camera with me as a part of my day, now.  I don’t do as many videos as I would like, but I’m ready if something presents itself.

What I’ve learned:

• In addition to cats, people like stories about fire, even if it’s set on purpose.  I was sent to do a quick daily story on a controlled burn at one of our prairie preserves. Because I had a video camera handy, it was a natural.  And I thought the video turned out better than the story. 

• People like stories about animals (hence popularity of cats).  But they also like snakes wrapping around people's necks. I was sent out to cover a wildlife exhibition on a Saturday morning.  I remembered a lesson from Angela Grant about video illustrations, using only natural sound and images to convey the story.  I tried it, and people watched.

•  People will watch a murder. I earlier blogged about a bizarre murder trial where the crime was caught on tape by a convenience store security camera.  I picked up the two videos by plugging into the video pool in the courtroom. The same footage appeared in clips on the local television stations, but we could show whole segments.  It gave me nightmares, recording, editing, watching these repeatedly.  Others watched, too.  They were among our most popular videos that month.

•  I learned there’s an audience for courtroom videos.  I posted a couple on my beat blog at work, and another local blogger noticed and linked there.  At a local meeting of Twitter users (a “tweetup”), the author, Bobby Rozell, said it made him feel like he was at the trial.  I took note.  I’ll do those more.

Those videos have different elements, used different styles and drew audiences for different reasons.  I’m learning there’s not just one way to shoot video.

But my favorite is the interview, illustrated by detailed shots.  It’s simple but I think effective.

Both my recent efforts revolved around race and racism.

My editor Jill Cohan put me in charge of wrangling up multimedia for our team.  She also wanted me to teach other reporters. I started with Christina Woods, our cultural affairs reporter.  Christina is in that generation of journalists who are young enough to be excited about multimedia, but in mid-20s old enough to just have missed multimedia training in college.  So just like old guys such as I, she has to learn from scratch.

On our first effort, we couldn’t get our schedules together. I went solo to shoot a video on an Obama campaign sign defaced by racial slurs. Although Christina's story dealt much more in depth about the role race is playing in the presidential election, the story about the sign added depth of knowledge that wasn’t in the story and illustrated what she was talking about.  It added another layer.

For the 50^th anniversary of the nation's first lunch counter sit-in, Christina was on her first video assignment.  I had her watch me set up and camera and hook-up the wireless lavaliere mic. I rolled, while she conducted the interview that would serve as the foundation of the video.  She then acted as producer, telling me how to structure the interview, while watching me go through the motions in Final Cut Pro to construct the timeline.

Within a couple of hours, we had this video to go along with her story.  We thought it turned out pretty well.  Others must have, too.  People watched it.

This is my lesson plan with other reporters: you watch me do it, then you do it with me, then you do it on your own.  I think that’s a good way to get people comfortable with new skills.  We’ll see.

Christina, for one, is excited about finding her next video. She’s acting like I even taught her something.

My next project is a veteran reporter, who some might call a curmudgeon.  He's a talented narrative storyteller. I've told him with his experience and gift for structuring a yarn, he's a natural for video.

I pulled me aside the other day and said he was ready to learn video.

Watch out:  fire may soon be raining from the sky.

I'll keep you updated on our progress.

Lessons From a Laid-off Journalist: Become a Freelancer for Life

I received an e-mail today from a former colleague that literally gave me goosebumps and made me want to go out and conquer the world. 

His was a response to an e-mail I'd sent him earlier in the week complimenting him on a feature he'd written online, detailing how layoffs are affecting coverage of  very important topics, particularly healtchare. 

This is the part of the e-mail that made my adrenaline soar: 

"After I got laid off 2 weeks ago, at 10am, I left the building, bought a cell phone and vowed that my first 5 phone calls would be to set up freelance gigs."

Ha! Take that Mr. Layoff Guy! You didn't crush this man's spirit!!

This friend also went on to say that even while employed he is going to freelance for the rest of his life just to have something to hold on to. And here's one last excerpt for good measure:

"I've really surprised myself at self-marketing. It's come a lot more naturally to me than I thought it would."

God's Speed my friend, Tim Collie.

You are extremely talented, and I'm with you all the way.

 

 .    

Online Communities, Comments and Curmudgeons

A wicked combination I know, but before I tell you what each means to me individually, I will introduce myself. I'm Angela Connor.

I love what I do on many levels. Yes, there were times when I didn't necessarily love my job at several points in the past, but my love for journalism and the convergence of media has never waned. I received a Values Award in my previous position at a newspaper for "clearly communicating the growing need for multimedia content in today's fragmenting media marketplace." That's a direct quote.

The plaque is on my office wall here at WRAL.com in Raleigh, where I've been the Managing Editor for UGC since February, 2007. That's user-generated content for those of you who may have thought it was an acronym for ugly, gregarious curmudgeons. I wish I were the managing editor of them as well though, so I could put them all on a 30-day performance review.

This is my first blog here at Technolo-J, and if they'll allow me to stay, there will be many more to come.

Now, about online communities. I am an online community manager. I moved to Raleigh to manage and provide long-term vision and strategies for GOLO.com. We are in our second year and have more than 8,000 members. I communicate with those members often. I know a whole heck of a lot about the people in the community. One could even say I know too much. I planned a one-year birthday bash for the community a few weeks ago, held it at Starbucks and met people with names like Mohawkhb, Sue Donym, CottontownRambler, Cuzin Lukey and Tarheel Army Mom. I believe that local communities that are managed well and where the members are treated with respect can thrive and serve as an asset to traditional media organizations.   

Let's move on to comments. I supervise a team of moderators. These moderators decide which comments will be allowed on WRAL.com news stories. It's a challenge, but we set standards and make our expectations known. Our goal is to create an environment for civil discourse where our visitors can engage, debate, and even fight, as long as it's civil. I have no tolerance for those who say newspapers should abandon comments. No they shouldn't. They should manage them.

That leads me to this: Curmudgeons. I have commented on a number of blog posts recently about this very topic. Simply put, they are everywhere. Some of them fall under the radar, happily grumbling at their cubicles or in the corner of the break room wearing a fixed scowl. Others are quite verbal. They refer to 35 year-olds as "kids."  They hate the internet, and they may even still own a typewriter. They don't want their story scooped online, even if it's their own company's website and they think that bloggers are direct descendants of the Anti-Christ.

You know the type. If you know the type all too well and you see him or her in the mirror everyday, it's time to make a change. Resistance is futile. So, right here on the Technolo-J blog, I am opening up a new center called Curmudgeons Anonymous. The first step is admitting the problem.

You: Hi. My name is Curmudgeon, and  I'm a curmudgeon.

Me: Hiiii Curmudgeon.

Welcome. You're in for the ride of your life.

Welcome a new author to Technolo-J

Beginning this week, you'll see a new name posting here at Technolo-J.

Angela Connor is managing editor of user-generated content at WRAL.com in Raleigh, N.C., and also is editor of the online community GOLO -- "Go Local." Angela offers a unique perspective to this blog in building online communities and helping journalism transform into a two-way conversation with our audience.  I'm excited to have her here.

Help me welcome her.

Selling out the news?

Las Vegas TV station KWU apparently has decided to react to the drop in advertising dollars many news operations are experiencing by product placement on its newscasts.  Anchors recently delivered the news with iced coffees from a popular fast-food franchise on their desks.

As Angela Grant points out on News Videographer:

“In my opinion, this conflicts with several points in SPJ’s Code of Ethics “Act Independently” section:

·         Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.

·         Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.

·         Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.

Certainly pressures are building as news organizations adapt to the shift in the way our audiences want to receive the news. But this smacks of at least the appearance of advertisers influencing news content. This also points out  why it’s so important for  SPJ to continue to push ethics at this time of change. We need to maintain a watchdog approach and be vigilant to make sure the high standards we have set over the past century do not erode.