Entries from December 2007 ↓

Gator Alumni Map

Map of Gator Alumni Associations done as part of a group project for Reporting and Writing for the Web.

UF Campus Tour

Final project from my Reporting and Writing for the Web class. A Google map of some important buildings on campus, with embedded videos. I was going to do a voice-over but ran out of time.

I’ve continued to work on this virtual newsroom idea. This is a little chart I drew up. I know it’s not very clear yet.

Here’s a text version of how I envision this working:

A reporter gets a story idea, talks it over with his/her section editor, gets the green light and starts working on the story, at the same time, the section editor talks to the web editor, so the web editor sends an online journalist to go talk to the reporter (assuming there is something web-worthy in this story) so the online journalist goes back to his/her comp and starts working on something, but is using the giant integrated system to keep an eye on what the reporter is putting together, reporter shows story to section editor, who makes sure it is really a story and has all the necessary elements, and makes suggestions, and that might go back a forth a few times, depending. the online journalist has put together a map or a database or some video or whatever and shows it to the web editor, who does the same thing the section editor does and the reporter and the online jou are tracking each others work the whole time. so then the copyeditor goes over the text to make sure its spelled right and in ap style and not slanderous and all that and then everything goes to production. production meaning that the article the reporter wrote goes to the layout people, and then to the printer. meanwhile, the web side of production figures out where and how to put the project on the website.

Ugh. I understand how it would work in my head, but I’m not doing so great on making it clear to anyone else am I?

Related to this, I had a long conversation with a friend yesterday about virtual vs. meatspace communication. He argues that assuming time spent communicating and familiarity with the technology, there is no difference. I argued that there is something to face-to-face communication that can’t be replicated online.

What do you think? I’m gonna work on these concepts some more and see if I make make it more coherent.

I’m reading “Time Enough for Love,” and these quotes struck me as being more journalism-related than not.

What are the facts? Again and again and again - what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” - what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single cue. Get the facts!

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.

That is all.

Today boredom and browsing brought me to CommandShift3. It’s like hot or not for Web design.

Poking around the site revealed the 10 best and 10 worst Web sites, plus runners-up.

Moment of hilarity: The University of Florida’s design was rated #13 WORST.

The Independent Florida Alligator site was not listed, so I added it.

We’ve been hearing about convergence and converged newsrooms for a while now. Many papers haven’t even looked in this direction, some are trying, few have made progress. And I don’t think any have perfected it.

In the spirit of forward thinking, I would like to suggest the next trend: virtual newsrooms. What if you didn’t have to go to an office every day to do your job? Instead of a “mobile journalist” sending reports back to a newsroom, she/he would send info to a server, and copyeditors, wherever they might physically be, could edit and post stories.

It’s a big step, and not one that will happen soon. But the technology to do it already exists: we have big blogs with multiple contributors and online-only magazines.

I’ve been playing with this idea for a while, and trying to come up with some workflow concepts. But I only know the newspaper workflow. Can anyone point out the broadcast (TV and radio) workflows?

What do you think of the idea of a virtual newsroom? Good or bad?

Every semester the board of The Independent Florida Alligator accepts applications for editor, print managing editor and online managing editor (formerly managing editor for new media). All current editors have to re-apply.

So today was the board meeting, and having welcomed a new editor and print managing editor, I moved to the other side of the table for my own interview. Happily, I was voted in again. And the board approved changing the title from “new media” to “online.”

The Alligator doesn’t publish during school breaks, so there won’t be many changes to the site until January. But today I launched a map of gas prices in Gainesville, accompanied by the 10 cheapest gas stations in town. Super cool, cause I’ve been trying for half the semester to do that.

In a game of “pass the quote,” I heard that my friend Stephanie Rosenblatt, from the Miami Herald, said this:

The success of the online communicating with the public, serving the public and becoming successful, will succeed or fail based wholly on how well people inside the newsroom communicate with one another (paraphrased)

Too true. The problem is that in my experience, communication in the newsroom sucks. We’re journalists, it’s our job to communicate, but we can’t do it with each other.

And the burden falls on the online departments to communicate and to be visible in everything they do, because the rest of the newsroom doesn’t really understand what it’s all about.

Just something to think about. How can online journalists make themselves a part of the newsroom society? How do you show progress and achievement? If you do not make your work visible, how will your colleagues know what is possible?

The Servant of Those Who Bring Victory to Krishna

This Soundslides was the final project for my intro to photojournalism class. The photos are a little noisy because the temple is super dark at 5 a.m. And the nat sound could be a little louder, I think. The Hare Krishnas in Gainesville serve lunch daily on campus during the semesters so I thought it would be cool to show what people don’t see every day.

Tampa’s Converged Newsroom

I went on a class trip to see the TBO/Tampa Tribune/Channel 8 newsroom. Pretty sweet. Edited with iMovie. I need a tripod.