September 2004 Archives

Every week in class, we talk about how easy convergence could be. And then we admit that our reporters aren't likely to be as excited about convergence as we are.

Wednesday, JT and I talked about how we'd like to accomplish this whole convergence thing on the new KUJH-TV website. (Or rather, I got excited about using some form of trackback pings and JT told me I was overambitious -- in technique, not concept.) In effect, all I'm proposing is a system to allow cross-linking like the Lawrence Journal-World and 6News Lawrence do, where related articles are threaded together.

The reality is that KUJH-TV and the Kansan will probably always remain on separate sites with mostly separate content. The impression I get is that both groups seem interested in convergence as long as it doesn't require (much) additional effort. Ideally, the CMSs that each group migrates to would allow for some sort of article threading or trackback pinging where, for example, a Kansan story's page would include links to both other Kansan stories on the same topic and also KUJH-TV stories on the topic. I'd even like to include the Multimedia Reporting students' blogs in the system so that if they post a story that's relevant but perhaps not quite good/timely enough to be published in the campus media, it can still be included in the "conversation."

So what would that mean for students like us who pull weekly newsroom shifts? Basically, we'd be monitoring the budgets each day and looking for related stories, then pulling up those stories in their respective CMSs and telling the database to add in the links. If we can get an editor/producer to do this for us as part of their daily routine, even better -- although I'm not holding my breath for it. And besides making sure that our new CMS will be capable of this, we need to find a way to get access to those budgets each day. That means at least getting it printed out and hand delivered, or better yet published online. And how hard can that be?Well, it sounds easy to me.

In discussing the problems of the transition to converged newsrooms, Stovall takes up the issue of "backpack journalism" versus old-fashioned specialization. He cites Martha Stone as the representative of the traditionalist view; she argues that journalists must still specialize because if they try to do too much it will result in a "mediocre" product. Stovall dismisses this argument, saying the medium demands that editors and producers diversify, so they will.

But I think Stone has a good point. It seems to me the main reason editors have had to diversify their skills is that most organizations do not have the budget to hire as many "specialists" as they would need to maintain a strong web presence. This is a matter of economics -- most web sites are not yet profitable at this point, so most companies must rely on skeleton crews to handle them. It seems to me that once web divisions do start turning a profit then we will see a return to specialization as more revenue becomes available and more employees are hired.

Nonetheless, the W.A. White School has the laudable mission of graduating students with a diversity of skills for the marketplace, and the Multimedia Newsroom provides the perfect vehicle for such training. The challenge we face is similar to the one faced by "real" news organizations. How do we establish a web presence with limited resources? Students in the J-School are indeed "cheap labor," as someone in class said Wednesday, but we are pulled in various directions, by classes, by the Kansan, by KUJH or KJHK, and while we all theorize about convergence in classes we do not yet practice it habitually.

For our class project we have tried to think of ways to ensure ease of maintenance for future administrators. I hope we can achieve this, but ultimately no content management system can take the place of dedicated individuals. After all, we clearly want more than shovelware on the site. The MMN provides us with the infrastructure to facilitate a distinct web operation; we now have to establish the site, define the staff positions to be filled, and find the staff. Maybe future 694 classes will be our future web producers.

It will be hard work, and there will undoubtedly be some more false starts and blind alleys in the near future. But if we emerge this semester with a detailed and flexible plan for staffing and maintenance, then we'll have the foundation we need. And I think "if we build it, they will come" -- once we've established a concrete set of expectations for MMN process and content, students will be clamoring to participate.The average J-School student in the coming years will be increasingly attuned to the notion of converged media and will be more than eager to participate in this grand experiment. Our job is to provide the vehicle that will allow them to do so.

Wow. All I can say is, "Wow!" (That's what I get for going to the doctor on a Friday afternoon). I missed out on all the fun.

But seriously, the 694 students did an excellent job covering the Lew Perkins disclosure, especially when it meant they didn't leave the newsroom until 7 p.m. on a Friday night. I am so impressed by the intiatives they have taken. This is exactly what should be happening in our multimedia newsroom.

Here's the breakdown: KU releases Lew Perkins' salary details -> KUJH-TV News (9/24/04) Perkins salary released -> Kansan.com(9/24/04) Details of Perkins' contract disclosed -> Kansan follow-up story (9/27/04)

Style.

It's the one thing that separates the journalist from the everyday writer. For instance, it's knowing what a dangling modifier is and knowing that it weakens your writing. It's knowing all those grammar rules and telling your friends that their grammar sucks. And yet, most of us don't feel the need to capitalize the letter "I" when writing an e-mail to a friend, including me. Does that mean style rules simply disappear when writing a web story?

Well, no. In fact, web style is not only a good thing, it's a necessary thing. If CNN.com or The New York Times web site simply ignored good journalistic writing style in their online stories, not only would people stop reading them, their credibility and reputation undoubtedly would be tarnished. I can even remember my professors in Multimedia Editing saying that good grammar is simply one thing that you can't ignore. The lay person may not know all the style rules, but he or she can tell the difference between good writing and bad writing. Also, the public will start to wonder if our reporting is even worth a damn if we, as journalists, can't even learn our comma rules or how to spell somebody's name right.

A strong news presence on the Internet grows every day. Some day, people will turn to their computers for news and information more often than they read a newspaper or watch a T.V. news broadcast. The Internet has to set the new standard on appropriate style for all others to follow. Will it follow print rules? Broadcast rules? Both? Maybe all these rules or none of them. Maybe the Internet will develop new guidelines, but for online journalism to function and gain a reputation as a legitimate way to present news, style rules must develop to distinguish journalism from the seemingly endless sea of other written poo-poo out there. In the end, it's style that gives journalists their identity and their credibility.

After all, writing is our job.

In Chapter Five of "Web Journalism," Stovall quotes from a blog on the San Jose Mercury News website:

Some bozos hacked the Recording Industry Association of America's website. Stupid and counterproductive. Sigh...

According to Stovall, Steve Outing of the Poynter Institute singled out this quote as an example of the kind of "forceful and personal" writing that bloggers can acheive when "freed" from the constraints of print.

No disrespect to Stovall or Outing, but if news blogging is going the way of the teenage diary, then I'll have to join the Luddites.

Having said that, though, it was only last week that my blog/essay for this class ended with a tossed-off reference to my formerly sprained ankle, a joke with only a marginal connection to the topic at hand. I never would have included a comment like that on a PAPER, a physical thing that I printed out and handed to Prof. Musser, even if it was just a short response paper. There seems to be a psychological difference in writing for these two media, regardless of the purpose and audience.

Is blogging collapsing the distinction between personal and professional writing? It seems to be, but why? Why do we feel we have the license to loosen the old rules of formality when we're writing out here in the ether instead of on the page?

Perhaps the fact that we're not killing trees to produce web journalism means we allow ourselves indulgences that we would not commit to paper. In previous posts I went on at length about how the web gives me the freedom to go on at length. But Stovall challenges this notion in Chapter Five: studies show that Internet users crave scannability, he says. They are less tolerant of excessive verbiage online than on paper since that pixillated glow is still an eyesore even after all the advances in screen technology.

Maybe this is why the Mercury News blogger decided to "sigh" wistfully instead of elucidating his views on the RIAA. Maybe because the Internet has replaced the traditional "town hall" we feel the impulse to get conversational every time we log on. But casual, conversational writing is almost always more verbose, less efficient, than formal writing.

Those snobs among us who know how to write professionally would be wise to nurture that skill. The rules of grammar and style are not set in stone; they evolve over time, usually for the better, I think. But they shouldn't go out the window just because we've created a hip new medium that Strunk and White never foresaw.

Now in the interests of brevity I'll end here and move to my personal blog, where I'll have the freedom to write like a sullen thirteen year-old if I wish. (Sigh...)

Some things I do sloppily, and some things I do with great attention to detail. Consistency in written style is one thing I have try to pay attention to. And yes, I do occasionally correct my friends' blog posts.

Most serious web writers are conscious of style as well, but because we're our own editors and publishers, style tends to vary widely between sites. But as long as we keep our own internal standards, we look like we have at least a clue of what we're doing. And as my 301 lab instructor told us, "style is style and is always right as long as it's consistent." So I feel secure in always spelling out okay, not hyphenating email and ending my sentences with prepositions.

Things like addresses, hyphenation and a.m. and p.m. are easy style decisions, though, because you can find an authority to define their use. What's trickier on the web is the rapidly evolving webspeak, made-up or recently coined terms that no one really knows how to write.

Matt has already mentioned Wired's online style section that accompanies their Wired Style book. They also point to all the other all of the style resources they use. Wired often has a standardized style for the tech terms that get carelessly tossed around online. And only just recently, they made a rather significant announcement:

Effective with this sentence, Wired News will no longer capitalize the "I" in internet.At the same time, Web becomes web and Net becomes net.Why? The simple answer is because there is no earthly reason to capitalize any of these words. Actually, there never was.

And the internet collectively rejoiced because we'd known the Truth all along. You write radio and television, not Radio and Television. The internet is a medium like the rest of them; it doesn't need a capital letter.

But the whole web versus Web debate is only the tip of the iceberg. Web pages aren't just content, they're the (X)HTML code, too. And all good web authors make sure their markup is nice and consistent, too. The New York Public Library recently released its own online style guide that defines how the code for NYPL websites should be written — although it's not their own standard, but rather widely used XHTML 1.0 Transitional, the same code this website is written in.

If we've got to worry not only about our copy but also our code, style is even more important online than off. And I'd say that if we're coding to the same standards as New York's finest librarians (and their A-list web guru Jeffrey Zeldman), we're doing pretty darn good.

If you had been living under a rock (or off the net) for the past 10 years, chances are my essay title would make no more sense than if it were written in Icelandic. Like it or not, Web lingo is a writing style in itself. Call this style what you want. I've come up with a few names myself: WEBonics, WEBenese, WEBlish, take your pick.

So far, the class has been discussing the change that the Web will surely bring to journalism; yet, we haven't really stopped to consider the repercussions on writing style in general. The question we must ask: Exactly how fast paced will we allow ourselves to be on the Web at the risk of transforming our writing structure?

As I often do when I have a moment of freedom or boredom, I signed into Hotmail this afternoon with the hope that maybe this time I'd get an actual email versus the typical "How to increase your..." junk emails. I was in luck! My friend from London had written me. I opened the email, only to be accosted with a sea of lower-case letters. My eyes squinted to read the message encoded among the "how r u" and the "miss chattin 2 u".

I began to wonder when it became acceptable to write so informally, even in email. Do people really not have the time to press the SHIFT key down while typing in a letter in order to capitalize letters? And are we really in such a hurry that we can't even manage to type a two-letter word such as "to" but rather substitute a number 2 instead? Even my computer can't recognize everything I'm writing. The spelling and grammar check is going nuts right now!

I think it is interesting that this form of writing is unique to the Web. Rarely do you hear people speak or write elsewhere in acronyms. I mean, when was the last time you heard someone telling you that your joke had him or her ROFL (Rolling On the Floor Laughing)? I began discussing it with Staci, and we were so interested in this language of the Web that we tried Googling for more terms (See, there are even new verbs because of the Web). Lo and behold, we turned up a website that was full of useful acronyms that make up Web Lingo or Web slang.

I'm convinced that all the benefits of the Web that we've discussed thus far contribute to this Web language. The new medium allows for this kind of freedom. However, I do think that simple style guidelines are important. For example, when writing for other media, we do in fact write in a slightly different style. For instance, in broadcast, we know better than to write 25%; it's actually 25 percent. Maybe when writing for the Web, we will have to follow slightly different rules as well. I think in the coming years, there also will be a style guide for the Web, just as there is for newspaper and broadcast.

To learn more about Web lingo, visit http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,88686,00.asp

Maybe you remember taking a survey last year about the KU's academic seal. Or maybe the multiple emails begging students and staff to take the survey were as memorable as the seal itself.

Basically, the survey showed you a jayhawk and then asked if you thought of KU when you saw it. Then it showed the seal and asked if you thought of KU when you saw it.

I guess everyone said no, because the marketing department decided it's time to update the design. Besides the fact that it's a picture of Moses and might not be quite as secular as it should be, it's damn ugly and unremarkable.

It's also the kind of story that could be done better on the web than anywhere else. KUJH-TV's story presented the news and showed a picture of the label, and that was nice. But after watching it, I had more questions about the seal and its history.

Many of these questions could be answered in a story in the Kansan that would include more facts (e.g., what is the University's official name?), maybe with a nice big graphic of the seal. What I'd like to see online would go a bit further, with a Flash picture of the seal that would pop up boxes with more information as you mouseover different sections of the seal, explaining what each part means and why it was included in the seal. Once proposed new designs are released, we could have a small gallery of the different designs. We could also pull the concern about the image of Moses possibly violating the separation of church and state into a sidebar, since it's a separate issue from the change of the logo, and maybe mention the Moses sculpture in front of Smith Hall. While we're at it, let's throw in a poll asking students if the whole Moses thing actually bothers them. Do they care? Did they even know that's who it's supposed to be? We could put up clips of the interviews already shot for KUJH, too, to provide some more in-depth student reactions.

Obviously, all of those components add up to a fair amount of work, and not many stories deserve that much work. Likely, it'd be a job for a 694 student with some extra time on his hands coordinate all the content. But if there are this many possibilities for a story that no one even cares about, imagine what could be done for one that's actually interesting.

We had a reporter on the scene of a car accident at the interchange of Highway 40 and K-10. Two cars collided head-on when the west-bound car attempted to pass a truck and struck the east-bound car. A Life Star helicopter from Topeka was called out and lifted out the driver of the passing car to a Kansas City hospital. The other driver had minor injuries and was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital by ambulance. Our reporter, Megan Kelleher, is working on a story for tonight's KUJH-TV News broadcast and should have some video for the KUJH-TV website soon.

One of our very own KU J-School graduates, Justin Henning, is a Web producer for the Palm Beach Post. Here's what Justin shared with me about his experiene working with multimedia.

Not all stories are made into multimedia packages. We usually try to work with the reporter as they work on the story. That way, we have more time to produce something, rather than just throwing up rough audio from an interview.

One great example of this is our Outdoors writer, who did a great package on a man who takes groups on orchid hunts/tours through the swamps. Since we worked with him (the reporter) all along, he was able to take a video camera with him and a staff photographer.

Take a look at the finished story, Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park. Now this, my friends, is some fine, fine multimedia journalism at work.

Last night I "webified" the KUJH-TV broadcast and noticed one of the 692 stories I submitted to the Web made it on-air. The story covered the re-construction of the steam tunnels below the University of Kansas and all the disturbances on campus it is causing. You can see the version of the story I worked on here.

When I submitted this story, I knew it was far from what a true multi-media story could be. Stories of this nature could probably have their own protocol because everyone wants the same information. Think of traffic coverage on the morning news and exactly what you want when you tune in for details. You want to know about the route you are going to drive through, how fast it is going, what the delays are and how long are they going to last. Most news stations now have helicopters, but that is never as useful to me as the map graphics that show exactly where traffic is slow and tell how long the delays will be.

With construction, I think the same scenario applies. In addition to the TV package, I would want a map of the campus. The audience could benefit from an interactive map that details what construction is going on where, what kind of interferences to expect and when they are expected to be done. The great part is, once this graphic is produced, it isn't hard to update with new information.

Also, this story is about the replacement of old steam tunnels. Now, I think a slide show of old steam tunnels would be pretty cool. So far, all coverage of these tunnels is from the top-side construction advantage. I can walk by and see that happening. What I can't see is dangerous steam tunnels that need replacing.

Now, roll-over graphics aren't the most complex beasts on the planet to create, but they aren't intuitive. The data for the graph is simple enough stuff. An online producer should be able to get contact information from the reporters for updating construction deadlines and details on a regular basis. Production of the graphic would probably best rest in the hands of willing online producers for now.

The photography of the tunnels should rest in the hands of those who are already capable and willing: Kansan photographers. Online producers would probably turn it into a show, but I bet you some photogs may have more time and willingness then we realize.

The story and slideshow should have a presence on either KUJH-TV or Kansan.com as normally presented, but the map graphic would be linked from the opening pages of either site until construction is done. The audience who wants an update shouldn't have to do an archive search for a map that's being updated weekly. Afterall, isn't it the readiness of useful information that keeps 'em coming back?

The important theme here is that this story presents an opportunity to tailor information for people who are only interested in what affects them.

When he was dean and I was general manager of the Kansan, Del Brinkman used to sum up the frightening prospect of turning over a newsroom to a bunch of students by telling me: "Teach 'em and trust 'em, Rick."

That was a long time ago and the students we taught and trusted have gone on to win Pulitzer Prizes, to manage metro dailies, to sit on the Kansas Supreme Court and to win the William Allen White Award. But the advice is still good and the strategy still works surprisingly well.

Most days.

Case in point: The essays this week from my J694 class, the students who are making the multimedia newsroom happen. "Will the Web change the definition of news?" I asked them. As I was reading their responses this morning, I was pretty pleased with what they had to say. Take a look. Del was right. Teach 'em. Trust 'em.

Students from TV and online journalism classes put their skills to the test during a breaking news story last week.

KUJH-TV news ran the breaking story of a Lawrence bank robbery on its evening news broadcast. However, bringing the story to other media failed.

Jake Yadrich works across the street from Emprise Bank, 2435 Iowa St. Yadrich, a KUJH news anchor, called the multimedia newsroom when he saw the police respond to what looked like a bank robbery. KUJH-TV dispatched a videographer who raced to get video shot and back to the newsroom in time for the 4:30 p.m daily taping.

Ellyn Angelotti, the multimedia class student working during the robbery, sent an e-mail to the editor of the Kansan, but she admits a phone call may have been better. The Kansan did not have the robbery story the following morning.

"It felt like a newsroom," Angelotti said. "We were calling for information and waiting for calls, but we didn't know where to put the story."

Wolfe and Angelotti had been working on KUJH-TV's Web archives, and, sure enough, the bank robbery eventually made it to the Web site. But it was after the newscast. Is that fast enough?

The lesson learned? While the multimedia editors and producers are ready and willing to help students get stories published in all of the campus media, they still don't quite know how that process should work. Once they establish a protocol, it should be easier; but, they are still learning what that protocol should be.

The definition of news is the same. News is still based on impact, conflict, currency -- all the things we learned in j-school. What is changing is the way the audience gets the news.

According to the Annual Report on American Journalism on the Journalism.org website, from 1999 to 2003, there was a steady increase in reliance on the web for national and international news.

The report also shows that television is still the number one way Americans get their news, but TV audiences have declined along with those for newspapers, radio and magazines.

The point is there are many choices for news consumers. They can listen to NPR and the BBC on the radio. Cable and satellite offer a plethora of ethnic channels with news specialized for Arabic, Hispanic, or African American. News magazines are targeting audiences with specialized topics; The Economist, BusinessWeek and Globalist are just a few examples.

The key word is specialized. Audiences want specialized news or news they are interested in. The Internet caters to this idea of news. On the Internet people can choose to subscribe or log on to websites that offer the content they want.

The problem is there are too many choices. The more news outlets, the smaller the audience, the fewer advertising dollars, the lower the profit margin.

So editors and publishers attempt to gain a mass audience by offering entertainment as news. For example, CNN reports about the lives of celebrities. This isn't news and it does not capture more audience because it turns the core audience off.

News is still news, it is just becoming more specialized.Click here to read more about the state of the news media at journalism.org. (http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org)

The trend lately, and it's even noticeable in print news, is to give the audience a glimpse of what goes on inside the news factory. (Well, why not? Professions from cops to cooks have been documented. Is a reality television show about reporters imminent?) The media has turned the limelight on itself, and the multimedia newsroom is no exception. (Just yesterday J.T. and I were writing and editing a news story about us online producers.)

Maybe the journalists-as-the-news trend started when the Today show began airing accounts of the lives of its own stars, like Al Roker. Or maybe it dates back to Cecil Brown of CBS Radio, who, critics claimed, wore out the "i" on his typewriter. However and whenever it started, I think the Internet is perpetuating our self-promotion and blogs are one of our vehicles. It's convenient to write about ourselves and kind of gratifying. We've never been able to enjoy this freedom and opportunity to write about ourselves before. But are we changing the definition of news?

Cookies, "most visited" or "most e-mailed" tallies and polls tell us what the audience is looking at. Even dictionary.com has a "most common sites" for a specific word link.

Much of the audience gravitates to Web news that is sensational (think Madonna-Britney-Christina kiss or Janet Jackson), gory and novel . Like in the old days of yellow journalism, Web journalism has provided a medium where gossip and facts intermingle freely. Of course, considering the season, a big chunk of Web news is dedicated to politics. So in some ways, news has stayed the same.

But as the medium changes, so does the message. With online news, what's news at 10 a.m. may not be news one hour later. Many of us find ourselves waking up to go to work for a virtual machine that keeps evolving and an audience that keeps wanting something different. The procedures change daily as we innovate convergence at the University of Kansas and around the globe. Maybe it's a good thing we're documenting it all.

I was interested to read Ellyn Angelotti's post suggesting that the informal, personal element of blogging allowed her to bring new dimensions to her story about the aftermath of Krystal Bateson's death. I would add that the nature of cyberspace allows news writers and editors, along with TV producers, to reconsider the parameters of the news story.

The conventional understanding of news is tied to the print and electronic media which transmit it. We can define "news" as "current events of broad public interest," but we also tend to think of news as something concise, bite-sized. We tend to forget that these are artificial constructions based on the limitations of the technologies. Yes, news consumers value bite-sized stories, but, depending on their personal connection to a story, they may want more. A Web site can offer that. A story can be as long as it needs to be, and it need never be truly "finished." As new information comes in, the writer updates, revises, appends--using links, video, audio, dialogues, reader response, archival material, and any other element that might help tell the story and add the context that is lacking in the other media.

We often hear the complaint that TV and print journalism are too shallow; to some extent, it is necessarily so because editors and producers must encapsulate the day's events into so many column inches or 22 minutes in between the commercials. The 24-hour news channels have more flexibility, but their ratings-driven agenda compels them to maintain a rigid, narrow format.

On the web, however, the only limit is the scope of the subject matter and the time a writer has to explore it. Ellyn could have written a book-length narrative about Krystal Bateson, about fathers and daughters and softball and the preciousness of life and family, if she had the will and time to do so. And if only ten people read it? No harm is done, no trees are sacrificed, but for those ten people, maybe she has done justice to the scope of the story.

Of course, all writers value succinctness, and the Web allows for neat, concise writing as well as lengthy dissertations and dialogues. The beauty of the Web for the newswriter is that it expands the possibilities of what a news story can entail. The story no longer need be shoe-horned to fit the demands of the medium; on the contrary, the medium expands or contracts to meet the demands of the story.

Will the definition of news change because of the Web?Working on a philosophy minor has some damaging effects. When I first read the question, a flurry of semantic problems scrabbled my thoughts.

Aren't we able to change word definitions at will? Or, alternatively, once a definition is made and something new comes along, shouldn't we just give it another name? Dictionaries have more than two definitions for news anyway!

This was just the surface of the semantic soup bubbling in my mind. But that's all this really is; semantics.

News will remain exactly the same. What we, the audience, will receive or actively seek is what the Web will change.

When radio came about, news didn't change. But how it was presented and who could get it changed vastly. When television came about, the same phenomena happened. News was still news, but what could be covered and received by the audience shifted.

When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, the worldwide public marveled at their television screens and the TV camera enhanced the experience of a man on the moon. If, for some reason, TV cameras hadn't been around when Armstrong took those first steps, the newspapers still would have covered it.

So what is new about news isn't a definition. It is the sheer volume of news that gathers on the infinite pages of the Web. John Doe's new puppy barking for the first time can be shared just as easily as the latest death toll in Iraq. While Doe's barking puppy rates low on most editors' newsworthiness scale, it is news nonetheless. The only difference is that now that news is published somewhere. That somewhere is the Web.

No matter what the medium, the definition of what is news hasn't changed. With the advance of the Web, news is not different. What the web has done is changed the role of the journalist.

This past summer I worked in an all news radio station in New York. There I met Tim Macateer, who is head of convergence for Channel 4 in Pittsburgh. Under his direction, the station has become fully converged. He spoke of the transition from simply having a website to having a news site. I found it interesting that he made this distinction. In my mind, this distinction demonstrated that the Web has the ability to legitimize the news presence of the medium in a time when so many people use the Internet for information. He stressed that he had created a news site for Channel 4, not just a website where the audience goes to learn of programming notes and anchor bios. The Pittsburgh Channel provides not only packages that run on the newscasts, but written stories and interactive opportunities that enhance news coverage. You could say that the web has opened the doors for providing a deeper look at the news.

Macateer told me that the staff had to transition from their roles as just reporters and start to think as writers and photojournalist, too. He said that the mind of the Internet journalist becomes more focused on what the audience needs to know and less on what would look good and fit the time on television. Among his reporters, he said he had seen an improvement in news coverage.

The presence of converged news sites is the future of journalism. As the abilities of the Web expand, I think that news will not change, but the way the journalist reports the news will adapt to the medium to better serve the audience.

View ThePittsburghChannel.com.

I remember walking to class one September morning my freshman year. It was very early, I had class at 9:30, and not many people were on campus yet. I got to class and sat in front of the door when another girl from my class sat down. She turned to me and said, with fear in her voice, "Do you know why a plane hit the Pentagon?"

The Pentagon? Are you serious? My uncle works at the Pentagon.

After class I ran to the computer lab and went to the CNN.com website, looking for a place where I could find out if my uncle was okay or not. (After a phone call to my mom, it turned out that he was.)

But I had turned first to the Web. I knew that I couldn't find out if he were dead on TV or in the newspaper. I think on that day, 9/11, the Internet proved itself as a legitimate way to present news.

The Internet gave us up-to-the-minute information and didn't make us wait until that night's TV broadcast to find out new information. It didn't make us wait until tomorrow for the whole story in the newspaper, when all we really wanted to know was whether our loved ones were alive. And the Internet supplied us with an almost unending supply of related news on and after 9/11.

But I also think that the Internet changed the definition of news and what is newsworthy. Many Americans, including myself, rushed to their computers to find lists of the victims, praying that no one they knew was on that list. The Internet personalized news for us.

We see this all the time. Internet news sites send e-mails to subscribers, but the content is based on user preferences; everything from their baseball team's scores from last night to updates on their personal stock portfolio. The news is their own personal news entree, served up just the way they ordered it.

Sure, the Web has impacted news in other ways other than personalization, but personalizing the content will just keep people coming back for more. It's just what they want and not more than they need.

On any given day you can find me using my laptop while sitting in front of a TV, and possibly with a stereo playing music in the background. Call it whatever you want: a short attention span or multi-tasking. My consumption of news is all about using as many of my senses as possible. I think the capabilities of the Web are in line with my multifaceted approach to news consumption. Using the Web, I can satisfy many of my senses all in one place.

I've read a few of my classmate's blogs about this week's essay topic, and I would agree that perhaps it is not the definition of news that will change with the Web, but rather its production and distribution to the masses. News will still have all its classic elements, but the Web's capabilities make for an interesting mix of audience turned editor/producer. With the Web, it's the reader who is the deciding factor of what news is and what isn't. I like the idea of being able to choose which story I want to read, when I want to read it.

On the Web, no one makes you watch things in a predetermined order. And the level of interactivity also contributes to the feeling of having a stake in the news, because the people are more involved in the gatekeeping process that previously was only granted to certain people. This idea of news specialization is fascinating to me because websites like Amazon get to know you so much that they start to shape themselves to your personality. You get only the news you want to see, or at least, that you think you want to see.

Personally, I think that the definition of news is not going to change too much, but rather it will expand in its handling and production. The Web's capabilities can make news distribution more convenient and personal for news consumers. All we have to do is take advantage of elements such as personalization and timeliness. I do see a change in the definition of news, but a good change.

You can always tell if I've read the newspaper by looking at it. I'll start off by checking the box scores on C14, skip to an article about the U.S. Open on C3 and then find out where the high school football game is this weekend on C5. After I'm done reading the section, it's a bigger mess than trying to refold a map on a road trip.

Some people would advise me that if I am so concerned with returning my newspaper to its original condition after I read it, then I should read it the way it's meant to be read, from the front to back. But doing things the way they are supposed to be done bores me.

I used to think I was just scatterbrained or random, but the onslaught of the Internet has helped me to embrace my nonlinear way of thinking.

Who are these editor people who think they can tell me what I'm going to read AND how I'm going to read it? The priorities of my interests don't always coincide with the order the editor has selected. That's why I like what the Web has done for news. It allows me to choose to read what I want and when I want it.

If I want more information, I can google it. If I don't understand a word the writer uses, I don't have to gather up the energy to find my honker-of-a-dictionary on the top shelf of my closet. I can pull up my own on-screen dictionary with a simple click. No motivation necessary.

What's even better about getting news off the Internet (besides getting less ink on my fingers) is that I can understand news at a different level. From Lawrence, I can see what the actual view from my seat will be like before I buy tickets to a Miami Dolphins game. Or, I can take a quiz to find out which presidential candidate I most identify with on the issues.

Wherever the wind blows me, the Internet allows me to go. Not only am I a more efficient consumer of media because of the Web, but being web savvy also gives me the gumption to explore topics more deeply and more creatively than ever before.

I'm supposed to be writing about whether or not I think the web will change the definition of news. This is really hard for me because my gut response is, "Duh, no!"

Back in Journalism 101, we talked about the characteristics of news: timeliness, proximity, conflict, prominence, unusualness, and impact. These things are what news is. These things are what news will always be. End of story, no? News on the web certainly has different characteristics than news on radio or television. It's generally more interactive, more personalized, and more current. But it's still all about timeliness, proximity, conflict, etc. The definition isn't changing, although the execution is.

But then today, the Internet did something really neat. Just as the buzz about the recently discovered National Guard memos exposing George W. Bush's lousy performance increased, a blogger-based buzz started spreading about the fact that these memos are quite possibly fake. Personally, I find the subject of the news simultaneously enraging and deeply depressing. Professionally, the fact that skeptics were able to analyze and publish their findings quickly and publicly enough that it will hopefully jump into mainstream news is pretty awesome. This is the stuff democracy is made of—and it's also an example of the news process expanding a bit from what it used to be. Now this is what timeliness should look like.

Maybe this whole conspiracy theory is just the work of everyday nerdy conspiracy theorists, or maybe this is a case of the skeptics being onto something and having a venue to publish their analysis where a broad audience can read and respond to it. If you consider blogging output to be news, this means news is moving faster than ever, allowing more people than ever to shape and influence the stories in the news. And with the blogger's audience feeding him updates throughout the day, news is becoming a collaborative effort. Cool.

I'll be waiting for the mainstream news (not to mention Kerry's camp) for their response to this one.

Update: The next morning, front page of CNN.com.

Such a glorious week in convergence-land. Our first story, born out of a multimedia reporting class, moved from the amoeba table in the Stauffer newsroom, to The University Daily Kansan and included a kicker on KUJH-TV News and a package. Kudos go out to our students.

Amanda Stairrett (University Daily Kansan Campus Editor) Kathy Vitale (KUJH Producer) Ellyn Angelotti (our very own 694 webifying goddess) linked the stories together.

It's a really simple, simple online package, but take at look at the pieces that were brought together.>>> The University Daily Kansan story - Late nite setback ran frontpage in the deadwood edition and online at Kansan.com. KUJH-TV News ran a kicker on the newscast Wednesday evening and told viewers to see The Kansan the next day for more info. Then KUJH aired a follow-up package with student and local residence reactions on Thursday.

Do you see how it all came together online?

Of course, this small victory inspires us all to do more great things. I am starting to feel like our class, 694, needs to spend more time discussing - no, debating, what it is that we should be doing everyday. We have big plans for the class project, but now that everyone has gotten settled into their weekly shift, I want us to come into the newsroom everyday and say, "What can I converge today?" Sound silly? Well, can we at least try it? We have bright, eager, excited, young students in the newsroom. I know they can make convergence happen. (And in the meantime, I will try not to get tripped up in technical definitions). Let's do it!

An email about Krystal Bateson's death this summer made me realize how blogs can take news to another, more personal level.

Bateson, a 12-year-old Lawrence softball player, had unexpectedly died in her sleep while at an out-of-town tournament. I was working for the Lawrence Journal-World's GAME, covering youth baseball and softball with a hyper-local web site and weekly newspaper insert. I had to decide how to handle the news.

Our newsprint insert wouldn't come out the following Wednesday. The Journal-World didn't come out until the next day. However, the JW web site allowed us to post and update a short brief as we gathered the facts surrounding the death.

Yet, as the "little league beat writer," I felt a responsibility to write something more significant. I had parents of teammates calling me, many in tears, telling me about how much Bateson had meant to them and how upset their families were. But, stuck in my traditional journalist mindset, I couldn't find the right way to do it.

The following weekend Bateson's team played their first game without her. The local media tried to talk to Bateson's dad before the game, but I didn't. If I got enough courage, I decided I would talk to the coach and Bateson's teammates after the game.

Even after journalism classes and real world experience, I was definitely not prepared for what happened next.

As soon as I sat down at the scorer's table, Kenneth Bateson, Krystal's father, sat next to me and for the next hour and a half talked about everything I would have ever wanted to ask him. Read my reaction to our conversation.

Suddenly, I was faced with some choices. Do I write a news story? Well, we usually tried to keep the stories in GAME light. How could I use convergence to improve the way I would write about Krystal's death? How could I make what I had to say meaningful?

I decided to blog it. In my blog I was able to capture the emotion that a news story would neglect, while sharing a perspective not seen in the local coverage.

The experience showed me the way the Web can enhance how we report news. We were able to break news sooner than we could with print. The web site allowed us to share articles from the Journal-World and TV packages from Channel 6, and add our own contributions for our audience -€“ including Krystal's family and friends from out of town. GAME allowed us to use convergence to encapsulate the sentiment of Krystal Bateson's death. The blog provided a new news tool.

GAME taught me a great deal about convergence, journalism and people. Most importantly, it taught me that uniting different forms of media can yield the best news product.