Megan Taylor

I love lists. They give me direction, options, and when completed, a sense of accomplishment.

Bryan Murley recently reposted his checklist of things college media sites should consider. Of course my first thought was to see how my own college media outlet is doing:

* Have you got your news org. online?

The Alligator has been online for a while, although until recently the site left much to be desired.

* Do you have a content management system?

We just launched the new Alligator site with a content management system and a new design. Yay!

* Have you posted any videos online?

Yes we have. In fact, on Thursday two reporters handed me video - a first!

* Have you included any audio soundbites in a story?

I have the soundbites on my computer...they just haven't made it to the correct format for the Web site yet.

* Have you done a photo slideshow?

Yes, several.

* Have you put up an audio slideshow (perhaps using Soundslides)?

Yes.

* Have you done a map?

Yes.

* Have you used weblogs on your site?

Like the soundbites, this is in the works.

* Have you uploaded source documents (PDFs, excel spreadsheets, etc.) to accompany a big story?

YES! Even on the old site, documents were often uploaded when provided by the reporters.

* Have you used social media (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube) to market your stories?

There is an Alligator Facebook group, and individual articles on the new site now feature sharing tools.

* Have you tracked what others are saying about you via Technorati or Google Blogsearch?

Nope.

* Have you used the web site to post breaking news online FIRST?

Still trying to figure this one out. We have put a couple f breaking sports stories up before they went to print though.

* Have you moved the online editor out of the back office and into a position of authority?

Well, I guess we kind of moved ourselves out of the back office.

* Have you allowed comments on your stories?

Yes. I have been pleasantly surprised with the intelligence of many of the comments posted to the site. We decided not to review comments and to remove them only if a complaint was lodged, or if we saw a "flame war" starting up.

* Have you encouraged writers to write for the Web and include hyperlinks in their stories?

I'm hoping this will go hand-in-hand with blogging. Right now, when we are putting up new stories, if we see an opportunity for a link, it goes in.

* Have you tried something experimental?

We've got a few projects in the works, but right now energy is tied up in making the workflow efficient and working the kinks out of the new site.

So far, I think we're doing pretty good! Of course, in this case, the "checklist" is never really completed. But I'll be happy if I can get out of the office by 1:30 a.m. every night instead of 3 a.m.

In the last week, I started a new semester, launched a website with a new CMS and design, stayed awake for 48 hours, got sick, got well, spent an unjustifiable amount of money on books, cleaned my apartment twice, turned 21, interviewed three people, and caught up on the summer backlog.

But thus far, I have met with success on all fronts.

This semester is really exciting for me because I am the New Media Managing Editor at The Independent Florida Alligator, 9 months away from graduation, and my various connections and activities are going places and getting results. Awesome. It's also very stressful, for the same reasons. Trying to sync up schedules at three different jobs during the first week of classes results in a lot of mayhem, but that should be settled now. All I have to do is not fall behind.

My responsibilities for this semester include:

• · Bringing more people, news and multimedia to The Independent Florida Alligator web site
• · 4 classes: Photographic Journalism, Problems and Ethics in Journalism, Reporting and Writing for the Web, and Advanced Interactive Reporting

Advanced Interactive Reporting is a brand new class governed by self-directed learning in which we will be designing a converged newsroom. At least, that's what the syllabus says. So far, I'm still not sure what we're doing, except that it will involve multimedia and teamwork. Fun.

• · Consulting at the UF Computing Help Desk
• · Updating and upgrading the Citizen Access Project Web site
• · Writing a weekly post for Angela Grant's News Videographer blog
• · and of course, keeping up my own blog!

I know that looks like a lot of work, but I'm confident that I can get it all done with my usual determination and of course, endless bottles of Mountain Dew.

The beginning has passed, and I just have to keep going.

Last night, while uploading the new student edition articles to the Alligator Web site, Brett Roegiers and I tossed together a Google map of all the locations mentioned in various articles, complete with driving directions. Ahhh, last minute media.

To create the map, I used the method described in Matt Waite's post, "Why (some) journalists should learn (some) code."

The most aggravating part was getting the latitude and longitude for each address, especially for places on campus that don't really have addresses. I used a combination of GeoCoder and this Lat/Long Bookmarklet for Google Maps.

There has got to be a better way to grab lat/long. I know that it is possible to generate the locations through a Google Spreadsheet, and even generate the entire map this way, as well.

Does anyone know any other tricks?

Edit: Matt can’t seem to keep his site up and running, so you'll have to search archives.org for his post.

I'm no good at taking vacations. Relaxation is a foreign state. I need to be working, thinking, producing. But for the last two weeks I've found myself to be either immensely frustrated with my work or forced into vacation mode by visitors who just will not let me be productive.

On the other hand, last week I won a promotion at The Independent Florida Alligator to New Media Managing Editor. While I am confident that I can do the job, our web-workflow is changing, and I have to figure out how to maximize the time that will no longer be spent cutting and pasting Word documents into PHP templates. This is both worrisome and exciting.

I'll continue the Classes in Review series next week, and probably mix it up with some M.E.-type thoughts. Until then, the links will keep coming.

(post title comes from a song by Against Me!)

Facebook recently released free local classifieds, also known as Facebook Marketplace. The interface could be a little cleaner, but it's no worse than Craigslist...no telling how this will effect the classifieds industry. I use a combination of Craigslist and LiveJournal to get things for free or cheap. Facebook is extremely popular among college students as a social networking site, but will they post ads? Depending on the reaction, I'll have to add Facebook to my "I hate being broke" browsing.

A Craigslist and Google Maps mashup called Mapskrieg shows exactly where Craigslist housing listings are located. In some cases, you could probably get a great satellite view of the area. I poked around Gainesville and Miami (my hometown), and sent the link to some friends who are looking for a change of residence. Looks like a really useful tool.

I know the Gainesville Sun and the Independent Florida Alligator both carry classifieds online. The Sun's are a searchable database, while the Alligator provides a .pdf due to limited resources. It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to grab data from Craigslist and other popular online ad sites and create a ginormous pile of ads. Mix it with Google Maps. Make it easy to search. Give it a feed. Give it to us for free, we're gonna get it anyway, we might as well be spending time on your site.

The obligatory end-of-semester post:

This semester has been the most fun and the most challenging so far. I spiced up my CSS skillz and learned enough Flash to be able to produce a good amount of what's already being done as well as to push my myself further. I learned a lot about design, and am pursuing further studies on my own. I learned the value of a budget. I took driving lessons and will be getting my license and a car very soon. I made some very important connections to people in my department, people who can teach me and connect me with other VIPs. I had just enough free time to keep my head from exploding, but not so much that boredom got me into trouble.

I lined up two summer jobs that will add some experience to my resume so that I can get a great internship and then a great job. I will still be working at the Help Desk, but I also joined the new media department at the Independent Florida Alligator and will be updating and redesigning the Citizen Access Project Web site. I'm also taking an advanced editing course.

Having invested so much of myself in learning Flash and upgrading my coding abilities in the last few months, I'm eager to revisit storytelling and learn how to combine multimedia technology with extraordinary reporting. I don't know if I'll get that chance this summer, but I definitely will in the fall.

As all students do, I worry about how prepared I will be come graduation, to take a job in my field. Unlike many other majors, however, journalism is changing, and fast. So are the required skills.

Mindy McAdams, Ryan Sholin and Howard Owens, among many others, have blogged about the changing skill set of journalists.

Others in the field or education have reinforced basic reporting skills and ethics.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but it seems to me that, even having taken all the right classes and learned all the right things, getting a job will still be a challenge.

I got into journalism halfway through college. Many of my peers have had multiple internships; I haven't even had one. Not that I don't want to, or don't think I can, but my circumstances have been such that I either wasn't ready or I couldn't afford to add an internship to a difficult semester.

Now, with (officially) a year left, panic sets in. I've several opportunities open to me, and my first thought is to try to take them all at once. A job at school that will expose me to the field. Working at the Independent Florida Alligator. An internship at The Gainesville Sun.

I know that, in addition to classes and my 20-hour work week, taking all three opportunities at once is a recipe for a psychotic break. What I don't know is how to narrow down my options to what will be most beneficial to my career. Where will I learn more? Where will I get the most experience?

*The Independent Florida Alligator became independent from the University of Florida soon after a group of students decided to print locations of abortion clinics. Florida law prohibited this.

*LAS VEGAS The editor of the student newspaper at New Mexico Highlands University says a school vice president pushed her not to publish the police crime log or other stories perceived as negative. (Editor&Publisher)

After this semester, I'll have finished most of the hardcore writing classes for my journalism major.
After this semester, I won't be writing on a weekly basis anymore.

As soon as those two thoughts slid through the grey matter between my ears, I panicked. I sat down in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the journalism building and tried not to think about the sleepless nights, the incessant butterflies, the paranoia (does that comma need to be there?!), and the feeling of supreme satisfaction at the churning sound of the printer spitting out a decent bit of wordsmithing.

And so I made a decision. I joined the UF Newsies. It appears that it was a decision well-made. The small group produces campus-oriented articles, and as of January will be hooking up with the Gainesville Sun, where I'll get to implement my newly hard-earned AP Style while maintaining my own voice.

After this semester, the writing don't stop.

P.S. I swear the A-grafs were unintentional.

5/4/2009 Update: I wrote for the UF Newsies for a semester and then started working at The Independent Florida Alligator, where I was new media staff and eventually online managing editor. The writing slowed to a molasses crawl, except for on this blog.