Needless Style Mistakes

According to the AP Stylebook, how should the word  "protestor's" in the headline be spelled?

In the opening paragraph, which is difficult to read says this:

"Twitter Inc. has to turn over information about an Occupy Wall Street protetster's posts of face a fine, a judge ruled, giving the company three days to show it isn't in contempt of court."

Did the headline writer get it correct? Or did the writer of the story get it correct?

NYT's Tom Friedman: In Today's Media, you have to 'work harder and smarter and develop new skills faster'

New York Times economic columnist Tom Friedman is always wringing his hands about how the United States is falling behind the rest of the world--in everything.

This week, he wrote a column that combined this familiar refrain with his thoughts on the recent political conventions held by the Democrats and Republicans.

One paragraph caught my attention:

"I covered the Republican convention, and I was impressed in watching my Times colleagues at how much their jobs have changed. Here’s what a reporter does in a typical day: report, file for the Web edition, file for The International Herald Tribune, tweet, update for the Web edition, report more, track other people’s tweets, do a Web-video spot and then write the story for the print paper. You want to be a Times reporter today? That’s your day. You have to work harder and smarter and develop new skills faster."

He's right.

Nothing stays the same in today's media environment. There's always a new platform to reach your audience. There are always new skills that you need to have, or at the very least, need to have basic knowledge.

That's one of the goals of our class, to make sure you walk away feeling comfortable with the digital tools of the moment, and have the confidence to try the tools of the future.

More on FIA

In our last class, I mentioned "FOIA," the Freedom of Information Act.

Here is some more about FOIA.

According the the Electronic Freedom Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that works with digital journalists, "The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a federal law that gives people the right to request information kept by federal government agencies.

"The law also requires agencies to make certain information automatically available to the public in online "reading rooms. This includes regulations, general policy statements, staff instructions, final opinions, and other records that affect members of the public.
"Furthermore," according to  the EFF, "FOIA says that information that is or is likely to be frequently requested should be automatically published on the Internet. You can check an office's reading room, which should be accessible from the office's website, to see if the records you are seeking are available online. The U.S. Department of Justice maintains a list of links to federal offices' reading rooms."

Here's a link to more about FOIA and why it's an important tool for journalists.

Social Media Fueling Resurgence of Infographics

Conventional wisdom said that infographics, those one-page, visual delights that packed lots of information into drawings and illustrations, were just about dead.

Social media looks as if it might change all of that.

BuzzMgr is a new firm that takes social media information and transforms it into great looking graphics. Here's what it did with information generated by the Republican convention. Take a look at how BuzzMgr captured the first night of the Democrat's convention.

Here's how BuzzMgr's founder, Kathleen Hessert  describes the goals of her company. 

When Can You Use Twitter in Stories and Storify Curation?

First, let's define a few terms.

In the digital media world "curation" means the collection, archiving, and for us, the publication of trustworthy digital content.

"Aggregation" in the digital media world means gathering, categorizing, and presenting material from multiple sources to create a one-of-a-kind editorial experience for readers/visitors.

So how do you decide which tweet or which Facebook post to use?

Here's what the Storify editors think. We'll talk more about this in class.

Fewer People are Visiting Homepages

Homepage. The makes you think of a comfy place in cyberspace to call your own.

 Photo Courtesy: Columbia Pictures

This is the place where you start your journey into the World Wide Web. Companies of all shapes and sizes spend lots of money designing homepages they believe will attract viewers. They debate on if and where ads should be placed.

Remember this scene from the movie "The Social Network"?

Eduardo Saverin: Hey, you know what? Settle and argument for us. I say it's time to start making money from TheFacebook, but Mark doesn't want to advertise. Who's right?
Sean Parker: Um...neither of you yet. TheFacebook is cool that's what it's got going for it.
Mark Zuckerberg: Yeah.
Eduardo Saverin: You don't want to ruin it with ads because ads aren't cool.
Mark Zuckerberg: Exactly.

Well, the power of the homepage, at least for news paper sites,   is decreasing. At least that's what a report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s 2012 State of the News Media Report says.

According to the Nieman Lab, "as more people enter news sites sideways — via search engines, links they see in emails, or via Facebook and Twitter — newsrooms are finding their homepages aren’t the starting points they once were. And the propulsive growth of mobile devices has accustomed news sites to presenting more than one face to the digital audience, through some mix of mobile-optimized sites, native apps, and responsive design."

Nieman Lab reporters talked to Google’s Richard Gingras, head of Google's news products division, "has argued that shifts in audience flow mean that we ought to be reconsidering “the very definition of a website,” and the possibility that it’s time to put “dramatically more focus on the story page” rather than the homepage," according to the Nieman Lab report.

Welcome to the Class Blog; Please Take this Survey

This is the News Management & Production Class Blog.

During the semester Pam Moreland will post stories, videos, audio, class assignments and other posts that should be of interest to students.

Today, click here and take a few minutes to fill out this survey. It will help Pam customize the curriculum so it meets the needs of all students.

Scroll down and you should find the class syllabus.

Stop in any time. Read the posts. Add your comments and thoughts. Enjoy!

Syllabus for Fall 2012

NEWS MANAGEMENT AND PRODUCTION

FALL 2012

Adviser: Pamela Moreland

Room: Brawner Hall, Room 402

Phone: 415.246.1578 (Yes, you can text to this number)

Office hours: Tuesday, 4-5 p.m.

Email: Pamela.moreland@menlo.edu

SUMMARY:

In this class, we will write, edit, design and publish The Menlo Oak, the school’s student news website. Microsoft Word, Blogger, Photoshop, YouTube, Storify, Facebook, Pintrest and other software programs are used to produce content, publish, and market the site. In addition, students will learn reporting, writing and multimedia skills that will serve as a foundation for all types of 21^st century communications endeavors.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Associated Press Style Book

DIGITAL CONNECTIONS:

Menlo Oak website:

http://www.menlooak.com

Class blog:

http://menlonewsprod.blogspot.com/

GRADING:

Attendance: 20%

Published work: 40%

Non-published work: 30%

Weekly Story Ideas: 5%

Weekly Style Quizzes: 5%

WEEK BY WEEK OUTLINE:

Week 1: Opening Day. Overview. Fill out class questionnaire. Reporting building blocks. First Five Paragraphs: A template for clear writing.  Storify Basics.

 Homework: “What’s new at Menlo” story idea. Due: Friday, 6 p.m.

Week 2:  More First Five Paragraphs. Interviewing techniques. In-class writing assignment Blogger Basics. Storify practice

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Read and prepare to discuss in class your 2-3 paragraph view of “Elements of Journalism.” (Handout).

Week 3: Discuss “Elements of Journalism.  Crafting a story. AP Style overview. Self-editing and copy editing skills. Blogger practice.  Photoshop Basics (Photo editing for the Menlo Oak: icons vs. story-level photos).

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m.  Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.

Week 4: AP Style Quiz.  Effective use of Quotations in Stories. Photoshop practice.  College Publisher basics.

Homework: Story Ideas: Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.  Bring your favorite print headline to next class.

Week 5: AP Style Quiz. Writing Headlines: Digital vs. Print and SEO techniques. College Publisher practice.

Homework:  Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.

Week 6: AP Style Quiz.  How to Write Effective Opinion Articles. College Publisher Practice: Menlo Oak production.

 Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Digital Media Law handout: Fair Use. Write 2-3 paragraph view on issue and be prepared to discuss in next week’s class.

Week 7: AP Style Quiz.  Discuss Fair Use issues. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.

Week 8: AP Style Quiz.  Presidential Election 2012: Content Audit. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7. Stories. Read and be ready to discuss content audit materials

Week 9: AP Style Quiz.  Building content audit spreadsheets. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Name of publication to be used in content audit. Due: Friday, 6 p.m.

Week 10: Discuss progress of content audits. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Handout: Case Study on using Facebook, Twitter and other online resources as material for stories. Write 2-3 paragraph view point and prepare to discuss in class.

Week 11: Happy Halloween!  Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Content Audit Due: Friday, 6 p.m.

Week 12:   Election Post-mortem. Discussion of Use of online resources in reporting. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.

Week 13:   Final project discussion/assignment. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Story Ideas. Due: Friday, 6 p.m. Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories.

 Week 14: Thanksgiving break (no class).

Homework: Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories. Final project description due Nov. 21.

Week 15: Work on final project in class. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories

Week 16:   Work on Final Project. Menlo Oak production.

Homework: Storify: 7 Days, 7 Stories

                                                                             

Final Project Due

Story Ideas: Don't Leave Yourself at the Door

It's your world. Write about it. That's the goal of submitting weekly story ideas.

Spotting and developing a story is a skill. First, look at yourself. What music are you listening to? What are you reading and why? Do you belong to any campus clubs or groups? What's your major and why are you majoring in that subject? What makes you worry? What are your friends talking about? What makes them worry?

The answers to any of these questions make a good foundation for a story idea., and eventually, a great story for publication.

Every student in News Management & Production is required to submit a story idea every week. This isn't difficulty.

Just write one fat paragraph (3-4 sentences) on the story. Tell me the best way to tell this story (narrative, video, audio, even animation). If you want to tell the story in text, you also need to describe an image (photograph) that you would use to illustrate the story.

Share it with me in Google Docs, or email it to me.

Here's an example of a great New York Times story that I bet started with a story idea from a college intern.

The story is about harassment of females playing online video games.

In addition to being a great story, check out the embedded links to video and original sources.

How--and When--to Use Press Releases in Your Writing, Reporting

It has rightfully been a tough summer for reporters accused of plagiarism.

A Yale grad, and Wall Street Journal intern, was fired for making up people and quotes.

A Kansas City Star reporter was fired after his editors said he lifted material from press releases several times dating back to 2008.

The KC Star reporter said that using unattributed material from press releases was a "widespread practice in journalism (we will talk more about whether that statement is true or not at a later date).

The Poynter Institute has a good checklist on how to, and when to, incorporate press release material in your work. Check it out and let me know what you think.

A Great Example of a Multimedia Story Package

 This New York Times multimedia package put together by the New York Times on pop music vocal producer Kuk Harrell deserves a lot of praise.

The print story was well-written and the interior pages well-designed (I saved a copy if you want to see it). It works for those who only get their information to print and who are satisfied with the traditional media-to-audience journalistic approach.

But if you only read part of the story, and respond better to getting your news and information through audio and visuals, you have to head to the web version. There, you will find the print story, in some cases it is the secondary piece to the video and the interactive feature. The video features vocal producer Harrell and a group of singers he's producing. If you listen closely, you can hear the quotes that are in the story.

The best part of the package is the interactive "Build Your Own Pop Song" feature. Using Harrell's technique, you can build part of a song produced by Harrell. After you listen to your work, you can click to hear Harrell's choices. You can also listen to the complete song.

This is a great package and a good starting point for re-imagining how pop music--no all music--should be covered in a digital world.

Click here and enjoy.

Is it ever OK to go 'undercover' to get a story or help a client?

Her business card said, "Stephanie Harnett, senior associate, Mercury Public Affairs."  But the union organizers remembers that she said she was a University of Southern California journalism student when she interviewed them.

Now Harnett is out of a job. The company she worked for, and the client she was representing, have denounced her and her undercover tactics.

For a journalist, it is should be a difficult and a last-ditch decision, to go undercover to get a story. Editors must be involved in the decision. 

Gawker's Hamilton Nolan, who broke the story, said it best on how the PR world views going undercover to get information. 

“Even within the PR industry it is considered horribly unethical and scandalous to pose as a reporter in order to spy for a client.” 

Click here to read a round up of coverage and comments. 

Fast Company: Content Curators are New Web Superheroes

The print and online magazine that reports on what "fast companies (entrepreneurs and cutting-edge ventures) are doing has taken a look at the growing importance of curators.

"Curation is the act of individuals with a passion for a content area to find, contextualize, and organize information. Curators provide a consistent update regarding what's interesting, happening, and cool in their focus. Curators tend to have a unique and consistent point of view--providing a reliable context for the content that they discover and organize," according to a blog post by Steven Rosenbaum.

He goes on to list some best curation pratices and highlights some of the current curation tools (we used a couple that he mentions--Storify and Pinterest--in class this semester).

"One thing I'm sure of," Rosenbaum adds, "the web is going to keep growing fast. And the solution to making sense of the massive volume is a new engaged partnership between humans and machines."

Click here to read the complete post. 

Three Plagiarism Cases That Didn't Have to Happen

Remember journalism's rule No. 5 "Be skeptical of everything. If your mother says she loves you, check it out."

Here are three examples where online journalists say they accidentally plagiarized. Their excuse: They thought they copying information from a press release that was sent by a friend. 

That's really no excuse. 

1. Even if "a friend" sends you information about a potential story, it is up to you to verify that information.

2. Press releases can be wrong.  As a journalist, you should verify any and all information, including quotes, contained in the release. Yes, that means re-reporting information in the release.

3. Don't forget attribution, even when using information from a press release. At the bare minimum, attribution, that is telling the reader where you got the information, could save you the embarrassment of being accused of plagiarism.

Click here to read how the Poynter Institute described this series of plagiarism cases. The also are links to the original stories, and the apologies issued by the reporters who made the errors. 

KQED Radio is Experimenting is also Experimenting with Storify

Menlo's News Management and Production class isn't the only organization test driving Storify.

KQED Radio's Daily talk show, "Forum" is testing it, too.

Earlier this week, "Forum" host Michael Krasny led a lively discussion on going vegan and vegan cooking. The Forum team created a Storify story that collected recipes, recommendations and vegan cooking tips that listeners Facebooked, tweeted or posted.

Click here for the Forum page.

Click here to go directly to the Storify story (which includes a SoundCloud widget with audio from the show.

Music Video Used to Explain Super PACS

ProPublica is one of the best known, and widely respected, investigative reporting websites in the U.S.

So when it posts an animated video explaining Super Pacs, people take notice.

Basically, Super PACs (Political Action Committees) are a new political phenomena. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot stop unions and corporations from spending money in political campaigns as long as the spending is "independent" from the money raised and used by the candidate.

Whew!

Click here to check out how a team of freelancers, working with ProPublica, explained Super PACs. There is also a link to a site where you can find the names of some Super PAC donors and how much the gave.

It's Never Too Early to Start Thinking About the Final Project

This semester, the final project is all about you and your dream digital media project.
If you had the money and the staff to launch a digital media outlet or to create an app or to do something that no one in the communications field has ever done before, what would it be?
You need to think outside the box. You will have to create a prototype. You will have to answer some basic questions about your idea.
Here's a good example of thinking different. KCRW is the Public Radio station in Santa Monica. It just launched a YouTube channel that "will stream themed video playlists curated and hosted by the station's DJs."
That's right. Radio DJs curating (collecting and using their judgment and news sense to customize and present the material) video.
Check out the video and start dreaming of what you can do. This is the first step in becoming an entrepreneurial journalist.

Media Ethics and Facebook

On Sept. 16, 2009, Melissa Bailey sent a “friend request” through Facebook, the online social network, to Jessica Del Rocco. Bailey was the managing editor of the New Haven Independent, a nonprofit news website, and Del Rocco was the ex‐girlfriend of the man wanted by police for allegedly murdering a Yale pharmacology student, Annie Le.

 Le had disappeared on Sept. 8, and her body had been found on Sept. 13. The story had become a national media sensation, and the Independent, a grassroots publication with strong ties to New Haven, was
at the forefront of the coverage.

Del Rocco accepted the friend request, giving Bailey access to her Facebook posts known as “status updates.” Here, “behind the wall,” Del Rocco had responded to the news that her ex‐boyfriend, Raymond Clark, was the murder suspect. As Bailey read Del Rocco’s posts, she was riveted—this was great material. Independent reporters also had a six‐year‐old police report filed by Del Rocco in which she alleged that Clark had “forced her to have sex.” The police report alone was big news, but Del Rocco’s comments on Facebook helped to “fill out the picture,” says Bailey, and brought the story up to date.

Bailey could be confident that no other journalist had Del Rocco’s name, much less access to her Facebook posts. But the comments were visible only to her online “friends.” Was it ethical to use them in a news story?

Over the next few weeks, we will be talking about whether Melissa Bailey did the right thing in the way she obtained the Facebook postings by the murder suspect's ex-girlfriend. We will also talk about other ethical issues raised in this case study.

Here is a link to the CNN site the murder of Annie Le and the police investigation that ultimately led to the arrest and conviction of one of Le's co-workers.

The Power of Photo Slideshows

Here is a photo slideshow that I couldn't stop going through. These are photos for the cruise liner crash off the coast of Italy.
It looks to me as if there is a mix of professional photos and photos shot by passengers and crew.
Anyway take a look at the slideshow (Please notice how I just embedded a link to the slideshow. When you create your slideshows you should embed a link to it from your story.)
To embed a link, you can create a link using a word or a couple of words in a sentence. Or, you can just write something like "Click here" and embed the link in the word "here."

Editor ovehears councilwoman's phone conversation, tweets about it; ethical or not ethical?

'll admit it. One of my favorite websites is poynter.org. It's a gathering place for people in the news media to get a little gossip, learn about some of the new tools for story-telling, and even find a job.

This is the story I was talking about it class. Bob Salladay, a senior editor with California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting was on a train sitting near Santa Ana City Council member Michele Martinez. Martinez was talking on her cell phone and Salladay could hear her side of the conversation. He started tweeting what she said. 

Click here for the Poynter story on the what happen. Embedded in the Poynter story are links to three publications that reported on the incident.

One of the issues Poynter asks about is whether you should tweet information you haven't verified. According to "The Element of Journalism" you should. You should always verify before reporting. Remember, if your mother says she loves you, ask someone else to verify her statement.

Examples of the Web Protest Against SOPA

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a bill in Congress that has pitted Hollywood against Silicon Valley.

The movie studios want a law the forces Interest Service Providers to stop linking to websites that host boot-legged movies, TV shows, and other entertainment.

Many digital media companies want "net neutrality," that means that everyone is treated the same on the Internet. These companies say there is another to stop entertainment piracy. Just give us time, the Silicon Valley firms say, and we will develop a way that satisfies everyone.

Click here to see screen grabs of some of the websites that joined in the Jan. 18 protest.

UPDATE: The online protest seems to have worked. Check out this story from the Los Angeles Times.

Everyone makes mistakes ...

But we should be extra careful when writing and publishing on the web.
Here are two mistakes that should have never happened. The first is a mistake that can only happen on the web. Someone wrote a description of a photo and that description should have never been made public. Remember, whenever you write something that is attached to a photo, a video or a story that is going to be published on the web, make sure that you won't be embarassed--or you publication won't be embarassed--if and when people see it. This goes for material that you believe will never make it out on the web. Trust me, it will get out.
The editor of laobserved.com said it best, "Tags, URLs and alt text all count as editorial content these days, for better or worse."
The second mistake is something that good research should have prevented. None of us can know every scrap of information that the world contains. That's why it is OK to check, and double check your research before publication.

Why We Are Emphasizing Video This Semester

One of the goals of the Spring 2012 News Production & Management is to get everyone involved with video. We all should leave the class with at leas one video experience.
This experience can be you in a news video (either telling a story or using video as a companion to a written story).
You can interview someone in a video. You can have two people debate in a video.
A few weeks ago, the New York Times announced that it is "embracing" video as a primary reporting tool. That's right, a print product is going to stress video, at least for its online components.
If it is good enough for the New York Times, it's good enough for the Menlo Oak.
Check out the Beet.TV interview with the Times editorial director of video & TV on this shift.
Also, click here to for a story and video on how the non-profit group  One Laptop Per Child is developing a low-cost(in some cases around $100)  tablet so kids in the world's poorest countries can connect with technology, and the organization hopes, a brighter future.
Please watch the video. I think it is too long at six minutes, but it is a good online video, even with all the crowd noise in the background. I bet the writer is using his smartphone camera to shoot the video.

Anyone interested in experimenting with audio clips?

Adding audio to our stories is a great way to provide the human touch and context (two elements from the First Five Graphs).
In the digital media world, we all need to know a little about a lot of tools to tell stories. Now it is becoming easier to add audio to our stories.
According to an article on poynter.org, the Poynter Institute is xxxxx..... " Everyone who has a smartphone doesn’t just have a camera in their pocket, but a microphone. And unlike video, you can listen to audio you and others create when you’re doing other things.
Journalists should at least experiment with online audio – whether they work in radio or not."
Here's a link to the complete Poynter story.
One of the audio apps mentioned in the Poynter article is SoundCloud. Here's how Jay-Z recently used SoundCloud.
 Glory - Jay-Z feat. Blue Ivy Carter by Warhol2011