Entries from March 2007 ↓

The Setup:

Much of what I’ve read since I started blogging (and thereby reading more online journalism blogs) says that journalists and students of journalism should blog. But according to a survey conducted by my editing teacher, out of 60 or so students (three sections) only about 5 blog.

The Problem:

My cash costs for this blog are almost nil, but the time cost is heavy. I try to post at least once a day, and that means coming up with a post idea (usually through my RSS feeds or classes), how to approach it, searching for references and relevant information, writing the post, coming up with a title (headlines are my weakness), and editing. I’m also constantly looking for ways to improve the site as a whole, via design or information.

The Solution?

Tumblr

A “Tumblelog” is The Flash compared to traditional blogging. Each post will have a different format based on what information you’re posting: a longer blog post, a photograph or graphic, a quotation, a link, a conversation, or a video. You don’t have to write commentary, there are no comments to check. Just post and go.

Even better, the Tumblr bookmarklet automatically detects what kind of site you’re on and will format the post accordingly. I’m assuming this auto-detect isn’t perfect, so you can change the type easily as well.

You can also set Tumblr up to directly publish posts from an RSS feed or your cellphone.

Maybe not:

Here’s the drawback: no comments = no community. If you follow the theory that journalism needs to get ueber-local, and journalists need to learn how to participate in their communities, maybe Tumblr isn’t the solution for the time-bound. Maybe you should just take a few extra seconds to post to a blog that does allow comments. Maybe the time investment is worth the possibility of mind-opening and engaging conversation; building your own community.

Something Different:

Perhaps the challenge lies in the format. How long is a story, anyway?

P.S. This post took me about two hours. I had help on the details on Tumblr from Lifehacker.

My profile of the Society of Women Engineers club at the University of Florida.

Newsdesigner points out that the Arizona Phoenix redesigned their Monday edition with the busy business person in mind.

Unfortunately, the photos aren’t clear enough for me to count fonts, but here are a few choice comments:

To me, all of these pages look like inside pages. Why this treatment only on Monday? Aren’t people just as busy Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday? - John Tomac

A whole lot of decoration and very little content. - Steven

I’m busy, on-the-go and have a short attention span, but I don’t care for this at all. - contrarian

I think it looks like a newspaper for kids.

Newspapers are very protective of their content, an attitude which does not embrace the philosophy of the Web.

Here though, is an example of a crack in the mold:

It looks like The Morning Call not only created a database and search for breeders and kennels in PA, but also made a widget (buzzword!) and ::gasp:: lets anyone grab the code and put it on a Web site!

Read and comment. Think about it.

Daryl Cagle notes that the LA Times print edition uses 22 fonts - just above the fold on the front page.

Cagle has a great graphic showing where and how the different fonts are used.

Here’s his list:

1. The logo font, we’ll excuse this one.
2. A font that’s used only for the date on the left and the price, on the right.
3. A serif font used only for “Valley Edition,” of-course, the Valley need’s it’s own font.
4. Here’s a different serif font for the copyright notice.
5. A condensed, sans-serif headline used for two of the stories on the front page.
6. This serif font is also used twice, in combination with the san-serif headline font above it.
7. And then switch back to sans-serif, twice, but it’s not quite the same font as that headline font above.
8. Oh! A new font, in regular and italic, just for the photographers credit, and it’s a different font than the copyright notice above.
9. This font is only for the names of the reporters.
10. This bold sans serif font is printed in a halftone gray and would seem to be used for the titles of photos, “Spy Uncloaked” and “Fred Thompson” - but no, it’s not just for titles, because the third time it is used to direct readers to another page, “NATION, A19.”
11. This serif font is black, and goes with the gray font #10; it is used only for the caption under the photos
12. This red, bold sans serif font is used only for the words “Column One.” (A great name for a column, huh? There isn’t any Column Two.)
13.”Column One” also has it’s own, Italic headline font, which is used nowhere else on the front page.
14. Here is a serif headline font that is used only for the Fred Thompson story (it is used for two other stories below the fold).
15. This italic font is only for the words “Times Staff Writers” under the names of the reporters.
16. This Bold, serif font is used only for the name of the city where the story is filed from.
17. This is the standard body type for the text of the stories, we’ll excuse this one.
18. This italic headline font is used only with “Column One,” where the columnist seems to have his own font preferences.
19. This sans serif font is found on the front page only once, with the words “RELATED STORY.”
20. Here we find out what the “RELATED STORY” is, and we find out in an all new font.
21. Oh! I just realized that the photographers credits are in two different fonts, regular and italic, and I only counted one of these fonts before, so I’ll count the other one here.
22. Wow, here’s a giant, red, Italic letter “I” - it made me jump!

This is a redesign of their former front page, which I can only assume accompanied the reorganization of their newsroom.

Wow. The mantra for beginners in typography is “no more than three fonts.” I know you’d like to draw attention to different items on the page, but that is accomplished by good design and use of space and color - not fonts.

Another compilation article, this time targeting Spring Break.

Your social networking site of choice, be it MySpace, Facebook, whatever, may seem like the perfect place to post that picture from the night you drank so much tequila that you passed out in the middle of a friend’s living room and everyone drew on you with markers.

It may be harmless until potential employers go searching for background on applicants and find that picture.

The same applies to LiveJournal posts about a crazy party and friends posting on your “Wall.”

Even if you are scrupulous about what you post about yourself, people can still bash you online and lose you a job or internship. This has become enough of an issue that Web sites like ReputationDefender have sprung up.

ReputationDefender promises:

First, we SEARCH. We scour the Internet to dig up every possible piece of information about you and present it in an interactive monthly report, including: Social networks (MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Bebo, etc.), professional review Web sites, Blogs, online news sources, photograph, video, and audio sharing sites (Flickr, YouTube, etc.), millions of additional sites on the “open Internet.”
Then, for about $186 a year, the site promises to “destroy” or alter the online information about you that you don’t approve of.

Their promise to alter information extends to online news sources. I’m not sure what they consider to be an online news source, but I don’t see how they could alter an online article from the NYT, for example.

In the meantime, there are also a bunch of “identity aggregators” (like ClaimID) which can help you collect what you wrote about yourself, what others may have written about you, and where you exist online.

Edit: Well, at least I know that Reputation Defender monitors their own rep very well. This was on their press page:

Find your Reputation Online
Megan Taylor writes about ReputationDefender. The piece is good, except that it mistakenly reads our FAQ to say that we do Destroy or amend news articles. In fact, we expressly say we don’t and won’t. But it’s a good piece nonetheless.

Oops, sorry about that.

TheBivingsReport has a great list of how newspapers can (SHOULD) integrate blogs. They also include links to examples.

The short version:

(1) Ask you audience what they think you should be covering.

(2) Ask your audience for input on something new.

(3) Host public blogs

(4) Continue coverage of an ongoing story that has left the limelight.

(5) Help journalists jump off the high horse and join their audiences in discussions.

(6) Write (and host) niche blogs.

(7) Ask your audience for help with a story. Get opinions (check facts!)

(8) Ask experts in your community to host a debate.

(9) Ask people from your audience to write about their areas of expertise.

(10) Provide sneak peaks of upcoming stories.

(11) Allow journalists to share their interests and passions.

(12) Share internal memos and briefings with the public.

(13) Let your audience into the newsroom: write about editorial decisions, story coverage and internal debate.

(14) How can a news organization provide a case study about an issue that it covers? By using a blog.

(15) What are newsroom staffers reading? Perhaps the public would like to read these items as well.

(16) If your organization gathered and prepared content that wasn’t released, why not post it to a blog if it is otherwise fine?

I realize that in paraphrasing some of these ideas, I used the word audience a lot. Journalists need to get closer to (take your pick: the masses, the audience, the readers, the consumers, the people, the community) but there is a pervasive “us vs. them” philosophy. I’m not sure what the correct (politically or otherwise) term might be. Any wordsmiths out there?

This whole daylight savings thing is driving me nuts. I was up until 7 a.m. and I have no idea how I pulled myself out of bed at 1 p.m.

Paul Bradshaw has some great thoughts about interactivity and how the idea of user control operates on different levels: hardware and software.

Hardware controls the time and space dimensions. When and how can you consume this information?

Software controls the dimensions of input and output. Can you influence the information in some way? Can you control how you consume content?

Webster defines interactive as

1: mutually or reciprocally active 2: involving the actions or input of a user; especially : of, relating to, or being a two-way electronic communication system (as a telephone, cable television, or a computer) that involves a user’s orders (as for information or merchandise) or responses (as to a poll)

I’m always happy to see people really thinking and talking about things like this. It shows that interactivity isn’t just another buzzword.