Tag: news

Nevada Sagebrush uses Twitter to liveblog editor selection meeting

The Nevada Sagebrush (University of Nevada Reno) liveblogged its editor selection meeting Saturday afternoon using Twitter.

The tweets were very comprehensive and, needless to say, flooded my Twhirl window for the duration of the meeting, but it was all good fun.

Thanks to Chelsea Otakan for directing followers of her Twitter account to the Sagebrush’s.

In an interesting twist, I recognized in an early tweet that one my fellow Miami Herald summer 2008 interns is on staff at the Sagebrush. It’s a small world after all.

Weigh in: Does your news organization use Twitter?

Shameless plug: The Miami Hurricane‘s page.

(Since you’re in the neighborhood, check out mine too.)

CommTogether right now, over…journalism

I’m a student in the School of Communication at the University of Miami, but you would think that the various journalism programs (print, broadcast and visual) speak different languages sometimes from the lack of collaboration that is present.

Yes, there have been several notable successes — and I’ve been lucky to be in three classes this year that focus on convergence (In-depth reporting for convergent media, online journalism and interactive storytelling) — but the level of cooperation is still not where it should be.

I kept all this is mind while devising a new final project for my CNJ 442 online journalism class, after the first plan regarding the new TheMiamiHurricane.com didn’t work out a planned.

The result is a social networking site the class is developing using Ning:

CommTogether

The general idea came to me one night as I was chatting online with Hurricane Visuals Editor Will Wooten (check out his recent site redesign). Regarding the group name, which I love, credit goes to Kiersten Schmidt.

Here are details from the CNJ 442 proposal that I drafted and the class helped refine:

Goals

  • Bring together in one forum the three journalism programs at the University of Miami School of Communication: print, broadcast and visual
  • Recruit students, faculty, staff, alumni and prospective students
  • Begin a conversation about the future of school’s journalism programs
  • Conceptualize collaborative projects for classes, students, media outlets, etc.
  • Take ideas and turn them into reality

Elements

  • Profile pages: students, faculty, administrators
  • Groups: programs, classes, projects, media
  • Feeds: blogs, news, etc.
  • Photos and videos
  • Blogs: internal
  • Comments

Action plan

  • Discuss and decide on name for group (complete)
  • Create network (complete)
  • Create profile pages (complete)
  • Create groups within network: programs, classes, media, organizations, etc.
  • Invite/recruit students, professors, administrators, staff, alumni and prospective students (in progress)
  • Table in the SoC courtyard
  • Solicit ideas from everyone regarding the future of curriculum, organizations
  • Conceptualize possible collaboration projects, way to converge
  • Maintain the discussion
  • Continue to recruit new group members

UPDATE: I forgot one very important reason for this site:

Students should have a voice in the development of curriculum.

Weigh in: Any suggestions/ideas for this site?

College Content Management social network

Last Saturday night I created a social networking site using Ning called College Content Management.
I’ve seen the power of Wired Journalists and NextNewsroom during the past few months and those served as my inspiration.
The idea floated around my head for a few weeks, but it was not realized until after I talked with Megan Taylor, online managing editor at The Alligator and Kevin Koehler, contributing editor (basically the online editor) at the Old Gold & Black at the NextNewsroom conference last week.
We talked extensively about each of our content management systems:
It became clear to me that there’s a desire among Web editors to share ideas, and gripe about their CMSes and, the day before I flew back home, the group was born.
The slogan: Because we all have to deal with a CMS.
The description: Do you have a Web site for your student media organization? “Yes.” Mine does too. We should work together.
So, come one, come all student journalists, editors, advisers and anyone else who uses or manages a university/college news site.
And be sure to spread the word. I plan to start searching the Web for online editors’ e-mail addresses to invite them, but any help would be much appreciated.

The discussion gets more interesting: Blogging about blogging, part deux

No, this is not a repeat post; this is “The Empire Strikes Back” version (sort of) to my last post, Blogging about blogging.

In that previous entry I linked to a March 12 post — and a great follow-up — by Howard Owens of GateHouse Media. With the first post, Owens responded to Dallas Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban‘s explanation (March 10) of why he banned bloggers in the Mavs locker room.

Here are some of Cuban’s comments from a March 13 post that came a day after Owens’ remarks, most likely aimed at the general response to his March 10 announcement:

  • “…newspapers having ‘bloggers’ is easily one of the many bad decisions that newspapers have made over the past 10 years.”
  • “Never, ever, ever consider something that any literate human being with Internet access can create in under 5 minutes to be a product or service that can in any way differentiate your business.” [My reaction: really?]
  • “A blog is a blog is a blog is a blog.”
  • “if I were marketing for them [The New York Times], I would be doing everything I could to send the message that ‘The NY Times does not have blogs, we have Real Time Reports from the most qualified reporters in the world.’ “

I comprehend his point regarding the Real Time Reports title, but this idea still seems contradictory to his “a blog is a blog is a blog” statement.

The Times’ Saul Hansell responded earlier this evening with What I’ve Learned as a Blogger for The New York Times. Here are some of his points:

  • “I’d say that blog is the name of a format for information and opinion that is roughly analogous to ‘column’ or ‘newsletter.’ The format itself doesn’t tell you whether the content is pedestrian or inflammatory, impressionistic or deeply researched.”
  • “…blogs are part of a conversation”
  • “…blogs can be a great extension to articles reported initially for the newspaper”
  • “One of the traditions of this place is an aversion to euphemisms. So call it whatever you want, but if it links like a blog, and is open like a blog, and interacts like a blog, then it is a blog.”

These are all right on the mark, as is one of Owens’ concluding remarks, which came before Cuba’s more recent post: “So Cuban sells bloggers short, sadly.”

Weigh in: What do you think of all these opinions? With whom do you agree?

Ricardo Lopez discusses video with online journalism class

Ricard Lopez, a Miami Herald visual journalist, gave a presentation to my online journalism class about video Thursday evening. He was joined by Candace Barbot, a photojournalist convert to video.

Ricardo last spoke at UM during Communication Week, leading one of the new media workshops and participating in the new media panel. Check out advice he and other panelists gave students here.

See examples of his work and be sure to check out Chicken Busters, which is everyone’s favorite.