November 2007 Archives

I've given one other farewell speech in my life.

As my middle school's student council president, I gave my 8th grade graduation speech. After a string of solid A's in creative writing, I was a highly anticipated speaker. My speech was peppered with standard graduation clichés like, "spread our wings" and "the horizon of our future."

Yikes.

Nonetheless, people expected big things out of me, after all my student-counciling and speech giving. Now, eight years later, I can show them . . .

. . . this blog.

So how'd I end up here? I chose journalism after insisting I work at something significant. Journalism is information which, to me, is empowerment. Journalism is my way to influence the world.

So I enrolled.

Five semesters and three advanced media courses leter, I finally found the medium that shocked my voice to life.

Online is distinctive from other media communication because it informs its audience in a voice you would use with peers. Online has personality. A popular personality too. Online is everyone's friend.

More importantly, no other medium transfers so much control to the viewer. There's no timeline on the web. Readers can come and go as they please, never having to worry that the information they want will be gone before they can access it again. Online makes endless news information possible.

Finally, a media outlet tailor-made for my pupose as a journalist.

I know this is "farewell" but only to tv.ku.edu. I have no doubt I'll cross paths in my future career with many of the insightful and clever minds I've worked with, and been inspired by, in this class.

So cheers to you tv.ku.edu, you've emboldened my path and inspired my sight. You can expect big things out of me if you'd like. Maybe in eight years I'll be able to show you . . .

. . . another blog.

"In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing."- Teddy Roosevelt

As many of you may know already, KU wasn't my first choice. Four years ago, I was adamant about going to William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo. So much so that I didn't apply to any other universities except WJC. After a month or two there, I quickly realized it wasn't meant to be.

For one thing, and probably the most important reason, my major didn't emphasize what I really wanted to do: TV broadcast. I was a Multimedia Communication major with an emphasis in radio braodcast. I think it's implied by the italics that that wasn't exactly what I saw myself doing. I had fun, though, being a DJ on the morning show, The Morning Rollout, with three other students. Yet when it came down to it, I wasn't happy with my major or the school. So I decided to transfer.

My parents, however, made me stay for the rest of the year thinking it might grow on me. It didn't. In late winter I visited KU, applied during Spring Break, was accepted by April, said goodbye to Jewell in May, and haven't looked back or even regretted transferring since. Coming to KU and getting into the William Allen White School of Journalism was the best decision I could have made.

I have acquired writing, production, and online skills that I know I wouldn't have been exposed to at Jewell, or at least not as in-depth and hands on as they teach them here. The J-School gave me a much brighter future than I believe I would have had from Jewell. I feel ready to work and even sometimes ahead of the game.

My future may not be in TV broadcast, but it doesn't matter. With a degree from KU's Journalism School, specifically in News and Information, l have the fundamentals, skills, and experience to do pretty much anything. I can't wait to get out into the real world and use what I have learned here to make the next best decision of my life!

You know that pinch you get the first time you wear a brand new pair of shoes? They feel a little tight, a little uncomfortable and you wonder what on earth you were thinking when you got them.

That's what blogging at the beginning of the semester felt like to me. Now several months and a dozen blogs later, I'd like to say that blogging feels like that comfortable, old pair of shoes, but it's not quite that way.

I still find it hard to use such a public format as the Internet to air my opinions. For 15 years in TV newsrooms, I was very careful not to show any outward signs of my opinions: no political signs in the yard, no campaigning and no marching for causes. Now I was being asked to put my opinions out there where the whole world could see (as my Mom did when she Googled me).

I don't know if I'll ever get used to this kind of exposure, but just like those new shoes, blogging has become a bit more comfortable over time. My first blog took me an entire weekend to conceive and compose. I remember that getting the pictures to appear as I wanted just about sent me over the edge.

Now that we've come to the end of the semester, I'm happy to say that I've got a much better handle on this whole blog thing. Not only do I know how to quickly put up a picture, but I can also add the code to link it to an external site or tie it to video as I did on September 11th's entry. That's progress.

So although I don't think I'll ever be a permanent resident of the blogosphere, as I bid adieu to this form of online editorial, I'd like to think that the immortal words of Julius Caesar come into play: Veni, vidi, vici.

Can you imagine:

• Getting your flu vaccine from a painless skin patch instead of a big needle?
• Implanting "radioactive seeds" that are smaller than a grain of rice to eliminate breast tumors?
• Getting damaged cells in organs like your heart and kidneys to repair or replace themselves, thanks in part, to research at KU Med Center?

When I was producing newscasts, we'd jump on stories like these. Health news sells. We'd see it in increased ratings, in viewer calls/letters, and also in surveys conducted by our consultants. Fast forward a decade and it's still true. Some of the hottest stories on tv.ku.edu are on health and medical topics. The problem is that we just don't offer very many.

It's time we changed that. Putting more cutting-edge medical stories on tv.ku.edu is a sure way to bring more hits to our site.

What's more - we have a great resource that we're not taking advantage of: KU Medical Center. Researchers in both Kansas City and Lawrence are consistantly working on medical project after medical project. Why can't tv.ku.edu be among the first to get a stab at bringing that cutting-edge health news to the public? Right now, we wait until it is published somewhere else and jump on the bandwagon. The stories are out there for the catching. We just need to have one of our folks doing the fishing.

Each semester, we need to assign someone to the KU Med Center beat. Getting the latest buzz from the PR folks is a start and would provide us with the newest content sooner, but that won't be enough to get the good stuff. To do that, the beat reporter needs to get to know those in charge of reserach. Usually these people perceive what they do every day as "business as usual." But a researcher's "business as usual" can often contain what readers would describe as a "medical breakthrough". Sometimes just asking the question "What's new?" can lead great unpublished information.

KU Med isn't the only source for popular health information. For example, the flu mist has been around for several years, yet this year, we've seen plenty of hits on both tv.ku.edu and YouTube for our basic story on flu mist. So keeping our eyes on health and medical trends outside of the university is a great source of story ideas too.

When I was in TV, we subscribed to a "Medical Breakthroughs" service. It gave us fresh stories each day about hot topic medical and health issues. Now you can get a free, weekly e-mail called "First to Know" with highlights on its new reports. The one featured right now talks about what you should do if you want to be part of the fastest growing age group in the U.S. - the 100+ crowd.

What's more - Internet users who find us looking for a story like that could end up being loyal tv.ku.edu viewers for a long, long time.

Convergence, convergence, convergence. This concept has been drilled into my head throughout my entire J-school experience. Consequently, I see converging the University's news sources as the best way to improve tv.ku.edu.

I've briefly mentioned incorporating Kansan.com with tv.ku.edu in a past post, but it's important enough to deserve its own post. Having two news-oriented Web sites in one journalism school seems silly. Merging the two into one site would be the best use of the school's resources.

The gross repetition of work between the two media outlets became apparent to me a month ago during my web producer shift. A 415er was discussing story ideas and most, if not all, of them came from The University Daily Kansan. This got me wondering: Why not have Kansan and KUJH reporters work together? As Sam noted on his blog, finding a story idea is the hardest part of the story-writing process. TV and newspaper reporters working together would allow reporters to brainstorm on story ideas, making the process easier. Also, fewer ideas would need to be formulated because we'd only need enough content for one Web site.

Converging won't only be easier for reporters, but also better for readers. All stories would have video written elements, similar to what tv.ku.edu is doing now. The big difference would be the reporter who gathered the facts and talked to sources would be responsible for the written story. Often when repurposing scripts, I resort to the Internet to fill in a lot of holes in the story. Posting Kansan style stories will prevent this and ensure primary sources.

With two reporters working on every story, the video and written elements could focus on the same topic but have slightly different angles. Having the exact same information in both elements, as we currently do, discourages readers from looking at both stories.

We could also get The Kansan photographers involved. While the video would be the dominant visual at the top of the story, numerous photos could be dispersed throughout the package. Web producers could get involved through creating web extras such as infographics, graphs or slideshows.

Through converging with The Kansan, we'll optimize journalism students' educations and making them more marketable. At the same time, we'll provide KU students, Douglas county citizens and virtually the entire world via the Internet with better news content.

Is KUJH-TV a blooper factory? I'd like to think so. Some days are just destined for mess ups. I can recall faulty camera moves, anchor slip ups and video problems all recorded on-air just this year. It is pretty much inevitable for amateur journalists not to make mistakes on a consistent basis. Even the professional news stations aren't perfect, and they make errors as well. But as far as being a blooper factory, you just have to catch them at the right place at the right time. Having experience in both on-camera and behind the scenes work, I've noticed the difficulties in television production (or the worst of both worlds if you will). Sometimes you just can't help but laugh at yourself and others. I crack myself up when I watch blooper reels from newscasts. You feel for the person messing up, but on the other hand you know they would be pointing and laughing if the tables were turned. So, don't feel ashamed to laugh at me when I want to be "one less woman, one less."

How about the Wieland's Wacky Winner of the Week segment or the Knowlton Knows Best? I'd watch this quirky stuff, probably comment on it and hang on the edge of my seat if I can see a water-skiing squirrel. We could ask our handful of loyal viewers what they think, so we can better understand what our audience wants. Until then, we'll just satisfy our hunger by watching our mistakes each and every day.

Every Monday afternoon, there I sit behind the anchor desk in my grown-up outfit, regurgitating a handful of mediocre quality news pieces. I'm not trying to downgrade our news content, but when I'm regurgitating, it doesn't articulate what it's really like to be a part of our crazy team.

Here's a recap of what really happens when recording the news:

• Lexy and I sing the annoying Pizza Street commercial song about 12 times.


• When I'm on the TV screen, she pretends to pick my nose, and visa versa (sometimes it goes too far and one of us really gets a finger up the nose).


• I uncontrollably laugh at Lexy when she accidentally st-st-st-st-st-stutters (visa versa here too).


• Oh the adlibs, if only you could see some of those outtakes. One time I actually said corn eating dog contest instead of corn dog eating contest, which leads me to believe that all anchors have mild cases of dyslexia from time to time.


• And, let's face it, news anchors are super easy blooper targets anyways.

So, you get it. There's tons of good stuff that goes down and only a handful of people ever know about. I say post this secret goodness online, why not? If someone says, "You'll lose credibility! And you won't be taken seriously anymore!" I say, "Sorry to break it to ya, but we're humans and make mistakes, get over it and laugh about it!"

Bloopers and outtakes are fan-freakin-tastic if you ask me. I can always go for a hearty laugh and it's reassuring to see that "serious anchors" have personalities outside of the teleprompter.

When it comes down to it, all of us that spend most of our days in the newsroom are news nerds and I'll be the first to admit it. The thing is, we have a lot of fun and most of my "outsider friends" (that is those who are not newsies), just don't get it. I propose we share our awesomeness with the world. They'll love it, I promise because we're a hoot and a half.

When the term "blooper factory" was first uttered, my mind began to race with the possibilities. I've always liked the word "blooper." To me, it's one of the rare words that sounds as funny as what it describes, like "platypus" or "fart." And a blooper factory would be a pretty sweet place to work. I can only think of two factories that would be better: a candy factory, particularly the part of the assembly line between the finished candy and the wrapping machines, and a monkey factory, which I feel is self-explanatory. (OK, short explanation: the factory not only makes monkeys, but is also staffed by monkeys!) Mass-producing and packaging bloopers sounds like it would be nearly as enjoyable as working in a monkey factory, and there'd probably be fewer feces tossed at you. Probably.

In a divine turn of luck, a television newscast is one of the best blooper factories that exists in our modern world. Not only are there men wearing coats and ties with no pants and women with too much makeup attempting to recite hastily-scripted lines with little-to-no preparation, but there's video cameras everywhere to capture the hilarity. In fact, statistics show that the average newscast produces enough bloopers each day to provide several minutes worth of laughter for children in third-world countries. And if anybody could use a good laugh, it's children in third-world countries.

To not take advantage of this natural resource would be akin to a Native American not using every part of the buffalo, or Malaysia not maxing the output of their monkey factories. We already produce the bloopers, so we might as well use them. Throwing them away just deprives the world of the staggering amount of stutters, Freudian slips, burp-faces, eyebrow wiggles, and poorly-timed laughs that our broadcast unintentionally produces every day.

And we can produce more! A few minor tactical changes could exponentially increase our blooper yield. First, we should never, ever turn our cameras or mikes off. Second, an anchor should attempt to distract or taunt their co-anchor whenever they are off-camera, preferably by dancing provocatively, making silly faces, or sneaking a small animal into the studio and releasing it during an especially serious story. Third, we should force our producers to write the scripts for the entire newscast in two minutes or less, instead devoting their precious time to the formulation of humorous tosses, puns and one-liners.

Eventually, using these tactics and more, we could create enough bloopers to do away with our traditional newscast altogether. KUJH can become The Daily Show of Douglas County, except with less actual news content. And maybe, just maybe, we can bring a smile to the face of some starving child in a third-world country that inexplicably has high-speed internet access. Because after all, if we're not producing a product designed solely for the entertainment of children and/or immature college guys sitting at home drinking crappy beer and watching YouTube, then what in the hell are we doing?

Oh, and our ratings would probably go up.

So let's get to work and make this Blooper Factory Fantasy a Blooper Reality. For the children.

It all started Christmas, 1992. My mom popped White Christmas into the VCR and as soon as Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye sang "Sisters," I was a goner.

The world would be very different without musicals. There would be a whole mess of unlikable people. An entire subset of the population (myself included) would be sour from pent up, frustrated, musical energy and no way to release it. No one would like them. They'd be too nervous a bunch.

My appreciation of musical theater extends beyond the technical qualities of showmanship. Musicals are also the perfect parody. I don't care who you are, dance breaks are funny.

For instance, if you want a good laugh, choreograph a trip to the grocery store. Sometime in between pirouettes in the produce section and the kick line in aisle nine, you'll have an audience doubling over with laughter.

So what do I think tv.ku.edu is missing? Isn't it obvious? As an already creative environment, the newsroom is long overdue for a jazzy song and dance.

That thought gave birth to Dancing ‘til Deadline, a tv.ku.edu musical. What other medium can merge the creativity, talent, and energy we have in the newsroom? None other than the musical.

Step aside Bing. Out of my way Astaire. The curtain's rising on tv.ku.edu.

I look around the newsroom, and notice my colleagues busily working away on their individual news assignments. 415ers and 692ers are contacting sources and putting together VOSOTs. A 693 producer is organizing the newscast and a 693 reporter is working on a package, while a 694er sits at the newsroom desk repurposing a script. Each of their educational purposes vary somewhat and their tasks are divided. I think what the station needs to work on is content production by way of colleague cohesion.

The 693/694 projects that we just did was a good start at getting the separate divisions (reporting and online producing) of the newsroom working together. While it was frustrating and required constant communication, I believe that the project my group turned in was a reflection of individuals working to their strengths to produce a higher quality package than what could have been accomplished by ourselves. The project allowed us to work in cross-functional teams, in which we used our different expertise to work toward a common goal.

I feel that a common thought among my colleagues is that when they enroll for let's say J-694: Online producing and Web design, they relinguish their reporting skills. In reality, that doesn't happen and we need to be prepared to use the previous skills we acquired when needed. We also need to work together and be willing to help each other out to produce quality content, epecially when we are able to do so.

Laurel and I got a bit frustrated at the beginning of the year when we noticed that the things we had done for our online producers when we were reporting wasn't being done for us. We thought it was required of reporters to hand their online producers their TV script as they did the TV producer. Laurel and I felt there wasn't an open line of communication between reporters and online producers.

We paid a visit to the 692 class the following week to discuss our want for teamwork. We asked the reporters if they could help us to help make their stories better by a) printing us off a copy of their script as well, b) give us any literature they used to develope their story, and c) provide us with links or graphic ideas that they feel are useful. They seemed willing to do what we suggested, but it didn't last long. I think it's because we lacked the authority to implement our proposal.

So to do so, I think we need one of two things: Class liasons or a content facilitator. A class liason would communicate with the other classes' laisons to inform them of what their classmates are working on and of any problems/concerns with projects that a reporter, producer, or online producer could help them with. A content facilitator would add the authority and maintenance that Laurel and I don't have. This person's job would be to keep the flow of content production moving. Essentially, they would be the bridge that connects the classes together.

I feel that these changes would help improve our content production by having cross-functional members, or one facilitating all, to help develop more teamwork in the newsroom, since in the end what one of us does, or doesn't do, can ultimately impact the other.

I remember getting my first reporting assignment way back in J301: Write a 500-word story about "someone on campus."

Wow! It was like a real, actual assignment. My dreams of high profile reporting seemed six inches closer.

I remember struggling most with finding someone worthy to write about. It seemed like I always had story ideas in my head, interesting people to write about, but under-pressure those ideas vanished.

Two semesters passed. J301 became J415 and J415 became J692. My inexperience no longer interfered with my reporting ability.

But one thing never got easy: knowing who or what to report on.

Now that J692 has become J693, I see a lot of "Story Idea Proposal" forms. And I've learned that I'm not alone in struggling to find a decent story.

The hardest part of the reporting process remains finding something to report on.

Which got me wondering: What if we built a user-generated story idea generator on tv.ku.edu? It would have to have a cute name, like "Brainstorm."

How would it work? Imagine a web-based story proposal form: Headline, synopsis, "who cares?", and a contact relevant to the story.

Imagine collecting those story ideas on one site with commands to organize the stories – a la Digg. The better story ideas rise to the top, offering our young reporters a place to brainstorm new ideas for stories. That's one possibility.

Perhaps in the short-term we simply make KUJH TV a Facebook profile and keep updating our status to "KUJH TV is looking for story ideas: Can you help?" And see what we get on our wall.

Perhaps such a system would hinder the ability of our reporters to come up with good ideas on their own.

But then again, there's nothing inspiring like seeing good stories in action.

And, though I hate to say it, how much worse can we get?

Scene opens on a bustling newsroom. Everyone is talking about the approaching deadline and the stresses of meeting it. No one's happy; the sounds of the newsroom are frantic. There's lots of typing, printing, mic checks, chairs rollling, etc. The crusty newsroom man with a cigar steps in to check on progress and storms out, disgruntled. One girl sits at a computer in the corner. She hasn't said anything, but slowly the camera moves so you notice her. She seems content, almost happy. Then, the newsroom freezes except for her. Singing:

I have such a dirty secret
I can't tell anyone
but I kind of like the deadline
to me, it's kind of fun

I like the rush to meet it;
that success is happenstance
others see a headache
but me . . . I see . . . A DANCE!
Lyrics by Kelly Cochran

It began one day in the newsroom with a joke, as Kelly Cochran and I often break into a little song and dance when bored (a little too often for some). All of a sudden, she and I were throwing out ideas for "Tv.ku.edu: The Musical", and she came up with the spectacular title and a majority of the lyrics.

Imagine a tool that could integrate the unique personalities of this class and also bring toe-tapping tunes across campus. The musical could do that. "Dancing ‘till Deadline" has overachievers, emotional wrecks, ditzy anchors, and a jaded newsroom professor who pops in to tell the crew they're running behind schedule. Hilarious scenes parody the morning meeting (one character proposes every plausible idea with no B-roll possibilities), the pitfalls of web producing ("They gave me a link"), and an ode to KUJH-TV in the form of a rap.

Besides creating a heck of a lot of fun and getting people involved, this project could give the University and tv.ku.edu some good press. Personally, I would have been even more attracted to the J-School if I would have seen upper-level classes making a musical in their free time. They can go to class and work in the newsroom but also have fun together and sing and dance? I'm in!

So, oh, oh, give us a chance. When we start to dance, we are TV stars (Think about the nat sounds at the newsroom at the beginning of the clip). You know you want to see Dick Nelson tap dance.

Beat reporting has been around pretty much forever. Newspapers do it, TV reporters do it and heck, most bloggers already have a topic of choice. It's time for tv.ku.edu to pump up the jams.

The Lawrence Journal-World (as I noted in my previous post) is one of the most innovative news Web sites out there. I really like how the site has a blog section featuring several blogs, each on a different topic. They are all short and sweet, but interesting and informative at the same time.

I would love to bring this concept to our site. At the beginning of the semester, each 694 student would choose his or her own specific beat. It could be anything- sports, city government, alumni in the news, White Owl watch, whatever. The students would blog about these topics once a week, instead of being assigned a topic, and the blogs would be featured on tv.ku.edu.

Blogging about something you are interested in, and especially something you get to choose, is a lot more fun. Having students choose their own topics will probably result in better content, too, because people tend to try a lot harder when they are doing something they like.

I think this would be a relatively easy thing to pull off. It should be effective as well. The LJ-World blogs are getting comments, which means they're being looked at. People in town are singing along with this tune and tv.ku.edu needs to feel the beat.

Call me John Kerry because I'm about to flip-flop. First blog of my young blogging career I ripped YouTube for it's citizen journalism and user generated content and now I'm pondering how our website can use that same content. I would issue a public apology but only a handful of people actually read this so we'll move on to what's important: getting user content.

Step one: cut a hole in a box… wait sorry wrong process. Step one is actually getting users. I don't know the exact number of viewers the station and website have but as the song in KUJH TV the musical goes "our tens of viewers will be pissed". There is no way to sugar coat it: WE NEED MORE USERS!

By default if you have enough users then you will get user feedback and content, as long as outlets are available for content and feedback.

I never thought I'd say this but I agree with Krista we need to make users aware that we are looking for them to take an active role. I don't know the best way to do this but saying something in the newscast and a pop-up on the website would be a start.

Making a more interactive website that allows users a hands on experience is the best way to drive user content. Remember how you hated science when you were a kid, until you did some experiment your teacher ripped off of Bill Nye. All the sudden science became fun because you were performing it instead of learning it.

This is what we have to do with the website. People are becoming less interested in traditional news because they don't have any part in it. If the website can be place where users can experiment with news, upload video, comment, make story ideas; then they might become more interested in news itself.

While considering options for the expansion of tv.ku.edu these were the first three options that came to mind:

---KUJH Blooper Factory---

This one is already underway. While I don't fully support our anchors looking bad all over the Internet it is already obvious that it attracts viewers. Our lone blooper on the site is third on the list of Most Viewed Videos. As long as we are able to show people that these bloopers are just outtakes it shouldn't hurt credibility and should give some exposure.

---KUJH-TV the Calendar---

If the theory of "Hot Blonde reads the News" is a success, "Hot Blonde hangs on your wall while reading the news" is virtually unflappable. A KUJH Calendar would expand our brand while at the same time honoring the people who make it all possible. Plus, I really can't imagine anything more fun than everyone referring to Alex Wiebel as Mr. November.

---Staff picks list---

I'll admit, I stole this one from Blockbuster. I went in and saw the list of staff's favorite movies and thought, "Hey, would could do that!"

It would be relatively easy to do, just have each online producer go on and pick a weekly favorite story. Users could then come onto the site and see each week which online producer picked which story. Ideally users could then figure out who shares their same interests and could come back for their favorite stories each week.

Each of these ideas is centered on the common theme of personalizing our news staff. The bloopers would make anchors more personable to viewers. A calendar, while I don't know how well it would sell outside the newsroom, would introduce the staff to viewers. And a staff picks list would give people a view into our personalities.

As I looked through each idea and thought about feasibility I realized that the solution was easy than any of these. The easiest and most logical way to personalize our staff is to make our blogs, like the one I'm writing right now, more accessible to them.

We've discussed all year the love that Internet viewers have for blogs. We've stressed that the best way to connect with readers is to let readers connect to you and called them the future of news on the Internet. Still, we never have made any attempt to get these blogs out in the open while we continue to think of ways to expand tv.ku.edu.

Why not provide more links and ways for viewers to get to our blogs? News outlets all over the country are looking for ways to incorporate blogs on their sites and we already have 12 weekly writers for the site.

We could easily link to each online producer's blog through their staff profile page, and make them even more accessible by putting a "Staff Blogs" section on the front page below the "Beyond Lawrence" section.

Incorporating our blogs on to tv.ku.edu is the easiest way to increase the amount of viewers to our site. It provides the personalization that is key to all of my earlier ideas and would take very little work to start up. It's time to introduce the KUJH staff to the rest of the world.

The following blog post was created by my roommate, Drew Stearns, as part of my attempt to get more user generated content onto my blog.

Okay, let's get straight to the point, huh? Sasquatch is real.

Don't look at me like that, I'm serious. There is a bipedal primate roaming the woods of North America. It's all here at this website.

It's a descendent of Gigantopithecus, a relative of the orangutan. It most likely crossed over the land-ice bridge that existed between present day Russia and Alaska a few hundred thousand years back.

Today, many variations of the Sasquatch species exist, ranging from the majestic giants frequently seen in the Pacific Northwest, to the smaller more elusive kind spotted in the Midwest.

Thousands of people across the country have reported encountering this creature; and even if ninety nine percent of those sightings turn out to be a misidentification, what about the remaining one percent?

Native American stories often reference a "wild man" and many instances of ape-like creatures have been found carved in totem poles. Newspaper clippings from as far back as the late 1800's tell of a primitive man-creature wandering about the forests, sometimes leaving gargantuan footprints. Fittingly, those footprints provide the best evidence of Bigfoot's existence.

Experts in bipedal locomotion and animal fingerprints have spent countless hours analyzing hundreds of plaster molds made by amateur Sasquatch. Their findings are quite intriguing.

Not only does the sample size of footprints produce a bell curve distribution, indicative of a real population of these animals as opposed to a couple of yahoos walking around in the mud with huge fake wooden feet, but some exceptional casts contain "dermal ridges." These artifacts are the fine impressions left by the same structures that produce the familiar swirl patterns seen in fingerprints.

There you have it. The prime example of the dangers of user generated content. While the information is exciting and new it is usually off-topic and doesn't really bring much to the conversation.

User generated content is great. It almost always attracts viewers to your site (I'm quite sure this blog post will get more views than any previous post) and it can allow new view points to any topic (This certainly is a new view point).

However, at times user generated content can detract from credibility and lead to off-topic discussions that the original writer never intended. In other words, be careful what you wish for...

The way people get their news and the type of news they want are changing. It is absolutely critical that we as journalists find a way to meet these needs before we start leaving a bad taste in people's mouths.

The American Journalism Review backs this up, and cites several examples of innovative Web sites we can look to as models, including the Lawrence Journal-World (see, Kansas is cool!), Baristanet, the Naples Daily News, the Washington Post's local sections and Bluffton Today. What do these sites have? Comment threads, discussion forums, blogs, multimedia elements, user-submitted photos, community calendars, high school sports and more. The content is targeted, hyperlocal and very interactive.

I'm not saying hard news isn't important, but it's only one ingredient in the delicious journalism stew we're capable of concocting. Spicing up the news with more student generated content and (dare I say it?) user provided content would make the whole tv.ku.edu experience much more savory.

So let's kick it up a notch. Replace the Beyond Lawrence section with content provided by the kids in 201. People really do care about those damn potholes all over the city, and when they're going to be fixed. They'd like to read about the crazy people who take over Mass. Street after dark, and share their own stories. I bet they'd be interested in blogs and other materials related to current issues in the community, which we could incorporate into the Web site. Students in 301, 415 and the op/ed class could probably help us there. I know I've been critical of citizen journalists in the past (I believe I called them "nutjobs with cameras"), but these folks could really add something to our site too, as long as we run them through the colander first. How about photos, video or even just some ideas? We have to know what our audience wants in order to please that delicate palate.

We have to be the Emerils and carefully select the right ingredients, put it all together, try to expand our horizons and, most importantly, have some fun in the kitchen.

My apologies for all the food analogies. I'm slightly obsessed with the Food Network. And I'm very hungry right now.

When I want to have a totally passive, relaxing news-consumption experience, I turn on CNN, sit back, crack open a cold one, and try not to get angry and/or fall asleep. Currently, tv.ku.edu provides a similar experience, although it rarely makes me angry.

Users basically have three options on our wonderful website: watch, read, or listen. If a user wants to interact in any way, there's literally no option other than to enroll in the journalism school, spend a few years completing the prerequisites, then hoping to be lucky enough to grab one of the few spots in 694. This isn't good. In fact, our website is such a passive experience it's really not fair to call them "users" at all. Maybe "watchers," or "consumers." But other than the ability to recall content on demand, there's nothing to "use."

Our foray into YouTube is a step in the right direction. Users can rate our videos, comment, forward them to friends, etc. However, it's rather counter-productive to send users away from our website to provide them a fuller web experience when the capability to provide these options is well within our grasp.

Another option that would seriously increase our exposure as well as our interactivity would be to create a Facebook application. Even if the app is limited in scope or usability, simply giving users another avenue to engage in the KUJH experience is a road that must be explored. While producing an application may take some work, in the short term, KUJH should at least have a profile on which we can post video and extra content. Facebook users can add the profile as a friend, and it would open up yet another network for our video to find new eyes.

Providing a forum for actual user-created content may be another beast altogether. While I think we should seriously consider incorporating eHub and blog/vlog posting into our website, opening up the site to the common rabble would produce a wide spectrum of consequences that I'm not sure we're prepared or equipped to handle. Still, it's something that must be considered. After all, any interactivity, however trivial or troubling it may seem, would be an improvement over the website as it currently exists.

To anyone else it looks like I've been slaving away in a field that might die before I graduate. I go to parties, tell people I'm journalism major, and get one of two results.

1. Awkward shuffling as people rack their brains trying to tell me about some news they heard recently.
2. "Huh. So . . . what are you going to do with that?"

As a reporter for KUJH-TV last year, I know firsthand how frustrating it is to broadcast a creditable product for a disappointingly small audience.

So why am I still here and not studying medicine or business? Because we have a website. And my, what a website. We've taken KUJH-TV, folded it into YouTube and once we've mixed in a dash of interactivity, we'll have our cake and eat it too.

Interactivity is crucial to tv.ku.edu's progress. Supplementing professional reporting with video entries, photo submissions, and comment boards leads to stronger overall content.

Now, I'm not naïve. I realize that opening the floodgates to any and all content will leave us drowning in (sorry general public) a lot of meaningless mediocrity.

So we edit. Sure it may take a little more sifting and a little more editing but, if you want good content, it has to be effective. Tv.ku.edu will sacrifice some control in order to allow audience interactivity but it's worth it when you are able to produce diversified content that engages your audience.

A product that's two parts professional, one part user generated is a compelling product. Our website allows us to talk to our audience. It also lets our audience talk back.

So say something. Then maybe you'll understand why I'm in journalism.

I've always thought that the one thing that tv.ku.edu is missing is interactivity. Sadly, there's nothing going on within the site itself. We need some action here!

I think it's time tv.ku.edu hands over its V-card. Action and interactivity would make the site so much better and I think one of the best places to find the site some action is through user provided content. Through citizen journalism, bloggers, vloggers and social networking sites we can probably get a buzz going.

Here's a few things we can incorporate into the site: