Thursday, January 31, 2008
Danny Lawhon 2/1
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Rebecca's Delaney's Blog, week of 2/1
Readers shouldn’t have to gamble with accuracy either. But I think they should still have the luxury of convenience when it comes to being informed, and that’s why I’m so fascinated by the idea of modifying news web outlets to mimic a wiki model. Wikipedia is popular because it’s so incredibly easy to use. Wikipedia wrote the book on context — each page branches out in countless links offering background and tangents to explore. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a news outlet like the Columbia Missourian could offer coverage with the same contextual strength?
Blog sites already use the kind of technology the Missourian could adopt to become a little more “wikiish.” The tags bloggers attach to their posts could be modified to suit the needs of a newspaper’s web site. If we indexed all of our stories under certain categories and could hotlink a series of older articles offering readers context when they check out a new topic, we’d be doing them a huge service. I’m envisioning a turbocharged version of the “more story” thing we do now. I don’t just want “more story.” I want a Columbia dictionary, defining every single key term we can think of so that we can link those terms to their definitions when they appear in stories. Instead of a few more articles linked to new stories, I want readers to be able to click a link where they can see a visually appealing, chronological presentation of relevant coverage.
Let’s say we run a story about City Council elections for the First Ward. To me, an ideal news site would link to condensed bios the first time a candidate is mentioned in every story. If an important issue is being discussed in the story, I want a link to a short summary of what that issue entails. And if readers want even more background, they could click a link to access stories from the past several months about the First Ward, City Council elections, etc.
I know this whole concept is incredibly idealistic; implementation would be a logistical nightmare. But if we can’t get the ball rolling to explore how to better inform readers, then what’s the point of being a journalist at all?
Progress report:
The first story was the big obstacle for me. Now that it’s out of the way, I’m feeling infinitely better about my newsroom performance. I think my story on the Ragtag was a really solid bit of coverage. We broke the news that True/False will intentionally be slowing its growth to avoid becoming something of a Midwestern Sundance, and I think that’s a great start to my semester. Also, the story idea I pitched last week for a future Saturday cover looks like it will pan out beautifully. I want to cover a new exhibit at MU’s Art & Archaeology museum featuring pre-Columbian (Christopher, that is) artwork of the Americas. But instead of doing the generic preview story, I want to cover the heck out of this exhibit, linking it to Columbia, Missouri and Midwest pre-Columbian history and artwork. Hopefully, this story will appeal to a wider demographic than strictly those who would be interested in a new art exhibit.
Monday, January 28, 2008
back to square 1
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Let there be blogs
Rebekah's take on Week One
Also, when I had my meeting with Scott Swafford this week, we definitely talked about the potential of adding multimedia, especially interactive graphics, to the stories coming out of the public life beat. Hooray! The more multimedia, the better, I say. And this semester the convergence department has more students available to work on projects than ever before.
I think that my biggest impressions came from the breaking news this week – there was a lot of it! Both the stories of Governor Blunt deciding not to run again and the story about the St. Francis House required multiple online updates throughout the day. Compared to the past few semesters that I have paid attention to things at the Missourian, the capacity to update a story online like a professional newspaper would has grown exponentially. I also really appreciated how everyone sat down and talked about it in budget. I feel like in a normal newsroom, that is something that would be done in a small committee and the reporters would have no real input.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Justin O'Neil Week 1
My role has not been defined as far as what I will be writing about for the semester, but I am writing for the public life beat, and I will be working with my former editor Katherine Reed to address an ongoing story I wrote about last semester about police brutality and oversight.
I am looking forward to our final project in this course, as I think my weakness as a journalist is my lack of design and understanding of technology. The type of site we will be designing is one of the ways online newspapers can stand apart and add information for readers that could not be presented in other formats. I want to learn as much about interactive sites and software as I can, and I think I can turn this into a strength as long as I continually put in the time and effort to learn the technology.
Danny Lawhon 1/25
"Advanced"
During a school board meeting yesterday, I had the very unnerving experience of being watched by our new reporters. I realized then that I have to think my role through.
I'm working very closely with the K-12 beat, and it's a big one. There is a definite danger that I could suffocate the beginning reporters by taking too much on, or not letting them figure things out for themselves. What drove my success last semester was this very ugly thought: "If I don't do it, who else will?"
Yesterday, those reporters' answer was "Audrey." Of the three other reporters at the meeting, two did not take notes. I should have said something. The "advanced" requires it.
What I want to do this semester is continue the last K-12 beat's work. I want the SchoolHouseTalk blog set up by Lucinda to generate more discussion, and to use parent input as article starting points. I would like everyone on the K-12 beat to contribute to that blog. I hope to personally write articles that explain district finances and national education policies clearly, with simple language. Most of all, I want this semester's reporters to have the experience that I had before.
I'm here to help, but I can't limit their role.
Progress Report:
I wrote three articles. Two were simple: the announcement of school board election candidates and a report on yesterday's meeting. The other, published today, addressed the district's evaluation of how it pays employees. It's a big issue, and included something the Tribune's reporter never asked - how much would this overhaul cost our district?
I worked with a reporter on the election article, and think she has a much better idea of what we do here because of it.
I led two reporters through posting on our blog on Monday, and wrote a response to a comment on our blog with a post about MLK day.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Sam Miles 1/25
Hopefully next week I'll have something more exciting for everyone.
Paul David Lampe's first week update
I would like to start with a sigh of relief that the first week is near an end. Since I have been out of the newsroom since last spring I wanted to dive in head first this week. I must say that I personally feel this has been a very productive week. I have published one brief, two articles, a video post, and I am working on another article for VOX.
The work this week has been great. As a Convergence Student I personally don’t feel that I knew all of the Missourian editors well enough, but I am very happy that Scott is my editor. He has been a great editor in this first week and I really have enjoyed covering city council renovations.
Working in print is slightly different for me even as I have produced print pieces before, in many ways I use to avoid print work as much as possible and focus more on my multimedia and video skills. As I produced a video piece this week it was interesting to me that I felt much more comfortable writing the articles than editing the video. I may feel this way, because I haven’t worked on a video piece since winter of 2006/2007. I am hoping that by the end of the semester I can feel comfortable working in both platforms and creating relevant and essential content by deadline.
I also feel very invigorated by this first week as we have heard Governor Blunt’s announcement and Sarah Steelman’s announcement (although we may expect to hear something different from her in the future).
Even as I sigh with relief that the weekend is approaching and I will take a break on Sunday, I also recognize this is just the beginning. I know this semester is going to be great and I know each week I will learn something valuable.
Matt Tilden 1/24
Progress Report: I was assigned my beat for the Capitol, health care. While I can't claim to be any sort of health-care expert, the issue will be exciting to cover because it will likely be the biggest issue of the session. So basically, I need to start reading a lot of health care bills and information. I also wrote my first story. So not bad for the first day.
Katie Micik's blog 1/25
Yesterday, the excuses didn’t come. But perhaps they didn’t have a chance. I was doing background research for a story on the power plant and my editor told me people with really cool cameras were doing something at the columns on the quad. He asked me to go figure out what was going on. And I went.
The men were working for one of the university’s contractors and said they couldn’t tell me why they were taking high-tech laser readings of the columns. So, I called the director of campus facilities, who I needed to talk to about both the columns story and the power plant story. I didn’t hesitate.
Part of it was urgency. I was on the scene, not getting answers and on deadline. Part of it was resolve. Resolve to banish my childhood fear of cold calling to the Smith-Corona word processor graveyard. When I was 8 years old, my mom asked me to call a store to see how late they were open. I panicked, sobbed, pleaded, screamed out of fear of talking to a stranger over the phone. Now I laugh at an irrational fear. Someday, I know I will look back on my first phone call phobia and laugh harder.
Progress report:
This week has been about getting started. I’m working a story about the power plant. They’re burning wood chips in addition to coal and corncobs. More details to come. There are three topics I enjoy reading and reporting on ¬– energy, environment, economics – and they intersect in some fascinating ways. I’m looking forward to covering them this semester.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Rebecca Delaney's Journal, Week of 1/25
Since my first semester at the Missourian, I’ve realized my attitude toward the web was grossly misguided. That’s why Tom Warhover’s comment—that one of the Missourian’s new web-related goals, fostering communication, involves a certain degree of journalistic humility—struck a chord with me. I realized I’d fallen victim to reporter’s egomania.
Since the era of muckrakers and even before, I think it’s been easy for journalists to get sucked into the idea that they’re somehow “above” their readers, dishing out the news from some sort of reporter’s pedestal…that because we’re rooting around and getting our hands dirty with the news, we’re like a higher power with the sole authority to tell readers “this is how things are.” By going web-centric, the Missourian removes the ego from the news.When we perform immediate web updates on breaking news, we’re humbling ourselves. The bylines often include five, six or seven reporters. And I think it’s in these cases — when several reporters come together and forget the thirst for personal byline glory in favor delivering a story as quickly as possible — that we’re providing the greatest service to readers. We deliver the story instead of "my" story.
On that same note, I love the way we’ve been posting simple, factual information on the web. (IE: the text of Matt Blunt’s speech announcing he won’t be up for re-election or sketches of the new high school.) This kind of information lets readers be their own reporters. They can see the same facts from which a reporter compiles a story, but they have the freedom to synthesize the information provided in a way that makes sense to them. We just make it a little easier to find that information. To me, posting the text of speeches or relevant political documents truly facilitates reader participation and, hopefully, reader conversation.
That’s not to say reporters’ stories aren’t as valuable as ever. Even as we make news faster and more accessible on the web, It’s every bit as critical as it’s always been to make sure skilled journalists report the news with an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to cut through spin Without solid reporters, much of the “news” would be nothing but an ocean of out-of-context, incoherent and often biased information.
This week’s progress report:
I feel like I’m already behind. Two days in and I haven’t done a single interview. I have, however, done a great deal of research on the Missouri Theatre and am ready to push this story forward. We haven’t written anything on the renovations in months, and the Tribune’s kicking our, well, you get the idea. I want to step our Missouri Theatre coverage up in a big way. I’ve also pitched a story idea for MU’s upcoming Art & Archaeology Museum exhibit, “Before Columbus.” The exhibit will showcase pre-Columbian artifacts from North America. I want to preview the exhibit, but I also want to explore connections to local historical sites and potentially run down a (brief) history of pre-Columbian Missouri. I think a story like this will appeal to a wider audience by attracting art buffs, history fans and curious readers alike. In terms of ideas and stories simmering in my head, I’m pretty pleased with my progress. I’m worried, however, that with a hectic schedule, I’m going to fall flat on story delivery. It’s going to take a lot of sleepless nights to rock the Muse beat like I hope I can.
Gov. Blunt Breaking News from ColumbiaMissourian.com
In case you weren't around for budget this morning, here is the slide show showing the evolution of columbiamissourian.com during the breaking news last night. There was some great discussion during budget, and I thought I'd open it up for comments here on our blog, too.