Tag: student newspaper

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.

LIVESTREAM: NextNewsroom conference – Restructuring newsroom management

Facilitated by Bryan Murley of CICM.

Chris Carroll, student communications, Vanderbilt University

Discussing Inside Vandy

  • They don’t have a journalism program, so they didn’t have to deal with traditional structures.
  • “There is no Web editor. It’s everyone’s responsibility to produce for the Web.”
  • “We sort of dismantled some of that traditional structure.”

Murley, CICM

  • Reverse publication – post story online first
  • “It seems antiquated” to break something in print
  • There are very few Web editors who become editor in chief, and that should change

Brad Arendt, general manager, The Arbiter, Boise State

  • Their six-step process: Story, path, deadline, communicate, edit, execute
  • Try to have a collaborative thought process in management
  • “The story is the key”

Dan Morris, adviser, The Arbiter, Boise State

  • They have had editors in chief who have been the photo editor, assistant opinion editor, opinion writer who worked on local TV station, etc. That’s made changing structure a little bit easier.

Greg Linch, editor in chief, The Miami Hurricane

  • I was just yapping about what we do. Blah, blah, blah…

Megan Taylor, managing editor for online, The Independent Florida Alligator

  • They instated a requirement for staffers to produce multimedia
  • Because they are independent, their funds are limited and that’s why her staff is two people
  • Everyone is still print biased

John North, The Knoxville News Sentinel

  • We crow when we can beat TV with posting online

Shannon Morgan, editor in chief, The Arbiter, Boise State

  • We’re trying to get people to tell stories in more than on way
  • 80-100 people
  • My problem now is trying to figure out how to restructure the staff

Kevin Koehler, contributing editor (online editor), Old Gold and Black, Wake Forest

  • Making the transition to Web, it’s hard to get people think of doing things and doing them well
  • People want to do it, there’s interest and people are excited, but they have to learn how it’s done
  • They don’t have a journalism major or any new media courses
  • “It’s too big of a hump on their on a pressing deadline”

Arendt, The Arbiter

  • We tried embedding a multimedia person in the section, but it failed because they were left out or ignored
  • It’s important to look at your deadlines for your output
  • They expect 2-3 paragraph piece recapping a game after it ends, then they follow up
  • If you run efficiently, I think students
  • But the kicker is, “How do you do it?”

In my mind I’m going to Carolina

And so the music-themed posts continue tonight…

I’ll be traveling to Columbia, S.C. for the SPJ region three conference in a few hours. This will be my third regional conference in as many years, at which I represent the University of Miami campus chapter and The Miami Hurricane.

Region three includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

Are you going? Let me know in a comment or via e-mail, greglinch[at]gmail.com.

Also, I’ll be at Duke next week for the Next Newsroom conference. Drop me a line if you’ll be there.

I love being a student and being able to travel to these conferences for free!

Stay tuned: I’ll have my laptop there to liveblog and post general thoughts during both conferences. I will also have my video and still cameras.

Also, be sure to look for my Twitter updates during the conference — and in general.

Weigh in: Would a tripod count against me as one of my two carry-on items? D’oh!

First map mashup for TheMiamiHurricane.com

It’s not a technological marvel by any means, but it’s an important first step to having interactive maps on TheMiamiHurricane.com – and later on the future site (expect an update post on that Thursday night, most likely).

As you can see, I used Google Maps.


View Larger Map

Why now to start?
As we were sending the paper to the printer, I was copyediting and came across a story in news about the Red Road Commons. I was disappointed to see there was no map requested (we need to do more print maps as well), so I felt inspired to just make a map for online.

Looking forward
We will definitely include more maps in the future. I also plan to expand this map by adding all of the on-campus dormitories and eventually popular off-campus.

One thing I need to play with and figure out: how to make smaller the windows that appear when you click the placemarkers.

Hurricane copy chief is Herald’s newest online producer

Rafael Sangiovanni began writing and designing for The Miami Hurricane his freshman year. Raph, as he is known, wrote for EDGE, the arts and entertainment section, through spring 2007.

He moved up to chief copy editor in fall 2007, his current position at The Hurricane, and was recently hired part-time as an online producer for The Miami Herald‘s Web site.

Here are a couple posts Raph wrote on Wired Journalists:

Here is a video of Raph talking about his experience so far: