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!