Technolo-J

Programming Note: We've Moved!

bokeefe — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:14:00 GMT

The SPJ Blogs Network has moved to the Wordpress platform, making it easier than ever to join the convesation. No registration of any kind is necessary. You can find the new home of this blog by following this link. RSS subscribers, update your readers by pointing it to this URL.

Other Links
— Visit the new SPJ Blogs Network
— RSS (All National Blogs)
— RSS (All Regional Blogs)

Using social media to improve our readers’ experience

HilaryFosdal — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:30:00 GMT

As journalists, we need work on our relationships with our readers.

We're now realizing that the one-size-fits-all traditional method of delivering news no longer works for our audience -- or for us -- as competition increases and attention spans decrease. So it's up to us to come up with new, improved ways to reach them.

That's where social media comes into play.

It has already impacted how many digest news. Instead of picking up a paper at the corner newspaper box, people are finding their news on their favorite niche social news sites. Instead of opening the front door and picking up the morning paper, folks are heading to Facebook to watch an uploaded video, checking out the latest post from a subscribed RSS feed or clicking a tweeted link.

It's important to realize that our readers use sites like Facebook and Twitter because they can customize their experience and feel connected to other users. Since users can pick and chose where their information comes from, it's up to us to provide exactly what they want; whether that's a Twitter account that only chats about the latest movie reviews or an RSS feed of stories of news in their communities.

It doesn't stop there. These social sites provide an exciting opportunity for us to transform journalism from a one-sided phone conversation into a discussion among friends.

That said, readers no longer want to only read their favorite reporters or columnists; they want to meet them, befriend them on Facebook and chat with them on Twitter.

Every single experience every employee has with a user is increasingly important. These experiences will lead the customer to either recommend or condemn your company or personal brand. The power of word of mouth is tremendous. And now, with all sorts of social media tools available online, it’s easy for folks to share their opinions, which can impact your brand even more.

But there needs to be a strategy behind the madness, which is part of my job at the Chicago Tribune. For more than a year and a half we've been discovering the best ways to use social media and search engine optimization to increase our readers' experiences with ChicagoTribune.com. We've learned a great deal - best practices, tips and tricks - and we have much to learn.

We need to learn more about our readers and be willing to interact with them. We can no longer simply speak to our community; we have to be a part of the community. And that's only possible by understanding and participating on these sites.

But it takes a change of thinking. It takes an acceptance of how the journalism industry is expanding, and an honest desire to learn how to use social media tools.

I hope in the next few months we can help each other change our attitudes, improve our skills and continually prepare us for an ever-changing career.

Amanda Maurer is the online and social media producer at the Chicago Tribune, and blogs at acmaurer.com. <!—if you need the link: http://twitter.com/acmaurer--> You can also follow her (@acmaurer) on Twitter. 

From the Power to the Prezi

HilaryFosdal — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:59:00 GMT

ATTENTION: This post is for all the journalists who find themselves manning a desk more than a beat. Here is a cool digital tool for your managerial toolbox.

Are you dreading having to prepare yet another PowerPoint presentation?

Ready to take your work presentation to the next level?

Sounds like you are ready for prezi.

Prezi is ‘the zooming presentation editor.’

You won’t find any traditional linear slideshow options or square-boxed-constraints when you start building your prezi.

You start with an empty canvas and express your ideas using text, frames, media files and your creativity.

Want a word to be off-center? Use the ‘transformation zebra’ and place a word on a slant.

Want to emphasize a detail and then pull back to show the bigger picture? You can do it, visually, using prezi’s zoom in and zoom out features.

You can group your ideas within frames, add images, and you are always free to jump the tracks and zoom into a different section should you decide to construct a ‘path’ that leads your audience from one thought to the next.

Prezi also allows you to save your presentation offline. Now you’re ready to give your talk on any computer, at any time, no internet access required.

Curious? Want to learn more? Take Prezi out for a test drive...the public license plan is free.

Hilary Fosdal is the Interactive Content Manager for Barrington Broadcasting Group. You can read more of her work on her blog Running for Food (http://runningforfood.com).

Dimdim Web Conferencing

HilaryFosdal — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:03:00 GMT

I'm sure at one point or another you have participated or hosted a web conference call at work. Web conferences are a great way to deliver your PowerPoint presentation to several colleagues spread throughout the nation and show them websites that express your point in visual detail.

Dimdim (http://www.dimdim.com/) offers web conferencing for FREE.

Have 20 or less people scattered across the globe that you'd like to have gathered around a computer screen to meet and greet?

Maybe you are a chapter whose members are geographically spread out, but would like a way to maintain better communication?

One of the features I like the best about Dimdim is that it does not require the participants of a conference call to download any software or create an account.

The host creates an account (and downloads a small file, see instructions below) and sends out invitations via email to the participants. Participants open up the Dimdim meeting email invite, click on the link, and enter the conference call in just a few clicks.

Dimdim also provides you with a phone number (area code 702) and pass-codes for all participants to call in on.

Interested in trying it out?

HOW TO CREATE AN ACCOUNT

Go to http://www.dimdim.com/
Click ‘Sign Up Now!’
Click “Free $0 FOR SMALL MEETINGS”
Fill out the ‘create an account’ fields
Un-check the box ‘Subscribe to news and updates at DimDim’ (my suggestion only!)
On the ‘Welcome to Dimdim’ screen, click ‘Sign In’

You have now successfully created your DimDim account. You will receive a ‘Welcome’ message from Dimdim saying you have an active account.

JOINING A CONFERENCE CALL

You do not need to have a Dimdim account to participate in a Web/Phone conference call

Open up the Dimdim meeting email invite.
Click ‘To join the meeting, simply click here.’ YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CREATE AN ACCOUNT TO JOIN THE MEETING.
Enter your name into the ‘Your Name’ field.
Click ‘Join’
That’s it. You are now in the meeting!
If you want to be heard, and seen (if you have a web cam) – click on the ‘allow’ button in the lower left-hand corner. Or click the the microphone button after your name in the Participant column, click Restart A/V broadcaster and the Starting Stream window will appear. Click ‘Allow.’
Call into the number listed at the top “Dial-in” and enter the pass-code listed.

HOW TO HOST A CONFERENCE

Sign into your account
You will be asked to select ‘Preferences’ – Click ‘Ok’
Change the time zone in the ‘General Tab’.
To share your screen with other participants you will need to install ‘Screencaster Plug-in 5.1’ – you will be prompted to do this when you click on the ‘Computer Screen’ tab at the top left corner.
Pick how you would like to start your conference. Begin!

The host has the ability to share their screen, use a whiteboard (to create images like you would in Microsoft's Paint), share a PDF or PowerPoint document and/or share web pages.

What I discovered playing around with Dimdim is that not all websites (URLs) like Dimdim. A great example is the New York Times website. The http://www.nytimes.com/ doesn't like to be i-framed, so it will, for lack of a better explanation, 'break' the conference and kick people out of the meeting. An irritating, but minor flaw for a great free product.

Hilary Fosdal is the Interactive Content Manager for Barrington Broadcasting Group. You can read more of her work on her blog Running for Food (http://runningforfood.com).

Kicking it Old School

HilaryFosdal — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:33:00 GMT

Digital multi-media features are increasingly commonplace in today's news outlets as print and electronic media have begun irreversibly cross-dipping into technologies previously exclusive to each other. What we once only read on paper we see and hear in an online video or narrated photo gallery, and the stories behind the broadcast feeds we once accessed only through a television station we also are seeing in words on a TV channel's Web site.

As multi-media practices become the new normal in journalists' skill set, content -- in-depth, meaningful, transformative content -- remains the ultimate news goal.

This summer I started www.inothernews.us, a blog site devoted to tracking online, community news start-ups following the rapid decline of legacy media. I wondered: Who, if anyone, is taking on the responsibility of bringing news content to areas underserved by established media outlets? As a daily newspaper reporter in Scranton, PA, who was laid off this year, I saw first hand how much news went uncovered in outlying municipalities that not only my former employer claimed to serve, but also the local television news outlets and competing newspapers. With the loss of staff writers over the years through attrition, layoffs and buyouts at my last paper, it was clear there are not enough bodies to generate stories important to a particular populace.

And I knew the dwindling news situation in Scranton was identical to that of hundreds of communities around the country. A glance at the rising tally of the laid off or bought out news staff around the country – 13,500 this year so far -- at Erica Smith’s Papercuts site tells that story.

Inothernews.us so far contains descriptions of 26 new news outlets, and that relatively small collection paints a promising, refreshing picture of the future of news coverage. Each of the listings represent online experiments ranging from commercial endeavors to non-profit organizations; from solo operations to collective efforts of dozens of contributors; from coverage of large metro areas that compete with established media companies to sites serving suburban outposts; and from subscription services to free access.

SeattlePostGlobe.org, a start-up following the drastic downsizing of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, one of two major metro dailies, reported on Sept. 7 a local homeless shelter needs a new location; EastsiderLA.com, news site devoted to the Northeast section of Los Angeles, recently notified readers that citrus trees in two neighborhoods will be targeted for pest treatment; and BaltimoreBrew.com on Friday posted a video simulation of a proposed Maryland Transit Authority line running through a section of town.

Without digital media opportunities, these sites may not exist as there are few legacy costs associated with them. I pay nothing for the WordPress blog account that runs www.inothernews.us, and I pay less than $10 a year for the domain name. Thanks to fair use provisions, I can post screen shots and pull quotes from each listing's site at no charge.

It is the hope of journalists today that what we are learning about digital media and what we already know about reporting the news will merge seamlessly to provide what matters most to our audience: content that is consistent, convenient and affordable.

Jessica Durkin knows community coverage. Throughout her five-year journalism career in two states, she covered municipal meetings from education to zoning. She is the Mid-Atlantic region director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, an SPJ Keystone Pro Chapter member and is interested in media reform.

The price of information online

HilaryFosdal — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:16:00 GMT

L. Gordon Crovitz recently observed people often ignore the second part of author Stewart Brand’s famous quote “Information wants to be free.” In a February column, Crovitz, a media analyst and an executive with The Wall Street Journal, reminded readers the end of Brand’s quote is: “Information also wants to be expensive.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer will soon join a litany of media companies considering a new way to generate revenue from news after it has become a free and ubiquitous commodity. The paper, which faces a key bankruptcy hearing September 15, plans to start charging for online content by year’s end, including potentially demanding “micropayments” for each article.

But here’s why switching to a full- or partial-payment model for online news won’t resolve the media industry’s financial troubles. Newspapers are not only failing to provide enough compelling content to entice people to suddenly pay for it online or buy it in print, they’re cutting their newsgathering operations.

Other than adding a few photo slideshows, reporter Blogs and videos to their Web sites, newspapers are asking readers to suddenly pay for the same dwindling news and information they can find in the print edition. The fact is that enough people probably won’t pay — especially when the content was once free — to make the newspapers economically viable.

So, media companies should cease printing paper editions or publish their print versions far less often, and they should channel all the overhead they save into adding reporters. Then, newly potent, rejuvenated newsgathering operations could focus on the kind of hyper-local coverage, investigative reporting and watchdog journalism for which advertisers and readers would actually pay.

The trouble is newspapers still believe they offer something so special that people will always want to pay for them. But, in reality, much of reason the reason many people bought papers to begin with was they were monopolies. Yet, newspapers can still prove they have value by entertaining people with arts coverage and offering them the stories they crave on local sports, schools, taxes, politicians and other community issues.

It’s true that the public no longer values the ability of newspapers to lead the debate on issues or unify a community in discussing a particular topic. That’s because readers can do the same things in online communities or seek news and information from select Web sites that cater to readers’ unique socio-economic and political views.

Newspapers should have harnessed the Internet’s power a long time ago to shed the major costs of producing, printing and distributing dead tree copies of the news. Instead, they clung to the print model and gave away content online, while conceding free classified advertising to services like Craigslist.

Now, the Inquirer, Media News Group, Cablevision System Corp.’s New York Newsday and Hearst Co. think they can suddenly charge people for their digital content. But newspaper executives haven’t yet realized that continually cutting coverage gives advertisers and readers no reason to stop their exodus let alone pay more. As Tammy Lytle, the former Washington bureau chief for the Orlando Sentinel, recently told American Journalism Review, “I don’t think you sell more by giving people less.”

Written by Daniel Axelrod

Pushed into digital media and surviving

HilaryFosdal — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:34:00 GMT

When I was asked to sit on this Digital Media Committee, I thought what can a person with an extensive broadcast background and more than two years of digital media under her belt bring to SPJ? I mean it's known as the best organization for print journalists. Then I realized---folks the lines between broadcast, print and online are so blurred, we're all now doing each other's jobs.

I now see newspaper photographers show up at press conferences with video cameras. Remember that was a television videographer's job. I now see television and print reporters pulling out a notebook AND A video camera on assignment. Television, radio and print reporters are now required to blog about their beats or their stories.

More than two years ago, reporters at my former TV station in Dallas were ordered to start blogging. I said blogging? What the heck was that? No one really bothered to explain this form of communication. I felt a bit lost and to be honest a bit afraid, because I didn't know how a blog functioned. We never got Blogging 101. I admit I jumped in very, very slowly.

Two years later, I now know how to blog, how to design a website, the good and bad of social networking, how to create animation, how to shoot a video story, how to produce a digital slideshow with the photographs I took, and even how to edit video on a computer.

So what I bring to the table is this---that we in TV, radio, print, and online should learn from each other. Digital media is a combination of all of our common backgrounds, knowledge and now multimedia tools.

Do I know it all in Digital Media? Heck no! It changes daily. So we'll be taking this journey together. And one more thing, if I could learn new multimedia tools when I was 50....than so can you. Until next time...

Rebecca Aguilar is a freelance multimedia reporter in Dallas. You can follow her (@RebeccaAguilar) on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RebeccaAguilar.

Sony, Canon, Nikon offer new tools to make multimedia news gathering easier

JeffAchen — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:24:00 GMT

Three new products caught my eye recently that I believe will help lighten the load in multimedia journalists' backpacks: the Sony Webbie HD camera, the Nikon D300s, and the Canon EOS 7D.

Let's start small. The Sony Webbie HD caught my eye because of its pitch to YouTuber's and teens. It's a powerful HD video camera with Memory Stick PRO Duo recording, 5-megapixel still photo capability and 5x optical zoom. There's even an LED video light.

Sure, there's no external mic input, but for $199 ($179 @ B&H Photo), it is a great value to smaller news operations or for newsrooms who'd like to outfit each of their reporters with a reliable video and still camera.

It would be ideal for interviews, breaking news footage, and simple still photography (half the reason I get moans and groans from reporters when asked for more photos is they simply don't have cameras with them all the time.) And, yes, you can capture stills while the camera is recording video!

The camera's size and the fact that it's a Sony make it all the more valuable for the novice multimedia shooter. It's not much bigger than a iPod Classic.

For those photographers turned videographer, the Nikon D300s hits stores this week for around $1799. An improvement on the D300, the "s" captures HD video (780i) and has two memory card slots. This is an improvement over the D90's HD video capture in that the "s" has an external mic jack. A great camera for the serious multimedia shooter who doesn't want to lug around two pieces of equipment to do video and stills. I can't wait to get my hands on the D300s (yes, I'm a dedicated Nikon guy) and lighten my multimedia backpack.

Then there's Canon, which has come out with a great still camera that takes HD video, all at a more reasonable cost than the EOS 5D Mark II. The EOS 7D runs about $1699 and rivals Nikon's D300s in more than just price. It shoots at 18.0 megapixels and Full HD (1080i). If I weren't a Nikon guy, I'd be really into this piece of equipment.

Multimedia shooting just got much more fun!

Jeff Achen is the multimedia producer and online editor for Thisweeklive.com, a community newspaper web site in Minnesota. He is also a freelance photographer/videographer and blogger at www.mnvideopro.wordpress.com. You can follow him on Twitter.com/jeffachen or email jeffachen@mac.com.

Five Social Media Sites for Journos

HilaryFosdal — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:05:00 GMT

Here are some websites - on the social media tip - that are worth checking out:

1. Wired Journalists
http://www.wiredjournalists.com/
Social network with over 3,300 members and counting.

2. Muck Rack
http://muckrack.com/
Journalists on Twitter, listed by beat and media outlet. Add yourself to the list!

3. Visual Editors
http://visualeditors.ning.com/
Social network for graphically-inclined journos (designers, photographers, videographers, et al.)

4. Testy Copy Editors
http://www.testycopyeditors.org
Message board for folks on the copy desk.

5. Sree's Twitter Guide for Skeptics and Newbies
http://bit.ly/twitterideas
Extensive list of Twitter tools and resources for journos, compiled by Columbia J-School tech superstar Sree Sreenivasan. You can listen to his "Twitter for Journalists" podcast here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ColumbiaJournalism/2009/01/09/Twitter-for-Journalists

Until next time...

I'm Emily Sweeney, staff reporter at The Boston Globe. You can follow me (@emilysweeney) on Twitter at http://twitter.com/emilysweeney.

Print headlines often fail Web readers

HilaryFosdal — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:51:00 GMT

"County to raise taxes on property."

"Smith calls for cleanup of polluted site."

"City to approve land-use plan tomorrow."

Headlines like those work just fine for a newspaper -- the print kind, the kind you pick up off your lawn in the morning and hold in your hands.

But they don't work so well online. And that makes it harder for readers to find the content they're looking for on your site.

When you hold the newspaper in your hands and your eye falls on a specific headline, the physical structure of the newspaper and the conventions of newspaper layout allow your brain to quickly put the headline in context.

For instance, imagine you pick up your newspaper and the headline says "County to raise taxes on property."

Right under the headline is the lead of the story, which tells you a little bit more.

Maybe the lead starts off with a dateline for a specific city. That tells you even more.

There could be a picture next to the headline -- a photo of the county mayor or commission voting to raise taxes. And there could also be other layout geegaws near the headline that help your brain sort it all out -- when I worked at a newspaper, the page designers made use of elements called "graybars," basically short, column-wide boxes of gray shading with the name of the affected county in white letters. (Other papers probably have something similar in their page-designers' toolboxes.)

Between the headline, the lead of the story, the photo, the dateline and the graybar, you can look at that story on the newspaper page and quickly discern what it is about and whether you want to read on or flip the page to the funnies.

But online, those headlines just don't work for me. And I have a feeling they don't work for a lot of other readers, too.

When you see a headline on a Web site, it is physically divorced from all those other newspaper elements. Online, there are no graybars to tell you what county is being discussed. Even on the Web site of a pick-it-up-off-the-lawn newspaper, you often can't see the lead, the dateline or the accompanying photo unless you click on the headline and start reading the story. (Maybe a couple of the biggest stories of the day will have photos with them, but for most of the stories, all you see on the newspaper homepage is the headline itself.)

And if the headline is divorced from such supporting elements online, then the marriage is totally annulled for news headlines being read through alternative delivery methods like RSS and Twitter.

An example: As an editor for a news Web site in Houston focusing on state and local government and freedom of information issues, I see scads of headlines every day through RSS (I'm a committed Google Reader user). And at least twice a day I see headlines like these:

"County to raise taxes on property."

Uh, OK, which county? I can maybe understand this headline appearing in a very small newspaper that really covers only one county -- but often these headlines are in much larger papers that cover several counties. I can't help but think that newspaper's readers are just as confused as I when they see this headline online.

"Smith calls for cleanup of polluted site."

OK, so, who's Smith? Is there only one guy named Smith in that town? Ditto on the polluted site -- is this a town so small that it has only one? (I'm sure the newspaper had a graybar or a dateline or something else with that headline, but again, none of those show up with the headline online.)

"City to approve land-use plan tomorrow."

Rerun: What city? Even most really, really tiny counties contain more than one city. (I clicked on a headline very similar to this the other day via an RSS feed from a small daily paper, assuming the headline was about the city in the newspaper's name. Come to find out, the city in question was a tiny city in the paper's circulation area.)

But this isn't a problem only for those of us who get our news through RSS. More and more people are reading their news on mobile devices, where Web pages can be slower to load -- and where users are paying dearly for every second of time needed to download the page. I don't know about you, but when I'm surfing the Web on my Blackberry, I'm a bit choosier about what links I click on. That headline has to be really strong, and really precise, for me to click on it to read a story. I'm more likely to say to a headline with so-so interest, "I won't read you now -- I'll try to read you later on, when I get home." I don't have the extra time (or money!) to click on every headline that says "County to raise taxes" to find out what county is involved. I'm going to pass that story by. When I get home, I might check it out on my computer, or I might not.

All of those headlines are fine for the newspaper -- that's the way newspaper people have been trained to write headlines for decades now (Anybody out there bought one of those "Area Man" T-shirts from The Onion?) But headlines that work in traditional print media often don't work online. Those of us who trained as newspaper people will find that our training, and our conventions, sometimes serve us poorly in the new digital sphere. Online, headlines have to stand on their own two feet.

Jennifer Peebles is deputy editor of Texas Watchdog (http://www.texaswatchdog.org), a nonprofit, online newspaper in Houston.

The new Digital Media Committee!

HilaryFosdal — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:35:00 GMT

This weekend is the SPJ conference in Indianapolis.

There is an entire track devoted to New Media. w00t!

If you are looking for tips, tricks and techniques to get yourself and your newsroom flowing in the digital age of journalism - you've found the right blog.

In fact we were so excited to get started that Digital Media Committee member Jeff Achen has written a blog post about using live streaming.

Curious about what other SPJ members are on the DMC? Check out the 'About' page.

I also want to encourage you to attend the Digital Media Committee meeting taking place on Friday, August 28th at 2:15pm in the Cabinet Room.

If you are unable to attend the DMC meeting but are interested in contributing to the activities of the DMC, such as writing a blog post, please let us know.

Hilary Fosdal, Digital Media Committee chair

Four steps to building successful live streaming service on your news site

HilaryFosdal — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:29:00 GMT

I used to work for a TV station. I was the editor of a weekly newspaper. Now, I'm living in both worlds. I'm an online editor and multimedia journalist.

Of all the tools that seem to bridge the gap between broadcast and print journalist, live streaming has to be the most revolutionary. Today, any one person, let alone any given news organization, can broadcast video live out over the internet using live streaming services such as Livestream.com or Ustream.tv for the cost of a simple video camera, laptop and a few video cables and accessories.

The ubiquity of broadcasting power brings with it a lot of trash that clogs the Internet. This is where journalists have the opportunity, and I would argue the responsibility, to more contentiously and professionally harness the medium. Here are a few considerations:

1) Set it up right. Ensure your brand, your logo and you organization's live stream account looks good. Livestream.com allows you to upload a variety of logos to various positions like a 300x300 logo, 960x80 banner, and 300x250 promo image. Take the time to ensure these are uploaded and that your "channel" looks good. It will say a lot about the professionalism of your news service.

2) Thoughtfully consider how and what to live stream. Should you live stream your local school board meeting? Too boring? Already available on the school district's web site? How about live streaming a public debate your newspaper is hosting for the next election? There you go. Not everything is ideal for live streaming. Consider what people would take the time to watch and how timely it is. If you purchase a wireless card you could conceivably live stream from any location with a camera and laptop. This could open up great possibilities for your news organization. Cover the downtown fire live on the web or an important press conference, all without the live satellite truck those TV stations rely on.

3) Market you live stream service. Getting the audience is perhaps the hardest part of adding live streaming to your web site. You need to find a place to embed your live stream player that people will be able to find. You also have to let them know that your web site is the place to view the event live. Most people won't think to go to their local news site for this type of service. In the week leading up to the event, use every opportunity to let your web site visitors know what you've got planned for the live event coverage. Then follow through consistently to let build your audience. Let them know that this is a service they can consistently rely on to be there for important live event coverage.

4) Lastly, take full advantage of live stream host service options. Livestream.com allows you to loop your videos in a replay format so even though your stream isn't live 24/7, the video of the last live event you covered is. And, make sure you approach live streaming with a "producers" mind set. Use Livestream's graphics and titling to put up names and locations as needed during your live broadcast. Take advantage of the live chat function to engage with your audience during the live broadcast.

Live streaming is a new tool for news web sites. When used effectively and to its full potential, this service can revolutionize the way you cover your community. One truly remarkable web site that has taken full advantage of live streaming tools is www.theuptake.org. This site is a citizen journalism web site that covers Minnesota politics through live video coverage. Imagine how your organization could do similar work.

Just remember, if approached half-heartedly, live stream services can flounder. Live streaming is about engagement. Consider carefully how it can enhance your coverage.

Jeff Achen is the multimedia producer and online editor for Thisweeklive.com, a community newspaper web site in Minnesota. He is also a freelance photographer/videographer. You can follow him on Twitter.com/jeffachen or email jeffachen@mac.com.

Pushing Twitter trial coverage a step forward: federal court

RonSylvester — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:48:00 GMT

In less than a year, covering trials via Twitter has gone from an experiment to one of my regular reporting tools. With each new trial, I've gained about 100 followers - both locally and even from other countries - and that doesn't count the people who watch it from our news web site or on my work blog.

The reaction has been stunning at times. Other news sites, notably the Orange County Register, has also picked up on this kind of coverage for the courts.

But this week brought a giant step forward when a federal judge in Wichita gave the go-ahead for me to use Twitter there. I don't know if it's a first, as some of the legal bloggers think, but it is a big step in expanding live coverage of the courts.

See, federal courts don't allow cameras or video or audio recorders. The federal courthouse in Wichita doesn't allow cell phones, so I had to get the judge's permission to bring my smartphone and Bluetooth keyboard into the courtroom.

The trial, which begins testimony Monday, surrounds federal charges of racketeering aimed at accused members of the Crips street gang. Federal prosecutors around the country have used racketeering laws for years to try and curb the problem of street gangs.

But to see these trials, you had to go to the courthouse. Twitter will allow people to follow the trial in real time and learn more about federal courts and how they work.

Follow the trial next week. After it's over, I'll report back with an update on what I learned in this new venue.

To be a journalist: to publish, to benefit a community

RonSylvester — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 04:18:00 GMT

Used to be, we needed people who owned big printing presses or big towers in order to be journalists. But today, when most people are getting their information online, anyone can publish content.

The business of big media is watching their stocks fall, while watching the rise of citizen journalists. But what is a citizen journalist, and what makes them different from professional journalists. Even SPJ, the largest organization of professional journalists, struggles for that definition.

Serena Carpenter gives the best one I've seen:

“An individual who intends to publish information meant to benefit a community.”

Serena even explains her definition, by reaching into decades-old First Amendment law, then concludes:

"This means citizen journalists and traditional journalists fall under the definition of a journalist," Carpenter says. "Not every person is a journalist, but any citizen can become one."

A newspaper experience minus the actual paper?

Angela_Connor — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:16:00 GMT

I just ran across this post on Mashable. If you don’t read Mashable regularly, you should. Add it to your feed reader today.

Okay, now back to the real reason I’m posting today on my day off.

There’s a new service called Feed Chronicle that pulls feeds from various sources and puts them in a newspaper layout on your screen. The full name is: "Feed Chronicle:The Collaborative Newspaper," and it's still in Beta. All of th big online news sources seem to be present, but you can also suggest additional feeds.

I’m too short on time to share my thoughts on it at the moment but I have toyed with it for the last 10 or 15 minutes. I do find it interesting that people may no longer want the physical paper in their hands, but they want the layout.

I know you have something to say about this. Check it out and leave a comment.

Angela Connor