Krista Roberts

Yes, I admit it. I clicked on it. After all, it was described as the "best five second clip on the Internet." As a journalist, I had to investigate, but instead of great video, I got a prime example of why YouTube won't soon kill off TV news: fluff devoid of facts.

A quick check of the most viewed videos on YouTube for a recent week in August 2007 showed lots of fluff and very little substance. In fact, out of the top 40 most-viewed videos, the only "news" items were six sports clips and one clip of a 1994 C-Span interview with Dick Cheney. In all of these "pseudo-news" instances, the "citizen journalists" didn't even create the uploaded news. They just took it from a TV source. Under that scenario, all it takes to be a citizen journalist is a DVR. Search YouTube for "Minneapolis bridge collapse," you'll find the vast majority of videos listed were simply lifted from TV news broadcasts. Not quite citizen journalism at its best.

Local TV news stations and networks like CNN spend years building up credibility and trust with viewers by delivering real, factual news day in and day out. Looking for your news on YouTube is a bit like the Wild West. Anything goes. It's hard to tell what's real, what's altered and what's just plain wrong-which brings me back to "Dramatic chipmunk." The only thing worse than someone calling this the "best five second clip on the Internet" is that the facts aren't even right. This clip, which incidentally was lifted from Japanese TV, features a prairie dog, not a chipmunk. While YouTube may be a fun diversion, it has a long way to go before it's my trusted news source.

YouTube looks about as much like real news as a chipmunk (right) looks like a prairie dog (left).

It's hard to miss a parade, but somehow mainstream media did.

When I worked in TV news in Knoxville, Tenn., it was the stuff that made news producers salivate: a local connection to a series of bombings in England. We immediately put a reporter on the next flight to London to interview two local teens who were injured. Wouldn't our competitors be jealous? Wouldn't we rule the local TV news market? After a series of high-fives all around, we watched in disbelief as another local station beat us by reporting that the teens were already on a plane headed home.

I hated when our newsroom got scooped on a story. It usually led to a heated debate about what to do next: Should we play catch up? Should we look for another angle? Or since we didn't have it in the first place, should we just label it insignificant and move on?

I think option three is what most mainstream media (MSM) decided to do when new media offered new ways of reaching people. The all-powerful MSM thought they had a lock on getting the message out. Their mantra seemed to be: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

In the beginning, most MSM saw the Internet and interactive media as nothing more than add-ons to their existing brands. Many still do. Those who have seen the light are playing catch-up because what they once viewed as "insignificant" is eroding their customer base by meeting consumers' "on demand" information and entertainment needs.

The situation has lots of MSM dropping big bucks to jump onto the new media bandwagon. The problem is the parade's already passed by. To catch up, it looks like MSM will have to wade through a lot of what the parade's horses left behind.

When I'm out cruising for news, I want both a rudder & an anchor.

In the 1980s, Kansas City's KSHB experimented with an "anchorless" newscast, producing a nightly 15-minute newsbrief called "41 Express." Featuring a series of video stories strung together with a disembodied voice narrating, it was supposed to be edgy and ground-breaking -- just the kind of thing the station thought hip, young viewers wanted.

But the station missed the mark. It discovered that with enough rocks (stories) you could build a pretty good wall (newscast), but without the mortar (anchor), it just didn't hold together. So the now-defunct "41 Express" is left to Wikipedia lore.

I know we've come a long way since the '80s. I have no desire to return to "mall bangs","parachute pants" or anchorless news. Anchors play a substantial role in the news flow.

That said, I have a big problem with anchor intros. I can't stand the sloppy way most are written. If I got a dime for every anchor intro that ended with, so and so "has the story," I'd never have to work again.

That isn't the way it should be. The anchor intro is the start of the story. It should be the first thing a reporter writes. All too often, as Sir Dropham Pants points out, it isn't.

Anchors are there for a reason. They guide us through the news like a rudder guides a boat. Get rid of them and news consumers may still be able to steer, but it's going to be a lot more work.

Circling parking lots is a likelihood as KU Parking and Transit oversells permits for commuting students who park in the yellow zones by 59%. Specifically, 10,141 permits are sold for these zones, which hold only 6,370 spots. As a result, potentially 3,771 students could spend class time in the lots looking for a spot.

KU parking gives students a case of yellow fever.
Photo: Chris Raine

This disparity between passes sold and spots available may be the source of rude behavior in parking lots. The combination of students desperate to slide into class before the teacher makes his opening remarks and selfish thinking have caused me some frustration on the pavement. On two occasions, when patiently waiting for a car to back out of a spot, another car pulled up on the other side of the spot and stole a spot that was rightfully mine.

KU isn't the only school dealing with this issue. The parking situation was getting so out of control at Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu, Hawaii, that the school's newspaper printed a list of rules students should follow when cruising the parking lots.

Rudeness in general isn't a new problem, though. Back in 2002, Public Agenda found that 79% of U.S. adults think a lack of politeness is a serious problem in our society. Furthermore, 62% of the respondents were bothered a lot by seeing rude and disrespectful behavior. This problem isn't behind us, if anything, it's getting worse. More recently, in 2006, an ABC News "20/20" survey discovered that 83% of people are bothered a lot by others displaying rude and disrespectful behavior.

What does this mean for KU students? Expect to put your patient hat on when venturing to the parking lots.

Here's the way newspaper journalists & video used to mix. Thankfully that's changing.

In school, I’ve learned that amount of information I get by reading a textbook can't hold a candle to what I absorb going to class. To catch my interest, going visual is your best bet.

That's why I'm excited to see some newspaper editorial writers creating sort of a multimedia mashup by venturing into the world of online video. It gives people like me something to grab onto besides the printed word. What I’ve seen so far is impressive, but coming from a TV background, I also see some easy fixes to improve the end product.

• Write to your pictures. Don't just give me random video related to your topic. Hook your words to your pictures and you'll hook me into your story.
• Keep it simple. Resist the temptation to use video camera special effects. Nothing is harder for a viewer to follow than a zoom or a pan (especially in those tiny Web windows).
• Use a tripod. Don’t create an earthquake. Steady shots by putting the camera on a tripod or other steady surface.
• Hold that shot. You know your video, but your viewers don't. The people watching need time to absorb the images, so no edit should be shorter than three seconds and most should be in the four to six second range.
• Actions speak. Look for the action that's happening and shoot it. It will be much more interesting than that static shot of a building.
• Keep me close. Video can take us there, but not if all the shots are from 50 feet away. Vary your shot distances and don't forget the power in close-ups.

President who?The days of relying on print for our
political news are as outdated as this
headline.
Photo: Library of Congress

These days, instantaneous information on election night is just a few clicks away. The Internet has transformed not only the way we get the news, but also our expectations about how fast we get it.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently studied the online political landscape. Among its findings:

• 2004: 75 million used the Internet in connection with a political campaign
• 2006: 26 million used the Internet for news about politics (up 140% from 2002)
• 2006: 25 million used the Internet to fact check candidates

One presidential candidate who's already exploring new ways to reach voters online is Barack Obama. His campaign is working to capitalize on the social network aspects of the Internet with the help of one of Facebook's founders.

In fact, all of the presidential campaigns found success by taking their candidates online. From Hillary's Sopranos' spoof to the video where John Edwards' folks beg for donations after burning a pecan pie (the video brought in about $300,000).

The good news for the candidates is that these videos, like their Web sites, are within their control. The bad news is that the Internet is an anything-goes operation where candidates can't control what people upload or watch. For example, the mashup of Edwards primping his hair or Hillary in an Orwellian video can't make those camps happy. But with millions online looking for political information every day, politicians who don't take advantage of this resource to reach voters really have their heads in the sand.

So, politicians take heart and remember the old saying: "Any publicity is good publicity."

Simply including this bikini image
should get my blog more hits,
according to the "experts". Now,
if only it were a shot of Britney in
this bikini, then I'd really have
something.

Technorati founder David Sifry offers up five tips for making the Top 100. It includes advice like making your blog easy to read and adding lots of links. Done and done. Sifry also suggests optimizing your blog for search engines, but since I'm blogging through a university site, I don't have much control over this one. His last ideas involve posting frequently and reacting to hot topics quickly. Both are great in theory, but pretty much require blogging be a full-time job (or what you're doing in-lieu of one). Since I'm only able to hit two of his five, I guess his formula probably isn’t my ticket to the A-list.

Sifry’s not the only one offering tips. Check out Andy's five ways to increase blog hits. For me, his seem a bit more realistic for those of us who have lives outside of the blogosphere. Among his suggestions: post regularly, pick controversial topics, pick topics that others are likely to link to and comment on other blogs as a way of directing traffic to yours. His final idea is one I'm testing with this post: pick things that people are likely to be searching for and use those terms multiple times.

Did I mention that some of Technorati's "most searched for" were Ron Paul, YouTube, Britney Spears and bikini?

With these keys to the kingdom, becoming an A-list blogger is within everyone's reach, right? That's kind of like saying that knowing how to play tennis means you're ready to win at Wimbledon. It doesn't quite work that way. In fact, to use a sports cliche, I'd say becoming an A-list blogger is like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. A few achieve it, but most end up standing in the rain, holding an empty jar.

I know that Wichita bears a striking resemblance to the generic girl-next-door avitar. Someday maybe I'll master changing her appearance.
Courtesy: Second Life

I created Wichita as part of a class assignment in one of the more frustrating hours of my life. Just like when I tried to embrace playing space invaders in junior high (to impress a boy), I wanted to embrace the Second Life metaverse before me (to impress my professors), but once again, I spent most of my time fighting technology.

Wichita is my proxy in this virtual world, but I have very little control over her. I can't get from one place to another without running into something. Driving a car was an exercise in futility. I did find notecards to help with life in Second Life, but when I went to capture them, I was told that I didn't have the right permissions.

Now this isn’t to say that I can’t master Second Life. The obvious solution is to spend a substantial amount of time digging into this virtual world. If I really apply myself, I'm sure that I could master walking, chatting - even flying.

The trouble is that I have a first life. It requires things like mowing, cleaning and doing homework. If there's free time left, there's choir, being a youth sponsor, choreographing, and volunteering.

So which of these do I give up to gain a second life? None. I'm perfectly happy living my first life. While I'm glad I had an opportunity to explore this virtual world, I don't see myself taking up residence any time soon.

And I'm not alone. Apparently most people who create avitars don't stick around too long. According to Second Life's statistics page, while the number of total residents (anyone who's ever created an avitar) is nearing a billion, the number of residents who've come back in the last 30 days doesn't top a million. Others have questioned the need for a second life. In fact, someone's even created a parody site.

But just letting Wichita disappear into the Second Life mist doesn't seem right either. Perhaps I should write a virtual obit for her. Unfortunately, it would read something like: "She had a brief and uneventful life where she spent most of her time running into inanimate objects."

Put some creative minds to work and you could be looking at YouTube's next "Must See TV."
Courtesy: KUJH-TV

Right now, we're putting up stories that aired on KUJH-TV and we’ve seen a handful of views (especially the flu shot story), but are we making the most of our opportunity?

Here are some of my favorite ideas from marketers on how to use YouTube to your advantage.

Keep it short: Gareth Davies wrote that people who surf the net have "lightning-quick attention spans.” For a clip to make it in the YouTube universe, he wrote that it must be both quick and catchy.
**Good news for us since stories for KUJH are usually short.

Choose your tags carefully: Jonathan Mendez wrote that the tags you attach to your clip can affect your number of hits. He suggests using adjectives because people often search for videos based on moods. Also, he said not to waste valuable tag space with words like "and" or "to."

Use your URL: Michelle MacPhearson pointed to a goofy video that did it right (and got 1.4 million hits). The short video started and ended with the URL and it was also burned into the video. She wrote that way if people clip it or make mashups, your information is still getting out.

Make it fun, but keep it real: Stephan Spencer likes Blendtec's "Will it Blend?" videos. In these short pieces, the president of the Blendtec blender company puts something unexpected into one of the company's blenders. The results are fascinating, but more importantly, real. Spencer wrote that one of the keys to these videos' popularity is that it's not smoke and mirrors. The president of the company likes to see what his blenders will do to stuff and the videos simply share that with the world.

Have something worth watching: Blendtec's George Wright said to make it on YouTube, you really have to have something worth watching.
**Again, we're in luck here. KU students and alum are all over, so there's a built-in worldwide audience for what's going on at KU.

Each semester, we get lots of talented, creative people who are ready to stretch the limits of what we've done before. Maybe putting KUJH onto YouTube is the first step in a bigger process where future KUJH'ers take these suggestions and turn the KUJH channel on YouTube into "must see TV."

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."

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.

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.