January 2005 Archives

It is January 26, 2015, and a very busy night here at Newsonline.com. Ten years ago, at the University of Kansas, we discussed how media was rapidly changing, but I never imagined how large of a medium online journalism would become.

Three fifteen in the morning. We almost have our TV packages ready for our 5 a.m. deadline. Due to the elimination of TV news stations two years ago, it is our responsibility and our job now to interview, print, edit, shoot video and post stories online 24 hours a day. Online journalism is the media now. A few papers in small towns are hanging on to their last strings; but, for the most part, everything is at your fingertips whenever you want it.

There is no such thing as a television set anymore. You can now watch all TV shows and movies online for the same price I used to pay for cable and video rentals when I was in college. There are all-news online sites, such as Newsonline.com that I work for. It is considered the new and improved CNN.

Computer screens are as large as TV screens and are now called CompTVs. They are put in living rooms in houses across America. There are limits parents may put on their CompTVs restricting children's access to harmful material. This is only one small benefit of this new technology.

The feedback we have received from our audience since we began in 2013 is phenomenal. People love the interaction, fast news, easy access and availability of online journalism. They may read the news at two in the morning before the go to bed, or they may read it at 6 a.m. when they wake up.

Every time it is new, updated and accurate. Our audience can check the news every hour and there is a new story available for them. Our staff works 24 hours a day to bring the most current news to the entire world. Unlike TV in 2005, now you may watch, listen, and read news online from any country in the world that has the same online capabilities as the United States of America.

The possibilities are endless, and we will continue to see this through the years to come.

After reading through the first 694 posts of the semester, I realized this semester was going to be different. But, I already knew that. It's a different class, and now there's a product to be maintained and revised.

Audrey, who worked her first shift in the newsroom today, said,

In five years the web journalist's job will not only be to tell a story in the best possible way, but to tell that story quickly.

I couldn't agree more. Although, I don't think this will happen in five years. I think it will happen in five minutes.

Now that we have a web site (tv.ku.edu) we have the ability to "publish" news just about any time of day or night. We post teases at 9:30 am, updates at 3, the newscast at 5:30, and, thanks to Natalie Flanzer (our 694 content queen from the fall semester) and Adam Sechrist (a 694-gung-ho-and-rearing-to-go-newbie), we have sports stories posted within hours of the final buzzer.

Audrey, and several others, hit the nail on the head when they expressed (was it horror?) about the turnaround time expected for online news. But this is it, ladies and gentlemen. This really is what online journalism is about. It's about being so damn good, that you can write a story and get it posted in 10 minutes flat, graphics, links and all.

So I got to thinking, what if we created an in-class exercise where students were expected to turnover a slug, headline, tease and story in one hour. Then, what about creating a breaking news scenario, where they had to do it in 30 minutes? After learning how to put together a story and get it online under the gun, wouldn't they do even more with an in-depth project where they are given time to plan?

Working with students in the Multimedia Newsroom and posting stories myself online, I have noticed that sometimes, with the rush and confusion to get a story posted, we sometimes "forget" the oh-so-important basics that make our news print/broadcast/HTML worthy. It doesn't matter where you "publish" the news, in reality, all the same rules should apply.

• You must know what questions to ask
• You must understand how to gather and report the facts
• You must be able to write clearly, precisely, and without spelling mistakes or typos

Then, if you want to be a successful online journalist, you must be able to do all these things on demand. (Oh, and understanding a few lines of code wouldn't hurt either).

When I learned of this week's essay question, I thought, "How am I going to answer this question when I know very little about what a web journalist does?" How should I know what a web journalist will be doing in five years. Shouldn't I be asked to answer this question after I've learned something about online journalism?

After much thought, and a brief conversation with Professor Musser, I realized that I might have more insight as to what a web journalist will be doing in five years than I thought. During our conversation, I began to understand that being a web journalist in many ways means being a multimedia journalist and multimedia journalism is something I know thing or two about.

Although my primary interest is television news, for the last couple of semesters I have tried to learn as much as I can about all different types of media, working at newspapers and in radio. I realize that, as the lines that separate the various media begin to blur, having experience in more than one medium is something potential employers will value. Additionally, as the separation of the media becomes less distinct, the skill-set a web journalist has today will, in five years, need to be much more diverse and advanced. Also, my guess is that in five years the web journalist's job will not only be to tell a story in the best possible way but to tell that story quickly.

In five years, in addition to being proficient in writing, operating a camera and creating graphics, web journalists will need to be efficient in producing a final product. And as technology becomes more advanced, online producers will expect web journalists to create a product faster and have more advanced skills.

Who wants to be up at 3 a.m.?

If I had to choose one word that would describe what it will be like to work in online journalism in five years, it would be stressful. The reason that online information rates as more useful to the media consumer is that it is faster than any other medium. The information can be accessed more quickly and produced more quickly. The bad news: Information also becomes outdated more quickly.The task of constantly tweaking the news seems daunting, and it is. I have no doubt that there will be red-eyed journalists staring at their blog at 3 a.m. waiting for business hours to start so that they can get the perfect source. Likewise, online producers will drink a sixth cup of coffee with jittery hands, wondering what the latest post is missing. Journalism, however, has never been a career to coddle one's nerves, so let us move on.

It will be OK for advertisers.

The name of the game will be convergence. Currently, the online news sources are subsidiaries of their true, old media moneymakers. An online ad may appear in the classified section online, but the person paid for it at the newspaper. There may be an ad on the web page for the same product that was on a newscast, but it won't have the captive audience.I believe that the refinement of streaming, flash video and linking consumers directly to a site where they can purchase the product will lead to advanced online advertsing. Those advances will iron out advertiser's fears about the online medium as it becomes the preferred news source.

Those damn kids and their cell phones.

One area of online journalism that is often ignored is the overwhelming use of cell phones. I remember having a pager in junior high school, and thinking how cool it was that I could get the weather report or sports scores if I wanted to pay a little extra. Although the cell phone is not a primary source for direct media yet, I believe I will be within the next five years.

Who wants to be an online reporter?

Online journalism will be going on 24/7. There will be no end of the day. There may be an end for an individual journalist, but the site will need constant attention. News never stops happening, and people want to know what is going on, even if they don't have all the details. In turn, the reporting will become constant because the information can be updated so easily. A beneficial side effect will be that mistakes can always be corrected.

Who wants to be an online producer?

The job of the online producer in five years is unenviable in its infinite nature. The site/page can always be better, have more links, more art, video, sidebars, captions, mouse games and even product sales. Although the full integration of these extras seems maddening, it will be essential.

It's up! It's up! It's up! We won't have any news to post until after 5:30 p.m. tonight. But, it's up! It's up! It's up! I'm very proud of the work our students have put into this web site. How wonderful it is to stand back and look at all the work come together. Finally. Whew. And now, the real fun begins. Things are abuzz in the Multimedia Newsroom today. We have students from all the media here working, chatting and just hanging out.

Hallelujah! I have just witnessed convergence. And, it's not just about putting text and video together, it's about communication. Multimedia is really multiple media. And, these students get it. They really, really get it. I'd like to think we planted the seed with the construction of the Multimedia Newsroom and the first Online Writing, Editing and Production class. The students will take it from here. The next time someone asks me what they need to make convergence happen, I'm going to say, "a central, physical meeting place and a class that lets students explore current trends in online journalism." The web provides a familiar medium, yet when they step back and look at the bigger picture, I think most of them will realize that we haven't even began to tap into its real potential.

(I realize I have exceeded my "!" use for the year, but this one time where I think I should be forgiven.)

It is all quiet on the western front of the Dole Center after a whirlwind day in the Multimedia Newsroom. The newsroom began to feel like a real newsroom with people working together from different media to create a newscast and content for the new KUJH-TV web site.It was a busy day for Journalism students returning from winter break putting together the first newscast of the semester, hopefully with as few glitches as possible. Today also marks the launch of the new KUJH-TV web site which will be up and running -€” barring computer explosions.

KUJH-TV producer, Laci Wright, Teaching Assistant, Kathie Vitale and a KUJH-TV reporterprepare for the first newscast of the semester in the Multimedia Newsroom.photo by Staci Wolfe (cell phone camera)

Josh Bickel and Katie Lohrenz brainstorm ideas to improve the KUJH-TV web site.photo by Staci Wolfe (cell phone camera)Kyle Geiken works on a newscast for KJHK 90.7FM. photo by Adam Sechrist (cell phone camera)

Tomorrow, we unveil the KUJH-TV web site. We accomplished a lot over break, but there is still much work to be done. I hope this semester's students are ready to jump in and explore the world of online journalism.

Well what can I say. I've spent the week nailing down the design for the 409 site, and so far so good. Professor Max Utsler even commented that the photo graphics I put together look very good. I'll link to the page when it's completed. Like I said, I'm doing the design; Staci is doing the web building. My eyes are sore after yesterday's three-hour stint looking through code. I worked my little eyeballs dry converting quotation marks, apostrophe and commas -€“ punctuation that in geek terms is called non-SGML language -€“ into code all in the name of XHTML transitional validation. I still don't understand why I'm testing the correctness of the code on stuff for the upcoming contests. For the Kansas Professional Communicators Communications Competition, the judges will be evaluating the web site on Internet Explorer, so it's not like they are technologically saavy enough to know if a tag is closed properly. Oh well, it's done now. And Staci can sleep better at night knowning there are 20 less XHTML errors. Good night!

photos captured by Staci Wolfe's Samsung cell phone

We've been forced to put the gloves on.

Seriously, it's subzero in the mulitmedia newsroom. Bryan, Kris, Lisa and I are freezing our fingers and toes off. Apparently, the thermostat they installed is just a gimmick. A cheap trick to make us think we have control over our climate, when in fact, we don't control it at all. So, we've been focusing on what we can control. Kris and Bryan have made significant progress with the administrative backend that controls and manages all the web site content. Impressive. I am thrilled with the video viewer. It allows us to add mulitmedia content (specifically, video) and preview it in a small window. It's all very slick.

Meanwhile, Lisa has been running various Blogger pages through the W3C online validator. I'll let her blog her thoughts and feelings about it.

Bryan and I have spent almost three days trying to learn Flash and produce a functioning, flashy top news piece for the homepage. The end of day three is near, and we have yet to get our flash masterpiece to function. Sure, it looks pretty, and we can even get it to pull slugs and headlines from the database of stories. However, making the animation and the dynamic information work together has been the bane of our existence. I need a break. I'm going back to puttering around with my CSS, at least that's something I can control.

Silence. Dead silence. It's weird being the only person in the Multimedia Newsroom, a place where news buzzes around students who are hard at work trying to gather and produce it. I had to turn on the TV to liven up this place. Today's highlights: 1,000s of people are out of electricity after last night's ice storm downed power lines. Sleet and snow continue to come down today along with the tempature.

I couldn't stay cooped up in my house today, the iciest, nastiest day of winter thus far. Staci and the rest of the team are working from home. We've come a long way since I last posted. This week Staci and I finished the Home page to the 409 stories, which will be entered in the Kansas Professional Communicators Communications Competition in the online division. We were working on the index page for stories yesterday and hope to have the web site done this week.

The logo design has changed with the artistic help of Kris. Bryan has finished part of the email database that will be available to the student media this spring. I finished the blurb that will urge KU students and anyone who is interested to sign up to be campus media consultants. KUJH-TV and the Kansan have yet to be briefed on the email database. Consider this a precursor to that discussion. We'll unveil the database and the logo when the semester begins, but for now we're busy working on getting the KUJH-TV web site up and running.

Cascading Style Sheets. CSS. We've been up to our eyeballs in code. But, I am still convinced that CSS is the only way to go. It may be painful, and you may find yourself saying, "Why can't I get this to line up? Is it too much to ask?" However, in the end, you will find that you have built a more flexible web site. You will take pride in the little things. You may even brag to your friends.

But, I digress. Bryan (our programmer extrordinaire), Kris (our usability and information guru), Lisa (our resident professional journalist and all around go-to gal) and I have been working since before the holiday break to put together the KUJH-TV News web site. Things are progressing. I am pleased with how far we've come. We've finalized the new KUJH-TV News logo (and handed it off to Dick to replace the logo that is used on-air), we've got the backend, database and queries all built, the admin pages for adding new stories, story categories and students are finished, and we've been designing secondary and tertiary pages. Lisa and I have also been "webifying" the graduate students' multimedia reporting final stories.

So, about that CSS. I may not be a programmer, but I am really getting into this stuff. I ack hate to admit it, but it's actually kinda fun. CSS teaches you patience, it allows you to exercise creativity and, I think my math skills may even be improving (A special thanks to Kris and Bryan, who already know how to add three-digit numbers in their heads. They have cheerfully helped me solve some of the more extensive CSS equations).

If you are to master CSS, you must be comfortable with researching and experimenting. I've purchased two books on CSS so far: Designing CSS Web Pages, by Christopher Schmitt and DHTML and CSS for the World Wide Web, by Jason Cranford Teague.