Houston Chronicle Excels in Hurricane Ike Coverage
September 13, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
As someone who not only is interested in news and journalism, but who also works in social media for a living I constantly see television stations and newspapers who either don’t take advantage of advances in technology or completely ignore the true value in the power of people.
This morning as I think about my family who lives in Missouri City, Texas (a Houston suburb) I scoured the web to find the best and most complete coverage and information about Hurricane Ike.
First I turned to MyFoxHouston.com, the Fox TV affiliate for Houston. They have a a special live-chat, live-broadcast, maps, video, and audio going full force on a micro-site called MyFoxHoustonLive.com. This I feel was overkill, it’s too much to process at once. Yes they are using technology to extend their coverage beyond “wall to wall” - which I commend them for - but the page was cluttered, it was hard to focus on anything, and in general there was just too much going on.
I then tried the other TV networks, both national and local. Of course the national networks have information but still lack the “instant” updates that I wanted.
My next link was the Houston Chronicle (to be honest, they were actually the first place I looked yesterday afternoon for updated maps and evacuation information). Chron.com may not have the fancy cameras and satellites that the TV stations have, but what they do feature are blogs. Live blogs. This is my favorite format for live and constantly updated information. Blogs let the user read as much or as little as they want, and in chronological order.
Not only are there two blogs updating every few minutes (one focuses on the science, the other on news and information) but the Chronicle was also smart enough to start a Twitter feed of constantly updated informaiton, and also began pulling public “tweets” into their site.
To me, this shows absolute respect for their users both locally and nationally. and THAT’s the key to success in the news business - giving the customer what they want, when they want it, while maintaining your ethical standards.
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This post is part of the Hurrricane Ike Media Review series by Jonathan Coffman. I welcome your comments below.
links for 2008-05-30
May 30, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
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Youth written election news and information site
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Can Facebook make money?
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What has been your experience in using this? I’ll have to try it out at home tomorrow.
links for 2008-04-09
April 9, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Are Podcasts Dead?
April 7, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
In case you didn’t know, I’ll be in Las Vegas Sunday-Wednesday for the NAB conference (National Association of Broadcasters). The Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism is sponsoring my trip so that I can present Contributr to the masses. (Let’s hope Contributr is ready, more on that tomorrow!)
As I was looking through the available sessions trying to schedule myself into some I noticed a recurring theme, podcasting. Now I hate to rain on anybody’s parade but aren’t podcasts dead? Haven’t they been deemed not conversational enough?
I mean sure, we all are subscribed to a few in iTunes, but how often do you actually listen to one? Let alone actively look for more? I know I don’t. I’ve moved on, I’ve moved on to try to create and examine the semantic web. And podcasts just don’t fit into that strategy very well. They may not be static in location but they are certainly static in content. One you publish an episode to a podcast it just sits there… and people listen to it… but what else? What’s the extra step? … Well I just can’t seem to find it.
So you might imagine my disappointment when I am going through the NAB sessions schedule and see multiple sessions on podcasting each day, and only 2 or 3 sessions on ‘blogging’ total for the entire conference.
Is this where journalism is? Is this what the journalism folks think is hot? Haven’t they found Twitter, haven’t they found Facebook, haven’t they found that conversations are the latest and greatest things to hit the web?
Apparently not, and in my conversations with Jen Reeves it seems that the ‘industry’ is doomed to be 5-years behind as she puts it. Here I am creating wikis, blogging daily, coming up with user generated content solutions, enhancing new-media workflows, and creating conversations around my own life and here is the Journalism Industry just now trying to figure out podcasting.
There’s disconnect somewhere. That disconnect is what is holding back journalism and the news media in general, they’re not in touch with what consumers are using technology for.
As all of my recent blog posts do, I’ll link this one to my current job-search. There are quite a few journalism web content editor and producer jobs out there. Frankly, they’re almost a dime a dozen, news organizations realize they need to staff “the web” so staff “the web” they do. But where is the innovation? Where is the commitment?
Part of the struggle I have faced in my job search is that there’s plenty of work to be had out there, but very few newsrooms and very few news people “get it”. It takes more than just repurposing content from your printed newspaper or broadcast TV show onto the web anymore, that’s just not enough. People want to have conversations, they want to change, edit, manipulate, share, and copy your precious content. Are you willing to see what your public can do for you?
That’s the future of journalism. Don’t just talk to the public, let the public talk to you. If you “get it” email, call, IM, or @jdcoffman me. I’m listening, are you?
What Newspapers Can Do NOW To Gain Readership
March 20, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Newspapers have a bad reputation of being reactionary (although much of the American media is quite reactionary in nature) but here are some things I think newspapers should do NOW to gain readership and credibility in the communities they serve.
- Update your website more than 3 or 4 times a day, information is always becoming more clear as stories develop, let that be reflected on the web. I would even suggest time-stamping updates to stories so that your readers know that you are WORKING for them.
- Don’t ignore stories after they’ve been reported once. Make sure your reporters know how to edit and change web stories, have them post followups and additional information even after they’ve moved on to other stories.
- Open comments on your web site, in order to gain any credibility you need to allow and embrace commenting on stories, sources, and reporters by the public. Let the public have a voice. While it may seem very scary, it’s more necessary than you think right now.
- Let the public report on their own stories. No one else knows more about what the public wants than the public itself. Allow them to contribute news, information, text, images, video, and more to your news organization… Then publicize it and let them see their own work.
- Editors and filters don’t have to be out of the picture with user generated content, but stringent rules and regulations and fears of the public do need to be out of the picture.
Those are just a few of the many ideas I have about what the newspaper industry need to do in order to gain readership and respect in this new age. It is in no way exhaustive, and there are many other steps, tools, and advice I can give on those subjects.
Here’s the real lesson: Transparency, Participation, Conversation, and Trust.
Convergence of the Future
March 19, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
News makers keep talking about backpack journalists and having reporters be good at everything. Now we all know that’s just not possible, but it hasn’t stopped the visionaries from proclaiming convergence journalism the future of news.
Convergence of the media is already happening of course, and convergence is the future. No longer is a television station just a television station. Or a radio station, just a radio station. I’ve been interviewing with news organizations trying to find a full-time gig after graduation and I recently met with a newspaper editor from a small-market.
He said something to the effect that “I’m not just running a newspaper, I’m also a TV station, Radio station, podcaster, blogger, information resource, and that’s on top of the seven printed products my newsroom produces”. This is what convergence is, its one media taking on and challenging the other media forms.
Back in the early days of my Journalism School experience they taught about how the Internet wasn’t the end-all of media, much to the contrary each individual media had its own benefits. Well, yes that’s true in part, each form of media (broadcast, print, online, social, etc) does have distinct advantages and disadvantages, but that’s the great thing about the Internet, it allows each of those media to succeed and distribute their product in an open-market of consumers and viewers.
The Internet brings all of those competing old-media technologies and pardon the cliche, it creates synergies between them. No longer is a newspaper just a newspaper, but instead its a radio station, tv station, web site, and a community in and of itself.
This is the Real future of convergence journalism, a combined news product that reaches all people equally and in multiple formats. We’re already doing this in many cases but news makers haven’t taken it far enough yet.
Convergence journalism to me is all about taking advantage of the things that make a particular medium what it is. Television is immensely visual for instance, but a 30 minute newscast can’t begin to touch the detail a 1,500 word article in a major newspaper can. The power of the Internet changes all that.
The power of the Internet creates an open marketplace of ideas from which news consumers can ingest and even create their own news and information resources. One of the goals for my Contributr project is just that, make the communication between the public and a news organization easy for both parties so that both are more likely to interact and create even better news for the communities (and the world) that they serve.
If you’re interested in hearing more of my ideas on the future of journalism and the things that can be right now, subscribe to my RSS feed right here and always get the latest blog posts.
As always, comments are always open on this blog (although the first time you post I may have to approve it to make sure you’re not a spam robot) so join the conversation!
Removing the Newspaper Moniker
March 18, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
A more recent than not change in the newspaper world is the lack us the word “newspaper” to describe the business. This is as much public fluff and PR as it is anything else.
It’s all great and good to move forward and evolve a little, but its another thing altogether to wake up and not be a “newspaper” anymore. Quite contrary, there’s a lot to be said about semantics and the way people perceive words, but I fear that these newspapers aren’t doing anything more than fooling themselves.
There’s a lot more to being an “information source” or “data center” than meets the ear. To truly evolve into a product that people want to interact with (yes I said interact, just reading text and viewing images and video isn’t enough anymore) newspapers need more than just a new motto or mission statement.
Sure changing those things I’m sure is a shock to some people in these newsrooms but what they’re not saying as much about it the dramatic change in culture that is required of a shift from one focus (a printed product with an online product as a second class citizen) to another.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s going to take more than these semantic changes to “save” the newspaper industry. It takes more than just information to hold an audience. It takes conversations, transparency, and interaction to have ANY effect on people.
There needs to be a massive shift in culture and personnel before newspapers can truly change into information centers and local resources in the online world. This can be achieved in many ways, but its going to take more than just removing the newspaper moniker from the vocabulary of the newsroom.
Journalists and Blogging
March 17, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
“Blogging is only as good as you make it”
This statement couldn’t me more true, today when I find a truly engaging and interesting news story you know what format it’s in? a BLOG. A blog with personal insight and knowledge.
The reporters of the world all have knowledge of what they’re covering but they don’t share that knowledge with the readers in a print or broadcast form, with blogs they should be able to tell us the ‘truth’ of the matters related to the story, not just what their sources say is the truth. Share the knowledge!
This isn’t to say that filters and editing is bad, just that transparency is a very positive thing, especially since the web has democratized and freed information storage and retrieval.
“It isn’t the journalism of your cranky old city editor or your sainted j-school prof. Neither of those old farts would approve of blogging in any form, even though blogging is now part of the legitimate media mix.”
I quote this only because I have first hand knowledge of the way journalism is now being taught. And granted my experiences may not reflect that of the other students who aren’t as knowledgeable about the world surrounding the Internet, but nonetheless…
I know of several journalism professors who embrace blogs (and blog themselves), and many of the current classes at the Missouri School of Journalism require students to blog on a weekly basis, however what is often required is a reflection post on the work they did this week.
This could be taken as great practice for the young journalist, or a way to show how important it is to control what you say and how you say it. There are plenty of ‘cranky old city editors’ around in the real world, and in the Jschool world, and those are the people I think we really need to be careful about. They are the ones who wouldn’t trust a blog, wouldn’t trust a person’s opinions, and think grammar is the end-all be-all of “good news”.
That just isn’t the case anymore. Period.
Blogging is where journalists need to be writing and peddling their wares. The traditional newspaper is old news, and so is the traditional newspaper web site.
Content doesn’t have to free, but it does have to open and accessible.
Gannett Interviews
February 16, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Earlier in the week I attended two interview sessions with recruiting representatives from the Gannett company. I feel like they went really well and I must say that it’s comforting to know that ‘my job’ actually does exist now, when I began studying social and new media with a journalism concentration it was a little worrisome for my family not knowing whether or not I could get a job.
In speaking with the people from Gannett it’s pretty clear that they need people with skill sets similar to mine and the demand will only go up. Looking at the signup list for interviews from that day, there were fewer than 5 convergence journalism people, the rest were traditional media folk from television or newspaper.
It’s always nice to know that what you’ve worked so hard to achieve, an understanding and working professional knowledge of a field, may actually pay off in the form of a full-time position somewhere.
Of course it’s not wait and see if they call time, and hopefully they will. From the conversations I had with the recruiters it sounds like there are openings out there, and future openings that I would be qualified for and interested in.
Wish me luck and if you have any advice for me as I continue down the journey of my job search please let me know.
Make it a wonderful day and enjoy your weekend!
links for 2008-02-15
February 15, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
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