Rachel Nevares

“Now that news is a conversation, one of the greatest challenges facing journalists is how to manage, and leverage, that conversation.” – Mark Briggs

According to Briggs, journalism now means 1) managing online communities as well as 2) participating in various social networks.

Audiences being able to comment on stories online and voice their opinions is not only a way to stay technologically savvy, but it gives the journalist more to work with.

“Yes, journalists have always had sources, but by making news into a conversation, journalists can have a lot more sources,” said Patrick Thornton, editor of BeatBlogging.org. “What would you rather have: a network of 25 sources or of 500? Being social with users is easier than ever before, and the more social a journalist is with people, the more sources a journalist can mine.”

Len Brody, who aided in the launch of NowPublic, says there are five different types of user generators based on people’s motivation for commenting. They are:

1. Those motivated by money (smallest)
2. Those motivated by ego
3. Those motivated by issues
4. Accidental bystanders who didn’t set out to do any reporting (largest)
5. And the “plain old crazy” users that every Web site seems to have

The chapter then goes on by explain how to build and manage a community online. Here is a list of how to do that:

• Make news participatory: interactivity by contributing photos, video, event listings, edits, message board posts, blog posts, votes and recommendations and promotions.
• Journalists must get involved:evangelizing the brand, soliciting the content, moderating comments, solving user problems, running contests, etc.
• Develop sources through social networks: finding sources through Facebook, MySpace, Linkedln, etc.
• Collaborate with your community: collaborating with your competitors and fellow journalists to get the best information out there for your audience.

In conclusion, you want to follow these steps to keep conversations accurate and ethical:

• Setting guidelines for participants
• Monitoring offensive postings
• Knowing your legal responsibilities
• Correcting errors

Tags: Briggs, Facebook

“Journalism is constantly changing.”

This is how guest speaker Jon DeNunzio, user engagement editor for washingtonpost.com, started off his presentation that was given to our Comm. 361 class.

DeNunzio gave us some interesting background information about himself to begin:

• Worked for a few small papers after college
• 1994: Started at The Washington Post
• 2000-2007: Covered high school sports at the Post
• 2007-2010: Web sports editor
• April 2010: User engagement editor for washingtonpost.com

He gave a very good list as to WHY we use social media that included:

• It’s where the users are
• It helps our reporting
• It allows us to build a relationship with users

A very bold statement that he said in conjunction with Marshall McLuhan‘s very famous “The medium is the message” quote in stating:

“It’s not the media, it’s the social.” – DeNunzio

His point to that statement was to be social with your users whenever you can.

Examples of this are:

1. Running a poll
2. Paying attention to comments
3. Asking for ideas
4. Asking for photos
5. Hosting a debate

Bottom line is to make it clear how you utilize programs to connect with people.

Here are some helpful websites DeNunzio presented to us:

• Blackbirdpie
• Intersect
• Surveygizmo

Tags: Jon DeNunzio, The Washington Post

You never know when just an act of fun can turn into a social media frenzy.

The article titled “How an Atlanta Ice Skater Made a Viral Video Go Worldwide“, byTerri Thorton, is an amazing example of how an innocent video placed on a social media outlet can go a long way in the world.

The article talks about how the city of Atlanta, GA got hit with a few inches of snow that then got topped off with a sheet of ice back on Sunday January the 9th of this year. At about 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning videographer and web developer Brian Danin and his wife spotted a skater skating on Peachtree Street. While Danin didn’t have his normal equipment, he shot the footage of the skater with his Droid X smartphone.

“It was one of those ironic moments, ” Danin said.

Danin then uploaded the video to YouTube. Andrew Nendel, the skater, had handed his pocket video recorder to a security guard and uploaded the result to Facebook, Vimeo and CNN iReport.

Neither Danin nor Nendel knew how popular this video was going to become. Not only did the video become widespread and an instant hit, but it also had an effect on the city of Atlanta’s snow removal system.

“The video became emblematic of the pressure on the city and the state to clear the roads and get things back to normal.”

I thought this was a really interesting article because it showed how the social media tool of YouTube was not only able to create an incredibly popular video and story, but also helped in fixing a problem with the city of Atlanta’s lack of proper snow removal measures.

Tags: Atlanta, Facebook, Social media, YouTube

“Reporters and journalism students must stop thinking about sound as an exclusively radio format and adopt it as a reporting tool that can be learned and used to effectively deliver information to readers or listeners.” –Jim Stovall

Audio journalism, very simply and obviously put, is getting journalism out through the means of audio. Audio allows the listener to use their mind to paint their own picture of the situation. It’s a more personal experience and audio journalists can create an intimate relationship with the listener. Finding a way to connect with them.

But WHY is it important? According to Hogh, these characteristics are special to audio;

• Presence: Bring your readers to the story.
• Emotions: Pauses, tone of voice, expressions can enhance the message.
• Atmosphere: Natural sounds of life.

These three things alone can produce a personal perception of any given event.

Here are four ways to use audio in one’s reporting:

• Reporter overview: Audio overviews in addition to one’s article.
• Podcasts: Frequent episodes on a particular topic.
• Audio slideshows: Makes pictures richer and more telling.
• Breaking news: Publish quick audio soundbites immediately.

So what else does one actually use it for? According to Briggs, here are two ways to use audio:

1. Recording interviews: chose your location, gather natural sound, prepare your subject, watch what you say, try delayed recording, and mark the best spots.
2. Doing voice-overs: write a script, warm up, find operative words, and keep it conversational.

Audio editing is a huge component to the audio process. Two FREE audio-editing programs are Audacity and JetAudio.

Audio journalism is a very important tool to every journalism and is showing a lot of promise. Therefore, get your audio on!

Copyright: geekalerts.com

Tags: Audio journalism, Briggs

This couldn’t be a better article for the relevance of this Comm. 361 Online Journalism class. This article gives an excellent overview of some innovative websites that can be used for classes dealing with journalism.

MediaShift is a website which tracks how social media, weblogs, podcasting, citizen journalism, wikis, news aggregators and online video are changing the media world.

This particular article, by Nathan Gibbs, gives a list of SEVEN social media techniques and websites that can be utilized in the classroom. The seven areas are:

1. Facebook
2. Group blogs
3. WordPress
4. Social Curation
5. Collaborative Writing
6. Mind Mapping
7. Experimentation

Facebook:

1. Facebook groups: students utilizing Facebook groupsis beneficial as students are already using Facebook so it eliminates making a new user name/password, it takes little effort to “like” or comment on students work, and it encourages more interaction.
2. Facebook pages: such Facebook pages can be utilized to post stories and get sources for other stories.

Group blogs: group blogs are a great way to introduce students to online writing and basic web publishing; the kind of work they’ll be doing as journalists. He suggests using Tumblr or Posterous.

WordPress: Gibbs explains how WordPress opens the door to extensive customization. Users are able to enhance the blogging experience and really take their work to a new level.

Social Curation: Gibbs explains how it’s important that students know how to collect and annotate messages from social media websites. Storify, Curated.by and Keepstream all allow users to gather and embed social media messages for use in blog posts and articles.

Collaborative Writing: Gibbs explains how Google Docs is an excellent editing tool that allows multiple contributors to write at the same time and track revisions.

Mind Mapping: Gibbs explains how structured brainstorming helps people organize their ideas based on their relationship to other aspects. He suggests using Mind Meister to implement online collaboration.

Experimentation: Trying new things and learning what works and what doesn’t is a huge component to journalism. Making sure to apply one’s journalistic curiosity by exploring how new social tools can further your storytelling skills.

Tags: Blogs, Facebook, Mind Meister, Nathan Gibbs, Social media, Storify, Tumblr, WordPress