Thursday, April 19
Confession: I miss The Berkeley Beacon
I miss putting together the paper on Wednesday nights in the basement (read: dungeon) of Piano Row. I miss Monday night staff meetings and critiques with Ric. I miss the uber-motivated and hard-working editors, writers, and photographers. I miss picking up the paper every Thursday morning. I miss dancing to the latest guilty pleasure when everyone takes a five minute (in)sanity break. I miss being known as PC (aka Politically Correct)…okay, not so much that one. I miss trying to think of raunchy titles for NIBs. I miss taking photos and editing them down to find the most dynamic image to accompany a story. I miss the weekly miracle of helping a newspaper come into being and knowing it was based on the work of my fellow Emersonians.
I still feel an insane surge of pride for my college newspaper. I was so impressed when they rolled out their new HTML5 website. It makes me happy that even after I’ve graduated, my photographs get used. (Yeah, archives.) For present Beaconites, I hope you know that this alumni is proud to see that the legacy of accurate reporting, distinct visuals, perfect AP Style, and innovative work continues.
Monday, February 20
10 Great Tumblr Blogs for News Junkies - Social Web Daily | MyLife’s Social BlogSocial Web Daily
- The Economist: Self-ascribed as “the most trusted source of global news analysis,” The Economist has been delivering noteworthy news pieces since 1843. This Tumblr page aggregates thought-provoking quotes, the week’s cartoon, and curated long-form pieces from the Economist website and the magazine.
- Short Form Blog: Short Form’s motto is: “Read a little. Learn a lot.” This Tumblr is perfect for news junkies on the go. It delivers important news in bite-size nuggets, so you don’t waste anytime reading fluff while trying to keep up with the latest news. Pull quotes and succinct summaries make this Tumblr a must for news advocates who are short on time.
- Brooklyn Mutt: Peter Wade of The Daily runs this catch-all Tumblr blog. The site is primarily concerned with rounding up the latest news—from breaking stories and international headlines, to movie releases, viral memes, celebrity tweets, and more.
- Neigborhoodr: Sometimes quality local news is tough to find. The Neighborhoodr Tumblr blogs are looking to change that with their hyper-localized network of news blogs. Just choose your city from the list and read up on local issues. It’s a great way to stay informed of neighborhood initiatives, events, and more.
- Journal of a Journalist: For true news-philes, this blog by Neil Ungerleider of Fast Company, provides interesting insight into the world of journalism. You’ll find interesting news stories, invaluable commentary, and an awesome sci-fi slant. A great place to find news you didn’t even know you cared about.
- GOOD: GOOD is a great place to stay informed on all things humming in the philanthropic world. Whether it’s the latest efforts to reform education, new findings on gender disparity in the media world, or a think piece on organic wine, you can get all of your humanitarian-focused news here.
- Future Journalism Project: The Future Journalism Project “explores disruption, opportunity, and innovation in journalism” and it sure does deliver. You’ll find tons of news pieces relating to the current state of journalism—and tons more on what’s soon to come. Whether you’re looking for insight into Patch, Pinterest, or issues affecting journalism, you’re likely to find what you’re looking for on the Future Journalism Project. It’s a great way to stay up-to-date on issues affecting the news industry.
- Breaking News: CNN’s Breaking News has an extremely active Twitter account, Facebook page, and website. So it should come as little surprise that their Tumblr page is yet another great medium to get the latest in breaking news. This clean, streamlined blog shows headline-worthy photos and posts important news from around the globe.
- The Atlantic: The Atlantic’s Tumblr blog is a perfect antidote to offset the anxious lulls between the magazine’s released issues. It showcases gorgeous photos, provocative quotes, and interesting memes found across the web. It’s a great way to keep up with the publication while you eagerly await the next full issue.
- Mother Jones: Get your MoJo fix in a whole new way, with the Mother Jones Tumblr page. The site features a range of intriguing news bits—from pressing current issues, economic op-eds, and political insights, to viral memes and witty pictures. Plus, if you feel so inclined, you can ask a MoJo editor anything you want using Tumblr’s Q&A feature.
We’re chuffed. Thanks!
(via futurejournalismproject)
Monday, January 9
19 free ebooks on journalism (for your Xmas Kindle)
Via Online Journalism Blog
I wish Tumblr had been as big when I was taking my Online Journalism course. There would have been so much good content to discuss.
(Source: futurejournalismproject)
Tuesday, November 8
Multimedia in Journalism: An Interview with theTimes’ Amy Harmon
Amy Harmon recently published a piece where she followed a young man with autism for a year. The Times then helped add other multimedia elements to this story. You can find the link here. The following is an interview with Harmon about the process.
MZ: How did the idea of integrating all that multimedia into a narrative piece come to be? Was this the first time the Times tried anything like it?
AH: The Times uses multimedia to tell stories all the time, we even won an Emmy for one cool approach to this recently. But what I think is so innovative about the “quick links” that my colleagueJosh Williams invented for the autism story is precisely the integration that you are asking about. In an immersion-narrative like this one, the whole point for me, as the writer, is to get readers hooked enough to keep reading to the end. I struggled for weeks, over many drafts, to do that with this one. I hoped they would want to know: will Justin manage to secure a place for himself in the world beyond high school? Will he find a job that uses his artistic talent? Will he remain friendless? The last thing I wanted was to add multimedia distractions, no matter how whizzy. So to me, the beauty of the quick links is that they don’t take you away from the story. They don’t open a new tab from which you may never return, they don’t introduce a dimension of plot or character that is tangential to my compulsively-labored-over text. But they DO bring the story to life in a visceral way that my words do not, and perhaps never could, even if I had longer to perfect them, or was a more gifted writer.
As to how the idea came about: it grew out of the editing process, pretty late in the game. This was not a case where we sat down ahead of time and tried to conceive of a new way to convey information. But one thing we had done, which is pretty standard now, is produce a short video that would accompany the story on our Web site. And it was when Glenn Kramon, the paper’s enterprise editor, saw the video that he asked whether it would be possible for readers to see and hear Justin as they read the article online. The video itself was great, we all loved how the producers had told Justin’s story. But it was also obvious that seeing and hearing Justin, even in just the raw footage, Glenn was able to grasp the nature of his autism with a clarity that he had never had in reading my written descriptions. And he didn’t want readers to have to watch the stand-alone, seven-minute video to have that experience. He wanted it sprinkled into the story. It seemed obvious once he said it, but since none of us had ever seen anything like that, I was sort of doubtful that it could be done, at least in time for my story to run.
At our next meeting, though, Andrew DeVigal, who heads the multimedia team, came with Josh Williams, a member of his staff. Josh instantly grasped what we wanted, and it was only a couple of days later that he showed us the first iteration of the links. Josh had been involved in developing much fancier stuff, and he didn’t think this was such a big deal. But I did. Maybe because it is still essentially a familiar format, rather than a completely new one, I felt like I could work within it, and it gave me this totally new way to make the story better.
Check out the interview then go to the NYT article.
Read it, look at the photos, watch the videos, click the links. There is so much information and depth to the reporting. This is how multimedia should be done.
Also, everything about this project is why I love journalism.
(via futurejournalismproject)
Wednesday, August 17
Chris Hughes's Jumo And GOOD Join Forces
GOOD, publisher of the magazine by the same name and the social action platform is acquiring Jumo, the cause-oriented social network created by Facebook and team Barack Obama veteran Chris Hughes.
Very interesting move and definitely makes sense by combining Good’s content and Jumo’s community platform.
For example:
Jumo has been piloting some community fundraising campaigns, like a recent one for victims of the Somalia drought, that have yielded good results. But keeping interest alive in the do-gooder space can be tough. Hughes says he has learned a lot. “People need carefully curated content if you are going to sustain their interest,” he says. “Particularly in the context of the not for profit world. People have to be consistently inspired, outraged, or excited. And there are nonprofits out there who are doing noble work in their communities and good jobs with their social outreach, but simply can’t generate enough content, particularly on local issues.
Via PopTech.
“People need carefully curated content if you are going to sustain their interest,” -Chris Hughes
Definitely something to keep in mind for social advocacy and journalism. You can’t just dump a bunch of information on readers. And that, in a nutshell, is the value of a good journalist. Someone who can get to the bottom of a story and format it in a way that people can understand it and take action.
(via futurejournalismproject)
Tuesday, July 27
One of the Rewards
A story about a skid row musician who recently played for President Obama is the leading story on LATimes.com. The article is part of Steve Lopez’s column, which means he is quite prevalent in the story. I’m not usually a big fan of columns for this very reason. I much prefer the fly on the wall type of story-telling. However, I love the way Lopez has had a relationship with Nathaniel Ayers. I’ve read through a few of his other articles related to Ayers and have found them truly inspiring. I’d definitely say the desire to do good and to help others is one of the reasons I love journalism. Articles like these serve as a great reminder of how much of an impact a journalist can have. Thank you Los Angeles Times for once again reminding me why I love my major.
Saturday, July 10
Robots as Reporters?
This just weirds me out. Even though I know the most important part of any journalistic piece is the human aspect, it’s weird to think a robot can “write” an article. Simple facts and statistics don’t keep people reading, a narrative does. If there’s anything I’ve learned in my journalism classes or working on my school’s newspaper, it’s that you have to have some kind of narrative. If anything, this is a good reminder to journalists that they really have to bring out the story. For sports, anyone can write a play by play, but a good sport’s reporter can let you know how those plays fit into the bigger picture and why you should care about the athletes or team. Anyone can give the “who, what, where, when, why” of a story, but a true journalist makes sure you get those facts as well as the background, the effects, and a reason to want to know more about the story. Once again, technology is reminding us that we need to go above and beyond to remain relevant. If we slack off, then robots deserve to run the news.
via Mashable
