Tag Archives: online media

Power producers

For winter term, I have been producing Lexington, Virginia’s weekly newscast and Web site – The Rockbridge Report. I decided to take the class, thinking it would be the ultimate test of just how “converged” a journalist I actually was. Producing is the capstone class for broadcast majors at Washington and Lee, and as print major with a penchant for broadcast packages and tease writing, I thought I’d slip on those producing shoes, no problemo.

The Rockbridge Report Staff, winter 2010.

As I joke about with my journalism friends (and told a certain Atlanta Journal Constitution editor on a job interview), I like to think of myself as the greatest writer of my generation. Egotistical, I know, but a way to keep me motivated even when the news industry continues to look rough.

 But when it comes to teases, that playful exaggeration becomes a huge…er…lie. At the beginning of January, it took me an entire afternoon and evening write all the teases for our 20-minute, weekly show. Now, I can get it down in an hour or two. But you can bet I still lose a couple points on my grades each week because of teases.

Right now, my life is producing for the Rockbridge Report. On weekends, I am constantly checking e-mails from reporters and faculty advisors on story updates. Early in the week, I build the preliminary pages for the Web site or start organizing the rundown for the show. Wednesday nights are marathons of writing RDRS or Web blurbs, editing VO/SOTs and, of course, teases. And Thursdays, don’t expect to see me between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Thursdays are show time!

 It’s hard, especially in a liberal arts environment that requires concentration on three other classes a week in addition to producing.

Despite the late weeknights, anxious weekends and draining Thursday afternoons, I’ve really come to appreciate what this Rockbridge Report leadership role has helped me to accomplish as a journalist.

If I felt confident in my broadcast skills before winter 2010, I feel like now, after eight weeks as a producer, they are truly at the level of my print skills. As cheesy as it sounds, I think that I have earned the title “power producer.” Even if I still sweat the teases.

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Excessive drinking at W&L linked to sexual assault

A 2009 anonymous health survey given to Washington and Lee undergraduates shows that about 18 percent of female respondents have experienced rape or attempted rape. That’s two times the national college average for sexual assault, says Dr. Jane Horton, Washington and Lee’s director of student health.

The report shows that 39 percent of undergraduate women attending Washington and Lee responded to the survey- 341 women in total.

“We feel comfortable that our survey is representative of our students’ experience here,” said Horton.

I took an in-depth look at sexual assault at Washington and Lee as part of an on-going investigation about gender relations on local college campuses.

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Start small, read everything

For two days, criminal defense lawyers, sports journalists, law students and journalism majors gathered together at Washington and Lee University to discuss the intersection of sports, the law and the media.

Following on the heels of the much-publicized Journalism Ethics Institute which featured notorious former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, the 3rd annual Media, Courts and the Law Symposium brought its own media and legal powerhouses to the campus for panel discussions about  how the media and the law depend on each other when major sports stars get in trouble.

“When sports, the law and the media collide, they create a perfect storm, particularly in a celebrity-obsessed culture such as ours,” read the program bulletin that was distributed to the more than 60 people who attended the first of the two panels on Wednesday.

 That panel included Christopher Lyons, the lawyer who defended NFL player Donte Stallworth on a DUI manslaughter charge, Larry Woodward, the defense attorney in Michael Vick’s dog-fighting case, Jackie MacMullan, an ESPN columnist and correspondent, and Lee Hawkins, a Wall Street Journal reporter and on-air contributor for CNBC.

The panelists’ discussion was thought-provoking and honest about the ways in which journalists and criminal defense lawyers rely on each other to attain their goals.

“I’ve certainly used the press to my advantage at times,” said Woodward. MacMullan nodded, adding that as a journalist, its important to cultivate relationships with lawyers. That’s how you get the exclusive story, she said, by putting in the time.

But for me, the most rewarding part of the symposium experience was the dinner after Wednesday’s panel, where journalism and law students were able to spend one-on-one time with the panelists over drinks and dinner. Wall Street Journal reporter Lee Hawkins sat at my table and spent most of the night encouraging my fellow journalism majors and me about breaking into the news business.

I think it’s a time of great opportunity for young,ambitious journalists, Hawkins said. Hawkins pointed out that convergence is second nature to young reporters and encouraged us to develop our skills for all media – print, broadcast and online.

Really, when it comes down to is, Hawkins said, you’re all about your clips. Read everything, fact check everything, put in the extra time on the front end before you start writing – if you have good clips and multimedia skills, you’re going to find a job, he said.

But he also advised the “print” journalists at the table to focus on metropolitan papers rather than the “big guys” like the New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

Start small, read everything, he said.

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The new ‘J-team’: saviors of journalism

Caesar Andrews

Caesar Andrews (Courtesy of W&L Journalism Dept.)

Former Editor of the Detroit Free Press Caesar Andrews believes the journalism business will survive. And more than that, he thinks it will thrive.
At least that’s what Andrews, Washington and Lee University’s Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism, said in a speech to a crowd of about 50 people on Wednesday.

Andrews, whose Detroit Free Press newsroom won last year’s Pulitzer prize for local reporting, said he foresees a new class of journalists- the ‘J-Team’ – who will save the industry – much in the same way the ‘A-Team’ from the 1980s action television series saved the world.

“Instability seems to be the rule of the day,” Andrews said. “But I don’t think for one minute that the business of journalism is down for the count.”

Andrews pointed to three areas of journalism where he found hope, and more than that, growth: business opportunities provided by the Internet, audience opportunities provided by a growing national population and reporting opportunities provided by new, fresh talent in the newsroom.

“[Talent is] the strongest resource in the news media’s future,” he said. “Freshly minted talent free of the baggage of the way news used to be.”

Andrews called for journalism students to tackle the industry with creative, energetic optimism. He said there would always be a need for professionals – trained reporters who continually go beyond the masses, including citizen journalists and bloggers.

But Andrews warned that he no longer believed the fundamentals of great journalism would single-handedly float news organizations by themselves.
That’s where creative thinking about advertising, news delivery and the expanding population comes in, he said.

“The Internet is not delivering the money now, but it’s important to realize [the Internet] is a revolution.”

When questioned about what he thinks will happen to print newspapers and online news publications, Andrews said he didn’t have “any one answer.” But he said he thought the news business was about to go through “seasons of change” as organizations began to experiment with new business models.

“There’s an urgency to the conversation now. People are forced to be a lot bolder,” said Andrews. “It’s about the forward-looking commitment of ‘what are we going to do?’”

What they should do, Andrews’ speech seemed to imply, is look to the new crop of journalists to replace lost experience with new-found professional innovation.

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Can ad exchanges help news publishers make $$?

Publishers are getting ripped off, plain and simple.

At least that was the gist of Erich Wasserman’s speech at Washington and Lee University on Monday. Wasserman, the co-founder and vice president of an online media trading company, said there are three ways in which publishers sell display ads online. But most publishers know about only two ways: Directly sold inventory and indirectly sold inventory/third-party ad networks.

Directly sold inventory is when the publisher sells display ads on its site directly to the ad agency. For example: The New York Times sells a banner ad to Sony. Directly sold inventory guarantees that 100 percent of every dollar from the sale goes to the New York Times.

The downside? Usually, publishers can only sell about 30 to 40 percent of their display ad inventory directly.

Traditionally, this has been where ad networks and indirectly sold inventory step in. A third party ad network comes along and offers to buy the inventory the publisher hasn’t been able to sell. So everything our theoretical New York Times publisher couldn’t sell directly is bought up by an ad network, let’s say Traffic Marketplace.

Traffic Marketplace pays the New York Times, but only about 30 percent what they would be able to sell the inventory for directly. Then, Traffic Marketplace turns around and sells all that display ad space to agencies like Sony at full price.

The bitter end? The New York Times is only making 30 cents for every dollar that Traffic Marketplace makes. Publishers are getting ripped off, and they don’t think there’s another alternative.

But Wasserman says there is.

Enter ad exchanges. (DoubleClick, AdECN, Right Media are the big ones right now.)

(Copyright 2009 by Will Scully-Power)

(Copyright 2009 by Will Scully-Power)

Ad exchanges are ways for publishers (sellers of display ads) and agencies (the buyers) to plug into an open technology platform (provided by the ad exchange) in which ad prices are set in a constantly updating (real-time) auction.

This marketplace basically decides the value of a publisher’s users, which helps set the price for display ads on that publisher’s site. Ad exchanges help publishers to better monetize their Web-sites while improving returns for advertisers, said Wasserman.

He estimates that publishers will get back 85 percent of every dollar spent when they use ad exchanges. That’s a lot better than the 30 percent a publisher will receive for every dollar the ad network collects.

“Forget the ad network,” Wasserman said.

It’s important to remember that Wasserman stands to benefit from publishers turning to ad exchanges because his company partners with them so they can, in turn, partner with agencies.

Still, I think what he said makes a lot of sense. I think publishers don’t have a lot to lose. Why not give ad exchanges a chance? Or do they already?

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Video: VMI Cadet faces rape charges, jury trial

This fall, I am covering cops and courts for the Rockbridge Report – Lexington, Va.’s only local internet and broadcast station. Watch my first broadcast package of the year about former Virginia Military Institute Cadet Stephen Lloyd, who faces a jury trial on rape and sodomy charges:

You can also view this story at the Virginia Voice – online news coverage of Central and Southwest Virginia.

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Creators of News?

Ahh, online journalism ethics.

Yesterday, my conversation with the managing editor of the Athens Banner Herald sputtered to a stop of “ums, ahs, yes, that’s a conundrum…” when she presented me with one of those headache-worthy questions about online journalism:

“With all those user comments, how do you keep from becoming a creator of news rather than just a reporter of news?”

She’s been dealing with this question since the Banner-Herald published an online story about a girl (they didn’t name her) who said she was sexually assaulted. The girl wanted to press charges. The story collected many user comments – people had a lot of opinions and questions about the potential case.

By the end of the day, the girl had dropped the charges.

The Banner-Herald managing editor said her stomach turned as she thought about the possibility that this girl had read all those user comments, realized how difficult defending her sexual history might be and decided not to pursue the case.

Hence the question: “With all those user comments, how do you keep from becoming a creator of news rather than just a reporter of news?”

And the next: Does it matter?

The girl might not have seen the Banner-Herald story. The story and its darned user comments might have had nothing to do with her decision to drop charges. But what if did? Does it matter?

Most reporters are ambiguous about user comments. Yes, it’s a rush to click on your story link and see a string of thirty comments beneath the tagline. It’s the “you like me! you really like me!” feeling.

Ok, maybe it’s more “you read me! You really read me!” But I digress.

It’s also frustrating to see your story pecked at by anonymous people – these so-called “citizen journalists” who aren’t held to the standards you were when you wrote the story.  

As encouraging as it is to see the community engaged and reading the news, comments often devolve into tangential bickering between the users. Sometimes, the arguments have absolutely nothing to do with story. Other times, user comments become a place for personal pontification as users pass judgments about people, things and ideas in the story. 

I can imagine what those comments might’ve been on the Banner-Herald story. As a woman, I can imagine how I would’ve felt to see my actions and my accusations put under the community spotlight even before the police investigated.

Was that decision to drop all charges a result of the Banner-Herald story’s user comments? Did the Banner-Herald create the news?

Most papers have developed guidelines for what can and cannot be said in user comments. At the Charlotte Observer, any profanity or “abusive” speech is prohibited. Such comments were deleted and replaced by the notice “User123′s comments are abusive and have been removed.”

But are there stories where user comments shouldn’t be allowed at all?

And if there are, how to determine which ones get the user comment reprieve?

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What do you think: Print Newspapers

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Acquiring new arts, keeping old instincts

I recently read “Self Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson for an American Romanticism class I’m taking at Washington and Lee this fall.

I’d read the transcendental, empowering essay a couple times before and had always enjoyed Emerson’s vision of the individual and his rather confusing clarity. This time as I stumbled along his philosophical rhetoric and aphorisms, my attention snagged not on the “hobgoblin of little minds” paragraph that I love so well but on a less familiar passage towards the end of the lecture:

selfreliance“Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For everything that is given, something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.”

So new technology at once advances and cripples society, hmm. New technology isn’t necessarily a good thing, hmm.

I know a lot of newspaper people who might agree with that. But I also know plenty of others who think social media and the Internet can only mean a bigger, brighter future not only for the news industry but for the preservation of democracy.

I think new tools like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, HD capacity and all other types of online media will eventually elevate journalism into a more concise, in-depth and accountable industry. But I think Emerson’s words also hold a sort of precautionary warning about what can happen when people rely too heavily on technology to do the “thinking.”

An inaccurate, poorly-written story dressed up with Soundslides, HD video footage and user comments is still going to be an inaccurate, poorly-written story. All the online coding in the world cannot replace original reporting and good copy-editing.

Tweets and Updates and user comments mean nothing if the old reporting instincts are forgotten.

“Society is a wave. The wave moves onward but the water which it is composed does not,” wrote Emerson.

Well, journalism has to be a mountain, reaching up, up towards new possibilities even as it retains its strong foundation. So many journalists are looking to the future, but I think it’s still important to remember the instincts, the successes and the lessons of the past.

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One year later: Looking back on my Onpoverty.org internship

When I started looking for journalism internships for summer 2008, managing a web site was not what I had in mind. I envisioned running through the middle of a newsroom – phones ringing, e-mails pinging, faxes buzzing, and editors screaming – trying to get one last interview in before deadline. I pictured going home to a cramped apartment in some vague but eclectic city, seeing shows on the weekends, becoming a newsstand regular – pen and pad in hand and cell phone pressed to my oh-so-important ear as I scrambled through crowded streets to be the only intern who actually scooped someone else. 

Luckily, I got to experience all of that this summer at the Charlotte Observer. In 2008, it didn’t turn out that way.

Whoever said that 18 is independence, and 21 is full-fledged adulthood never met my parents. Father Steele had his own ideas about my summer employment. He had just sold his half of a family-owned insurance agency to my uncle, and was starting up a smaller more small-business-oriented office in my hometown of Chester, Virginia. He planned for this new venture of his to include only one other employee besides himself: me.  And I couldn’t very well refuse to work for him and live at home since the bills for my Washington and Lee education have his name on them.  In this way, my dreams of morphing into the intrepid summer journalist intern fell into musings about the best way to sell term life insurance policies.  

Needless to say, when my J-school advisor approached me about the position of web manager for onpoverty.org,  the Poverty on Journalism class’ new website, I jumped at the chance. It may not have included all the trappings of a big city newsroom, but it gave me an excuse to continue to cultivate some of the journalism skills I had learned over the course of the year. And it was a job I could do anytime or anywhere, so long as I had my laptop and a wireless Internet connection.  The job involved finding stories on poverty issues written by journalists across the country, synthesizing them into two to three sentence web blurbs, rewriting their headlines, and posting them onto the onpoverty.org website, as well as managing an interactive blog where readers could respond to the selected stories. 

I am no web guru and I was new to the website, so before I left for the summer I met with my professors and our J-school technology whiz who had managed onpoverty during the school year, for training sessions. They taught me what kinds of stories to look for and what to avoid: we wanted well-written, interesting journalistic pieces on new poverty trends and situations, and we overlooked the hundreds of stories that came across the feed each day with headlines like “Homeless man kills other homeless man.”  They stressed that it was important for me to keep in mind that I was providing the website for a primarily professional audience. Onpoverty.org was by journalists for journalists, and the intent was for the site to act as a sounding board for the journalism community. It was to be a place where other reporters across the nation could read and respond to what others were covering in regards to poverty issues.  So often in news, journalists look to the big guys  – government, institutions, corporations – for stories, and onpoverty was a way to draw attention to those who usually were swept under the rug. 

But in order to pursue this vision, I had to become proficient at Adobe Dreamweaver, the program we used to create and maintain the site. I worked daily with Net NewsWire, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Dreamweaver. NewsWire was an RSS feed that, thanks to the poverty folders that the previous web manager had set set up, tagged over 300 stories written about poverty topics each day by netting stories with key words like “subprime mortgage” or “homeless” or “Medicare.” Each week, I would sift through these stories, automatically disregarding ones whose headlines were not onpoverty.org-worthy, and eventually choose six stories to feature on the site. The top two headlines I put on the page were the “bigger,” more complex stories, and they, along with the feature story at the bottom of the home page, had pictures to go along with them. Now, if I got lucky, I could use the pictures already with the original news story and credit the organization underneath. I learned how to re-format the original pictures in Photoshop so they would adhere to our website page style. If I wasn’t so lucky, and one of the bigger stories didn’t come with a visual element, I would have to search the web or AP photo cache for something that would work well enough beside my headline and blurb. It may not seem that difficult, but searching for the right stories and then trying to find adequate pictures to go along with them was time-consuming. Picture searching and formatting was my least favorite part of the internship.

For the six stories I found each week, I wrote web blurbs for the home page of onpoverty.org. These web blurbs synthesized what I judged to the most important aspect of the stories. It was sometimes hard to keep in mind that I was writing for professional journalists – people who probably had much more experience than I did, and who were most likely already covering poverty issues. In school, I had learned to be vigilant about transforming complicated information into comprehensible grafs for an everyday audience. Now, I had to learn how to simplify and synthesize without seeming like I was talking down to people who were more often than not going to be more knowledgeable than I was.  At first, I tended to ere on the side of including too much information. I would e-mail my blurbs to my professor for proofing each week, and they would come back to me with sentences slashed out and instructions to write “tighter.”

I also was abominable about adhering to AP style. It was a lot easier to pay attention to the nitty-gritty grammar details when you were in class at school, and professors were ready to mark an ‘F’ on your paper for the slightest sloppiness or inaccuracy. At home, in the summer, sitting in a coffee house in between freelancing for the local weekly paper and selling life policies to senior citizens, it was easy to forget when a comma was needed and when to capitalize a street name. And it was easy to be lazy about it, too. Luckily, my professor was there to nag me about my stylistic issues, and in the third week of summer I bought the AP stylebook and had little trouble with it afterwards. 

My experience with onpoverty not have been my dream job, but it was an internship that afforded me the opportunity to learn and brush up on skills that served me well during my BigO internship in a “real” newsroom.

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