Megan Taylor

Clearly I graduated too early. I can't apply for this class, but maybe you or someone you know can.

Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), in partnership with Education Writers Association and the Student Press Law Center, is launching a program to share investigative reporting skills with college and university students that they can apply to covering campus issues.

Seventy-five students from around the country will be selected to receive full scholarships to participate in the Campus Coverage Project.

You'll learn how to:

• Use the Internet as an investigative reporting tool.
• Read budget documents and find the stories that matter.
• Prepare for tough interviews and come away with the information you need.
• Analyze your school’s performance to see how it measures up.
• Examine athletic programs—and their funding.
• Use legal tools to pry open foundations, auxiliaries and other secretive campus institutions.
• Examine issues on your campus in the context of national debates on higher education.

Qualified students are those with experience reporting for campus-related news outlets who have at least one year of coursework remaining.

Apply by Oct. 12, 2009 for a full scholarship to attend a three-day Campus Investigative Reporting Workshop and participate in a year-long program that offers ongoing training and opportunities to learn from top reporters from throughout the country. Space is limited.

For more details and an online application, go to www.ire.org/campus.

On Wednesday evening I spoke to a group of five students who are taking part in the Bronx Youth Journalism Initiative.

I've mentioned BYJI here before, mostly begging for help with my public speaking anxiety.

To my surprise, the whole thing went pretty well. The kids were Web-savvy enough to have uploaded a few videos to YouTube, and knew of Twitter, though none are using it yet.

I talked about the "newspaper crisis" caused by lack of innovation, an old business model and the problems with advertising and paywalls. (The kids' immediate reaction to paywalls: "That won't work." Out of the mouths...) I went over the basics of online journalism: blogs, social networks, multimedia. I also talked about citizen journalism a little bit, in terms of how everyone can have a voice in their communities, which is a big problem in the Bronx. They really liked the concepts of "Not Just a Number," which I showed them, along with the Las Vegas Sun Web site.

One student asked me how he could learn to code, and I directed him to the W3Schools site. Another asked about the future of news on e-readers like the Kindle. And of course the final question was "Where are we going?"

Thanks to Mindy McAdams, Craig Lee, and Tracy Boyer for their advice and inspiration. I've uploaded a powerpoint presentation to Slideshare which I used as a guide for my presentation, although it was really more a conversation than a speech.

This week I wrote my last Spotlight article for a while. Hopefully I'll get to start them up again sometime down the road, but for now, sayonara.

My last Spotlight is ProPublica's ChangeTracker, created by new intern Brian Boyer.

ChangeTracker is a project at ProPublica that watches three government websites -- Whitehouse.gov, Recovery.gov and Financialstability.gov -- for edits, deletions or changes to existing content. Through an RSS feed, Twitter account or daily email digest, ChangeTracker will inform you when a page changes on these sites, and show you what's been added or removed.

ChangeTracker is yet another example of a trend I've noticed in newer journalism projects. Rather than building a single thing, some journalists are building tools that can be used over and over, in different ways, to produce information and tell stories.

It's an important concept, given the restrictions and limited resources available to journalists whose publications are struggling. I hope to see a lot more work like this.

One of the many reasons I use Twitter: finding out about what projects journalists are developing and launching.

Yesterday I saw two such posts:

and

1. Tampa Bay Mug Shots, also known to some as "Facebook for underachievers" is a simple and fun glance at booking data in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. A carousel of mug shots is accompanied by some basic crime data and arrest records.

The information presented here as a public service is gathered from open county sheriff's Web sites in the Tampa Bay area. The booking mug shots and related information are from arrest records in the order and at the time the data was collected. Those appearing here have not been convicted of the arrest charge and are presumed innocent. Do not rely on this site to determine any person's actual criminal record.

2. The Miami Herald's 60 Seconds is actually a relaunch/update of an older project, and I worked with Stephanie Rosenblatt on the Flash video player during my internship at The Herald. There are 10 new videos in this series about South Florida characters.

I know that in some circles, this type of journalism may be looked down upon. No evils or corruptions exposed, no event described, no protesters sprayed with pepper spray.

But I see it as an example of what journalism should do more of: exposing a community to itself. In both cases, the profiles are of people who live or work in these communities. Just because it's also entertaining ('cause I firmly believe that the funniest thing about any person is their mugshot) doesn't mean it's not useful and informative. Stories are still being told.

Next week I will be speaking to the students of the West Bronx Youth Journalism Initiative about online journalism and the future of news.

The West Bronx Youth Journalism Initiative is a weekly program offered to sophomores, juniors or seniors from Bronx high schools.

Students will learn the fundamentals of writing, reporting, and photojournalism through classroom instruction but, more importantly, through hands-on reporting in their own neighborhoods. We will take them on field trips - including the newsroom of a daily newspaper. They will learn about community activism and civic responsibility, how their neighborhoods work (or don't), who has power, who doesn't and why.

I'm nervous, because I'm really horrible at public speaking. But also because I have no idea what these kids know.

What's the level of computer/Internet proficiency? Do they have access to computers at home? Do they read news online, have blogs, read blogs?

James Fergusson, the program coordinator and Editor of the Mount Hope Monitor, has told me that they have not discussed online journalism in class.

I got some great advice from Mindy McAdams, who told me not to assume that the kids are technologically ignorant. Even if they don't have computers at home, the public libraries offer free access.

She also suggested that I show "Not Just a Number" and "The Mac" as examples of stories told by people about their own communities.

I can probably spend a few minutes at first figuring out what they know without looking like a total hack. The problem is how to adjust what I want to say to their level. After beating college reporters over the head with the "good news" for two semesters, I'm not sure how to condense the message to half an hour.

Any advice? What should these high-schoolers know about online journalism? What do I tell them about the future of news?

The MediaShift Innovation Spotlight looks in-depth at one great mash-up, database, mapping project or multimedia story that combines technology and journalism in useful ways. These projects can be at major newspaper or broadcast sites, or independent news sites or blogs.

This week, I covered New York Time's Represent.

Represent is a look at the future of online journalism -- focused, local and geographically relevant. It's a different way to group and browse information based on an individual's political districts.

Some have compared Represent to EveryBlock. It does fill a hole in EveryBlock's coverage, taking the concept of block-by-block news and expanding it to fit the political realm of information. In fact, EveryBlock recently hooked up with The New York Times to display political news items for each block.

Check out Represent Helps New Yorkers Track Their Politicos to learn about how Andrei Scheinkman and Derek Willis did it.

The MediaShift Innovation Spotlight looks in-depth at one great mash-up, database, mapping project or multimedia story that combines technology and journalism in useful ways. These projects can be at major newspaper or broadcast sites, or independent news sites or blogs. The main spotlights will run every other week, with mini-spotlights running on the off-weeks.

Another mini-Spotlight this week, featuring the Washington Post's TimeSpace framework for media browsing.

TimeSpace, a Washington Post project, is a coverage mapping framework that displays content from multiple sources in space (via a map) and time (via a timeline). A display map, covering anything from a single city block to the world, is tagged to show viewers where news is being covered. Viewers can also view the news map as it appeared at different points over the preceding hours or days, giving them a picture of how the news events unfolded over time.

Check out Washington Post's 'Web Ninjas' Build Map-Timeline Combo for how they did it and screenshots of the development.

Please let me know of any innovative projects you are working on or have seen lately. It doesn't have to be from a major newspaper, it just has to be an innovative blend of journalism and technology. Please e-mail me at mtaylor[at]megantaylor[dot]org to submit a Spotlight recommendation.

Over the weekend I discovered The New York Times "First Look" blog.

I'd never seen this before, although the blog has been around since 2006, when the Times was experimenting with "My Times."

How did I find it now?

Because the Times is testing a browsing prototype, "the article skimmer."

Article Skimmer by The New York Times

While "First Look" wants to compare the article skimmer to "Reading the Sunday Times, spreading out the paper on a table while eating brunch," I simply find it an interesting -- Ad-free -- interface.

In fact, if Dave Winer hadn't put together this alternative for free, I might have found myself willing to pay up to $25 a year for that slick interface. Here's Winer's podcast on what he would pay for from the Times.

Of course, now I can just take Winer's river of news and spice it up with some CSS.

Don't worry, Rex Hammock will pay for it.

Happy, Pat?

This morning I discovered the Times Labs blog, where the Times Online is writing about innovation in online journalism and sharing experiences.

It was through this blog that I found out about the Digging into Data Challenge.

DIDC was announced by agencies in the U.S. UK and Canada to search for ways to use the huge amounts of data that have become available to the public.

The idea behind the Digging into Data Challenge is to answer the question "what do you do with a million books?" Or a million pages of newspaper? Or a million photographs of artwork? That is, how does the notion of scale affect humanities and social science research? Now that scholars have access to huge repositories of digitized data -- far more than they could read in a lifetime -- what does that mean for research?

Applicants have to form teams from two out of the three countries. A list of data repositories is provided, although it doesn't look like you'd have to use those specific datasets.

DIDC is being sponsored by "the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) from the United Kingdom, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) from the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF) from the United States, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) from Canada."

Submit a "Letter of Intent" by March 15, 2009, final applications are due July 15, 2009. Winners will be announced in December, and will receive grants to build their projects.

The MediaShift Innovation Spotlight looks in-depth at one great mash-up, database, mapping project or multimedia story that combines technology and journalism in useful ways. These projects can be at major newspaper or broadcast sites, or independent news sites or blogs. The main spotlights will run every other week, with mini-spotlights running on the off-weeks.

And this week we're back to our normal column. I found a really great project produced by two individuals who did not set out to create journalism, but have done so nevertheless: BronxRhymes Uses Locality, Maps to Track History of Hip-Hop.

BronxRhymes is an attempt to raise awareness of the history of hip-hop in the Bronx, the northwestern borough of New York City where the musical style is thought to have originated. The history of hip-hop is illustrated through rhymes and plotted on an online map.

Inspired by music, history and technology, Masha Ioveva and Claudia Bernett created a way for the community to become engaged in its history, at a time when gentrification may be wiping it away.

Please let me know of any innovative projects you are working on or have seen lately. It doesn't have to be from a major newspaper; it just has to be an innovative blend of journalism and technology. Please e-mail me at mtaylor[at]megantaylor[dot]org to submit a Spotlight recommendation.

I started out this month really wanting to highlight newer, better projects in my Innovation Spotlight Series at MediaShift.

I spent a week or so collecting, sorting, e-mailing, and calling. I've spent the past 2 weeks doing interviews. And I ended up with 4 or 5 projects I wanted to write about.

Wait a sec, my posts only come out every other week...

I had two choices: hold onto some projects for next month or do mini-posts on my off-week.

I didn't want to hold onto things because I'm sure that I'll be flooded with great new projects next month as well. I was concerned that the inconsistency of the mini-posts - I won't always have the time or material to do them - would affect the series.

But I got over that. And thus I present you with a mini-Spotlight, discussing the natural evolution of journalism from data collection to online tracking tool: ProPublica Puts Spotlight on Tracking TARP Money.

Please let me know of any innovative projects you are working on or have seen lately. It doesn't have to be from a major newspaper, it just has to be an innovative blend of journalism and technology.

In English: People who write software are invited to send in cool ideas to improve the software that runs I Can Has Cheezburger if we provided API (pronounced AIEE-PEE-AHHH) access to our photos and shtuffs.

In Lolspeak: Fansy pants and shiny fings for nuuuuurrrrds!!!

There are no words. I'm going to be thinking about this for the rest of the week.

A few weeks ago I started following a NY listserve for Flash. I've gathered a good number of snippets and learned a lot so far, although I'm still just a lurker. I'm hoping to make it to a meet-up soon.

In any case, an item came in about the relationship between Actionscript and Javascript, which really inspired me to finish up my formal education in Javascript so that I can jump head-first into heavier Actionscript.

The e-mail was about a series of lectures hosted on the Yahoo Developer Network by Douglas Crockford. Crockford is Yahoo's Javascript Architect and author of "Javascript: The Good Parts."

Because Actionscript 1 was based heavily on Javascript, and AS3 hasn't changed that much, these lectures are applicable to both languages.

Mentioned specifically were "The Javascript Programming Language" and "Advanced Javascript."

I haven't worked my way through all the lectures yet (they are segmented into three and four parts) but what I've seen so far is really helping me wrap my head around some of the language theory.

I haven't decided yet whether I like learning programming from a video. In some cases, it's the best option for a clean, class-style experience. Otherwise I'd be reading a bunch of articles all over the place with no real connection, and missing out on important information in the process. But I've been watching Lynda.com videos on Javascript and it's kind of tedious. I can read a lot faster, and I feel like I assimilate information better by reading.

Poynter is hosting another conference in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Journalism That Matters: Adapting Journalism to the New News Ecology

The conference will take place March 1 - 4, 2009.

The New News Ecology means new jobs, new tools, new relationships, new
businesses.

But journalism's very survival -- at least its values and functions -- depends
on the ability of news organizations -- and citizens -- to adapt to a
dramatically evolving landscape.

Where, now, does the news industry end, and begin? As some newsrooms shrink and
morph, what -- and where -- are the new roles for journalists -- and journalism --
in a broader civic sphere? How do we match journalism with the work of
non-profit organizations, government, civic and even advocacy groups . . .
without abandoning its core values and functions to democracy? Is it time for a
national journalism service corp?

Links:
Media Giraffe Project - Newsecology
Register
Slideshow

I really miss going to conferences. Hopefully soon I'll be able to afford them again.

Sunlight Labs recently announced Apps for America, a mashup contest to create applications using Sunlight data to "make Congress more accountable, interactive and transparent."

Sunlight is offering $15,000 as the first prize, and scaled prizes to second, third and honorable mentions.

Entries must be applications that use a host of government information APIs or datasets, including the Sunlight Labs API, OpenSecrets.org API, the FollowtheMoney.org API, the Capitol Words API and other Sunlight APIs and datasets. We also encourage you to use Sunlight's code libraries, which the Labs recently open sourced.

Adrian Holovaty - Founder, Everyblock.com, Django Project, Aaron Swartz - Director, Watchdog.net, Peter Corbett - iStrategyLabs, Xeni Jardin - BoingBoing.net and Clay Johnson - Director, Sunlight Labs will judge the entries.

Submissions are due on March 31st. Winners will be announced on April 7th.

Somehow, not being in school anymore just makes me more interested in the evolution of curriculum at journalism schools.

No, it's not a subconscious desire to teach. I've not the temperament for that.

But I've been collecting information about what's being taught, perhaps in the hopes that they'll teach something I don't know, thereby giving me an excuse to go back to school.

My, that sounds arrogant. But I only mean that I've been through the traditional journalism curriculum, took some online media courses and taught myself a hell of a lot in my spare time.

Bryan Murley updated his syllabus for the multimedia course he teaches at Eastern Illinois University.

Most of the syllabus is the same as it was during the last semester, however, I’m spending much more time on audio and video, with lots of repetition and building upon core concepts.

Also, I should note that we’re using Final Cut Express this semester instead of iMovie. I’m done with iMovie until it is more stable and edits audio easier.

Andrew Dunn reports changes to the curriculum at the University of North Carolina, which now requires a class called "Audio-Video Information Gathering." The UNC curriculum includes specializations choices of Multimedia and Electronic Communication (whatever that is).

Through University of Florida fact-finding professor Cory Armstrong, I found out about a new course at UNC: Public Affairs Reporting For New Media.

As near as I can tell, students in the course pick a topic for the semester and do some in-depth research, including multi-media elements, to develop a package.

The professor, Ryan Thornburg, is blogging about the class.

This is one that I'm really interested in, since I did something similar as an independent study with Professor Armstrong.

Fred Stutzman, also at UNC, has been teaching Online Social Networks for several semesters now.

This course is a primer on the study of online social networks. We will explore the theory, methods and findings of a growing literature on the topic. We will also explore applications and use cases, particularly in the context of education and library/information services. While online social networks are but a subset of social software, this course should provide you a strong set of fundamentals for exploring the multiple facets of our pervasive online sociality.

Mindy McAdams is teaching a new multimedia reporting class at UF as well as updating her Flash class (Advanced Online Media Production).

Students taking Multimedia Reporting will learn to:

• Gather digital audio and upload it to a computer
• Edit digital audio and produce an MP3 file
• Edit, crop and resize photos; optimize photos for online use
• Create an audio slideshow using Soundslides
• Shoot simple video suitable for online distribution
• Edit video with a simple editing program
• Prepare video for online distribution

Lastly, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, changes are planned.

The new, proposed curriculum shift places a deeper, more thorough emphasis on awareness, understanding and application of online journalism skills and the training begins in the freshman year.

Stories CoJMC students write, photographs, advertising, marketing campaigns, video news reports and documentaries will be produced by hundreds of CoJMC students for the NewsNetNebraska Web site.

For those of us no longer in school and feeling left out, Dave Lee wrote about how journalists can continue their online education, well, online.

YouTube recently collaborated with the Pulitzer Center to produce Project: Report, a journalism contest focusing on important stories that don't get the attention they deserve.

The winners have been announced, chosen through three rounds of competition, voting by the YouTube Community, and a panel of journalists from the Pulitzer Center.

The winner is Californian Arturo Perez, Jr., who reported on Camphill California, a community where adults with developmental disabilities live, learn and work together. He will receive $10,000 to travel and do a story in conjunction with the Pulitzer Center.

Check out the finalists, stories produced by the Pulitzer Center and production tips from Sony and Intel.

Changing it up at Innovation Spotlight for the inauguration: Innovation in Inauguration Coverage.

I started collecting projects the week before the inauguration, and ended up with over 100 links (which I will share via Delicious when I get the chance).

This week, instead of focusing on one innovative journalism project, I'd like to highlight some of the many projects that came up covering Barack Obama's inauguration.

The post got picked up by Google News:

Be back to normal coverage next time. Still looking for awesome projects, so give me a heads up if you see something new and great!

I'm confused. I feel out of the loop.

I get that Obama is the first black president.

I get that he represents a new era in our history.

I get that he represents changes that a lot of people want to see.

I get that his use of social media and technology during his campaign implies some very cool things during his presidency.

But why is everyone going apes**t!?

Why do I keep seeing articles about what the Obamas ate for lunch, or the kids' first day at school or his physical appeal?

Why did a whole bunch of people stand around in the freezing cold to listen to other people talk, and musicians with numb hands try to play?

Why are there iPhone applications devoted to this man and his inauguration?

I remember Bush's inauguration as a bad day, because my family disagrees with his beliefs and policies. I don't remember Clinton's. And before that, I wasn't paying attention to anything other than my skinned knees.

But I've asked around, and no other inauguration has been compared to Woodstock.

I really don't get it. Do you?

For me, the great thing about YouTube isn't finding new music, disturbing advertisements, or hilarious miscellany.

The great thing about YouTube is how it creates avenues for discourse.

For the second time, YouTube is hosting the Davos Debates - but this year, whoever uploads the best video response to one of the session questions gets a free ride to Switzerland.

YouTube has partnered with the World Economic Forum to open up debates from this year's Davos annual meeting. We're inviting people to record a video answering one of four session questions, and whoever uploads the most original, creative and popular video will win a reporter's pass and fully-paid trip to Davos at the end of January. Along with that, the best videos received will be played in the relevant sessions to Davos attendees.

Go to http://youtube.com/davos and check out the submissions. Submit your own response. Whether you win or your video is chosen for viewing at Davos doesn't matter. Getting involved in the discussion does.

The questions:

• Are you confident that global growth will be restored in 2009?
• Should company executives have a code of ethics similar to doctors and lawyers?
• Will the environment lose out to the economy in 2009?
• Will the Obama administration improve the state of the world in 2009?

What do you think?