Category: Blog

One year later: Top 10 list of tips for journalism students

One year ago today I posted:

By a factor of four, this has become the most popular page/post on my site with more than 2,200 pageviews (Sidenote: I began using Google Analytics on Jan. 15, 2008 and have been blogging since Nov. 24 – yes, I missed my first blogging anniversary).

I don’t want to navel-gaze, but I’d like to use this as a quick lesson in the power of the Web, specifically Google and linking. Some of my inspiration for publishing these figures comes from Mindy McAdams and William (Mark) Hartnett, so I’ll tip my hat.

Links to the “top 10” post have appeared on several sites, including this recent post by Suzanne Yada:

Suzanne’s post was linked by a number of people, including Jeff Jarvis on BuzzMachine, Jay Rosen on Twitter and Ryan Sholin on Invisible Inkling. As a result, her blog became the No. 3 entrance source for my post. Powerful stuff, eh?

With the exception of zero pageviews from Aug. 17 to Sept. 6 (I have no idea why), the post has been viewed almost daily. Traffic increased after Sept. 7 and has been up markedly Suzanne’s post on Jan. 1.

The top traffic sources (by pageviews, including those temporarily under a different URL) were:

  1. Google (1,318)
  2. Direct (228)
  3. suzanneyada.com (151)
  4. mediageeks.ning.com, aka Wired Journalists (55)
  5. digitaljournalism.org (51)
  6. Yahoo (38)

(Note: A link to the post is included in my blog sidebar under “top posts,” which also drives traffic)

Social media  sources:

11. Publish2 (20)
15. Del.icio.us (16) [+ 4 listed under source No. 29]
16. StumbleUpon (16) [+ 13 while temporarily under a different URL]
22. Twitter (6)
27. Facebook (5)

Being such a big fan of Twitter, I’m a little disappointed by that number. But it’s important to note that this post came only one month into my experience with Twitter when I had no Twitterfeed set up and relatively few followers.

Moving on…

Fellow SEO nerds, take note of the top five keywords:

  1. journalism tips (150)
  2. advice for journalism students (68)
  3. top 10 journalism colleges (44)
  4. tips for journalism students (30)
  5. tips on journalism (30)

Conclusion: If you want a post to have a long shelf life (now I’m channeling Pat Thornton), make it timeless and make sure it’s got good SEO juice.

Another method is to save links to your most noteworthy posts on your social networks. For example, I manually shared the link on Publish2, Delicious and Wired Journalists. Also, my blog is included in the Wired Journalist Feedstream, which includes these cool people.

Finally, make friends. They’ll give you link love. And maybe they’ll get some link love that helps you too.

PS. Don’t forget to check out the original post:

Beyond Bootcamp: Watch NYT multimedia editor Andrew DeVigal live Weds at 7 p.m.

The Beyond Bootcamp livestreaming continues Wednesday night at 7 p.m. with New York Times multimedia editor Andrew DeVigal‘s (@drewvigal) keynote speech, which will begin the second round of workshops.

Watch the keynote here (not visable in RSS feed) or at:

The second set of workshops, which conclude Saturday, includes the following sessions (more about faculty):

  • Creating video narratives by Washington Post video guru Travis Fox and University of Miami visual journalism professor Jim Virga.
  • Creating effective online infographics by University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill visual communication professor Alberto Cairo and New York Times graphics editor Xaquin Gonzalez.
  • Multimedia programming for journalists by NYT senior multimedia producer Tom Jackson and Internet consultant Donny Loflin, who specializes in multimedia and application development.

I am attending the infographics workshops because it’s the area I know the least about, though I wish I could take all three!

Notes

Special thanks to Richard Koci Hernandez for embedding the livestream video player at Multimedia Shooter.

Follow all Beyond Bootcamp tweets:

As I mentioned the other day, please share the livestream and other links on Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, IM, etc.

Sidenote: I received an NBC xylophone-like chime from MSNBC’s Jim Seida for being an “awesome” audio workshop assistant.

I really enjoyed working with Jim and NYT’s Nancy Donaldson during the past three days. They didn’t treat me merely as an assistant (I only fetched water once), but asked me to help participants work in Soundtrack Pro, create their narratives and act as a “third teacher” (Jim’s words).

But, besides helping, I also learned a number of useful tips and tricks. Thanks, Jim and Nancy — you guys rock!

ONA student group: Journalism education discussion round-up

(This post originally appeared here on the Online News Association‘s student journalism discussion group.)

Last week there was an epic Twitter discussion about journalism education.

The conversation continued on the blogosphere and I’d like to offer a few links in the interest of keeping that conversation alive:

Rich Beckman discusses how to reshape journalism education – Greg Linch (me)

J-Schools Now – Emily Kostic

Peripheral education – Daniel Bachhuber

What do you think? Please post a comment or, if you blog about this topic, drop a link here.

UPDATE (Dec. 2 at 11 p.m.): Jared Silfies has also weighed in,

Education 2.0: The Internet makes us the computer wearing tennis shoes

ONA: New site for them, new role for me

New ONA site
New ONA site

Tah-dah! Another social network!

The Online News Association officially launched their new Web site (see right) Monday evening.

If you’re a member with full access, or even a non-member just perusing, you can tell this site is big step forward.

Here are some of the features, as outlined in an e-mail from ONA President Jonathan Dube:

  • Networking features, including discussion groups that connect members by region and area of interest, giving you the ability to have one-on-one conversations and to chat in real time.
  • An easy-to-navigate membership directory – searchable by name, type of organization, areas of expertise, and more – enabling you to more easily network with people with common interests.
  • A Career Center that allows members to post and search job openings.
  • A new training section with innovative digital presentations tagged by topic, source and medium. This section features videotaped sessions from ONA’s sold-out 2008 annual conference, with tips on the latest techniques in multimedia storytelling from the New York Times, Washington Post, USA TODAY and the BBC, among others.

So why I am blogging about this? Earlier this month I was asked to be the student group discussion leader, a role I enthusiastically accepted. 

I’ll be posting there a couple times a week in order to start conversations on topics such as classes, cool projects and internships. The group has six members so far, including two pros. 

If you’re a student ONA member, please join us!

If you’re a student interested in online journalism, I highly recommend joining ONA. I joined in April and think ONA is a group often overlooked by student journalists (read about membership benefits).

For only $25 a year, you can’t say no.

One benefit is that you get a heavily discounted conference registration — we’re talking less than half the pro rate.

And if you saw my posts or tweets about this year’s gathering in D.C., you’d see why the experience is so valuable. I went to a number of great sessions, but more important are the connections you make.

NETWORKING IS KEY! (see No. 8)

As someone in the midst of an internship – and soon job – search, I can’t emphasize that enough.

TNTJ November: Penny for your thoughts?

(Below is my response to this month’s question on Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists: November Topic: A million to save journalism. See my original post.)

With $1 million to help journalism, I would fund a project to look for ways to financially sustain journalism efforts, building off of the New Business Models for News Summit.

I wasn’t at the conference, so I followed it online. It was a great starting point, but we need more Web people involved. And not just Web people, but innovators who have successfully made money online.

To give you a sense of the people I would invite:

Weigh in: Who else would you invite?

Sidenote: This closed-door summit is not the answer: API Hosting ‘Crisis Summit’ for Newspaper Industry.