Krista Roberts

This is our "Field of Dreams" right now. Just wait and see what we do with it in the future.
Courtesy: tv.ku.edu

We're already tapping into other journalism classes to help create content. That's a great source because it comes from people who are developing their news skills, but if we really want to go "user provided," we need to do more.

Right now, our site only lets users get involved as spectators. If we want users to contribute, it's up to us to give them options to interact with tv.ku.edu.

One simple idea (that sounds like it is already in the works) is to add the ability for users to comment on what they see. A couple of great things can come from this: 1) Users become part of the conversation, and 2) We may get some good follow-up story ideas.

While we're talking story ideas, how about a place on tv.ku.edu where visitors e-mail story ideas. That would give us more eyes and ears around KU, Lawrence and Douglas County. Of course, many ideas won't work, but every now and then you find a gem. Once the story is on the Web site, the key is to find a visual way to let people know the idea was one submitted to us.

When I'm on the Internet, I usually don't have the time or inclination to comment on a story, but I love the quick interaction I get with polls. I know the polls aren't statistically valid and I don't care. I just enjoy seeing what others are thinking. Why not add a poll of the week or the day to tv.ku.edu? It would be a quick, easy way for users to contribute.

We should take advantage of people's ability to record events while they're out and about. Most cell phones take pictures and many do video too. TV.ku.edu needs to have a spot where we ask folks to record and send us any news that they see happening. CNN started this with i-Report. Again, a key is to highlight that the story was sent to us by one of our "team."

We'd have a lot more opportunity for user provided content if we broadened our view of what content on tv.ku.edu is. Right now, it is primarily packages and VSOTs from KUJH-TV. What would happen if we expanded our definition and created a spot on tv.ku.edu for more feature and "just for fun" content. We might even see about teaming up with KU's film department to offer short films or documentaries on tv.ku.edu - which I guess could make tv.ku.edu our "Field of Dreams."

This week, my shift shifted to 2-6 p.m. The change lets me work one-on-one with an editing student from 5-6 p.m. This week, the plan worked well. I was able to get some things posted before Breiun arrived. Then I had her copy edit two stories. The first had some great basic style errors. The second was one I had written. In the first, she caught nearly all of the errors and got them fixed. On the second, she found a way to reword and improve something that I had written. I hope that this one-on-one time helps her gain some confidence and real-time experience in copy editing.

Dump the big needle.This tiny disk offers a painless flu vaccine. Wouldn't it be great to learn that on tv.ku.edu?
Courtesy:Harvinder Gill

• 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.

Today there wasn't a lot ready to go when I got in at 2 p.m., but I did happen to notice that the Beyond Lawrence section had two items I entered which meant that some of the content had been up for two weeks. I found two new items to freshen the section up a bit.

By the time I was done with that, John DeVore's story was ready to be re-purposed, so I had a chance to get that done before I started working with Brieun on copy editing.

Overall, our shift (Brad, me, Gretchen) goes very smoothly and we're usually not leaving Gretchen with a whole lot of unfinished stories, so it seems like the work is getting divided pretty evenly among the three of us.

The best part of the shift today was getting to help Brieun with her editing. Not only is she doing a much better job spotting AP and grammatical errors, she and Doug Ward also found a significant error in facts on one story from the week before. We were able to go in and correct the story, so that it will be right in the archive. I think that Brieun was really excited to be able to help correct a story that is actually on tv.ku.edu and we're the better for it.

Julius Caesar didn't worry much about putting his views out in the open. Of course, look where it landed him.

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.

Too bad that as each week gets easier, each week also brings us closer to the end. Today's shift was great. I got two new Beyond Lawrence posts up, then had time to repurpose the story on the library's book sale and the Festival of Trees before Brieun got here to do some copy editing. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I managed to squeeze in the completion of my final blog. Whew!

I do have to say that I'll be sad when these shifts end next week. At first, I really struggled to get the stories repurposed and the pictures created in a timely fashion. Now I find that with practice it comes much more easily. Too bad I won't have a chance to practice these new skills in the real world.

I've really enjoyed getting the opportunity to try this new and different (at least to old dogs like me) kind of journalism.