Life in the Newsroom: December 2005 Archives

It's Dec. 20, only 12 days until it will be 2006...2006! We've been in the newsroom for almost two years. Can that be right? Time sure flies when you're having as much fun as we are. I can only really speak for myself, but in my opinion, our journey has been, so far, challenging, inspiring and rewarding.

We're going to be making some big changes over winter break (we being mostly me, this place is a ghost town between semesters). Katie left me for an internship with The SpokesmanReview.com on Monday. I look forward to reading about her experience on the Intern Blog. But (gulp, I hate to admit this) I will miss her.

We'll be hiring a part-time student system administrator over break too. I'm hyper-paranoid about my servers and I want someone to stand watch so I can do my work without sweating the constant backups, patches and upgrades.

All-in-all, it was a good semester, and I look forward to implementing some of the plans the students proposed this fall.

Here's a quick rundown of what we'll be working on over the next five weeks or so:

• Migrating from WordPress to Movable Type (hence the new look of eHub)


• Developing a plan for video podcasting


• Upgrading our newsroom digital signage


• Re-thinking our sports coverage on tv.ku.edu

It will be a busy "break."

Welcome to the future. It's an exciting time to be a journalist, specifically a journalism student. As students we're among the first to include the ever-expanding world of online journalism in our curriculum. The majority of professional guest speakers that visit our classes say that learning to write and produce online content is vital. It's vital, they say, because we're on the cusp of a revolution.

It's an exciting time because the future is unknown. It's a brave new world chock full of technological advancements. Will these advancements lead to the demise of traditional news? If so, when?

This is a touchy subject for me. In past posts I've stated that I wasn't quick to jump on the internet bandwagon, even though it's pretty much the sole source of my news. My parents and grandparents still read the newspaper, like most others. Why would they do that? Don't they realize that newspapers cost money? Hell, they're paying for internet access anyways, they might as well take advantage of all it has to offer.

Technology is only going to make access easier and quicker. A guest speaker said something today that made me wonder about the possibilities. Brian Purdy, senior vice president of marketing management for Infinity broadcasting in Dallas, has connections at Nokia. He said that technology is already available to integrate everything to your cell phone. All audio and video capabilities are on the phone, and at night you'll be able to plug your phone into your hi-definition television along with a keyboard and choose content to take along with you. This notion blew my mind.

However, Professor Utsler was quick to point out one fact that throws a wrench in the whole operation. Newspapers are the best at breaking news and at finding leads. Television news stations rarely break news, and I learned from interning at KSNT that much of those stories are based on newspaper articles. And look at internet news sites. The stories featured on those sites are taken from print publications, mostly local. I think that if new media outlets are to take over there needs to be a LOCAL print outlet that is entirely online. That's the only way to have the cohesion of a standard newsroom in order to continue providing breaking news and quality content. Then and only then will the internet take over, but as of now sites have no allegiance because they don't localize like newspapers do.

The Internet is killing newspapers. Journalists are up in arms and wondering what in the world they will do. Researchers are pondering the future of the media, and computer geeks are creating doom and gloom scenarios like Epic 2015.

Newspapers are dying and journalists are scrambling. Ah, the signs of progress. Instead of fearing this change, we should embrace it, prepare for it and dominate the new technology. After all, we as journalists are the experts. We should be the front-runners in this new world of media.

Our audiences haven't changed. Our numbers haven't diminished. They've just gone elsewhere. Let's take a customer service approach. Let's not wait for our consumers to come to us, let's go to them.

It really may not even be that hard. A recent study, "The State of the News Media 2004, showed that the heaviest online users spend the most time reading newspapers. So maybe we're all up in arms about nothing. Maybe the Internet is not the real enemy. Maybe it's something else.

This chart shows how many minutes online users read newspapers. Source: The State of the News Media 2004

There is no denying, however, that the online world feeds off of traditional news sources. The same report showed that only 32 percent of stories on the Web sites studied were actually written by the Web staff. Most were wire stories, or wire stories with some edits. Forty-two percent of stories, however, were posted with absolutely no edits. It seems as though Internet Web sites are not content producers but content scavengers.

This chart shows the source of news stories on several different Web sites. Source: The State of the News Media 2004

Newspapers and wire services are feeding the Online world, and its time that newspapers take back their ground. Newspapers need to come in and dominate the online world. They should pour more into their online budgets. They should make their Web sites interactive and engaging. Newspapers have the talent and the know how to take back what it has lost in the print world.

It's time we start teaching evolution. We need to teach journalists to evolve to higher plain. Its survival of the fittest, and if newspapers want to survive they are going to have to embrace change or become extinct.

I must be blunt. At this point, I find the idea of podcasting on tv.ku.edu to be kind of silly. Let's be fair. We already post all content that worth posting (and arguably some content that's not) on the Web site. What original content could we possibly post as a podcast that would entice people to go through the tedious process of downloading and transferring those files?

That said, podcasting could work. Lots of people that you don't necessarily need to have good stuff to post a podcast. Look at any radio talk show host if you doubt me. (Al Franken, who periodically posts choppy clips of interviews, is just one example.)

But if we decide to take a nosedive into the great abyss of podcasting, I challenge us to go one further and do it well. Every morning at 7, 8 and 9, KJHK broadcasts morning news updates, highlighting the top national and local news and sports. They literally do it 20 feet away from where we produce the Web site. Why, then, can't we take the audio from one of those newscasts each morning and post it to our site as a podcast each morning? If NPR can do it, so can we.

People could queue up their computer each morning to pull the newscast and it would be ready to listen to when they wake up instead of having to flip on CNN for the national news and then searching all over for anything locally relevant.

Then, at 6 p.m. each evening, we could do the same thing with the evening newscast. It'd just be one more thing for the evening producers to do each night.

Since my experience with podcasting this summer at my internship, which has been well-documented in my blog, I've been pretty jaded towards it. Without anything truly meaningful to post, no one is going to care enough to download and listen. And we have to remember that we're still a student-run TV station and Web site, so our credibility and meaningful-ness (I'm so certain that's not a word) are already in question.

So if we do this, we gotta do it right. And I think starting with the news is a good first step.

I love music, I love driving, and I love listening to music while I drive.

Spring break, for me and my friends, is the time to take road trips. Last year, we drove to New Jersey to visit a friend, the entire drive we listened to our Ipods. Rarely was there a time that just the radio was playing.

With our obsession with The OC, Laguna Beach, and Sex and the City, I can only imagine how we would have been had we thought of transferring our favorite shows to our Ipods, but the thought never crossed our minds. This spring break might be a little different though.

The great thing with the Ipod is that I can choose what I want to listen to and when. More than likely with my -€˜pod', everything on the playlists will fit my liking.

Imagine if we could listen to topics that interest us whenever we wanted. Recording a radio talk show on cassette is in the past, recording a talk show by podcasting is the future.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Podcasting is dangerous, at least for me.

I enjoy Podcasts. I like wasting my time and spending it searching for Podcasts that interest me. Apple iTunes allows me to purchase my favorite shows, such as The OC, for download onto my Ipod.

Lawrence.com has the right idea with differing podcasts, but still, I want more.

One thing I look for when searching for podcasts is a variety of topics, podcasters, and lengths. Sometimes I want to hear about sports, other times it's entertainment, and then there are the times when it's just nonsense I want to hear.

At KUJH it seems hard to find the right genre for podcast topics. Should we focus on the news? How about education? Or, get ready, how about both?

If someone offered me extra credit to do a podcast for tv.ku.edu, I'd do it.

I'm more comfortable talking that writing, and that's something I would take advantage of. Put it in to the 415, 692, 693, and 694 curriculums that students receive a certain amount of credit to do one news podcast and one entertainment podcast, and see what they come up with.

If some of our blogs were podcasts, I think tv.ku.edu and ehub would get more traffic from a different crowd. I know I would be interested in a Podcast that was personal. Sometimes people are interested in more than news, that is something KUJH and tv.ku.edu can tap into.

I think the Beta version of Yahoo! Podcasts is on the right track. It offers a variety of topics that almost anyone can find an interest in.

Podcasting is catching on, I've noticed with my friends and acquaintances that people understand what it is and what is out there.

It's seems like forever since my first road trip listening to mixed CDs, and thank god that won't be happening again. Maybe this year I'll be listening to some of our own podcasts from KUJH.

Before I begin, I believe that I should caution the audience with this:

Disclaimer: Much of the info below makes this post seem like "same post, different day".

They are wounded. They are reeling. But, the 20th century media outlets, such as television news and newspapers, will not be dying anytime soon. As much as the online community, more specifically news bloggers and other citizen journalists, would like, they are not about to take over the spot as the prime media outlet in the United States.

It's not a secret that these online parasites live off of the news coverage provided by traditional media. But like I have said before in my previous post, "Blog Schmog", this so called online community lacks a great deal of credibility and the lack of an original news reporting ability.

The graph in my earlier post, "Certainly Uncertain", shows that the older people grow, the more likely they are to being accustomed to reading the paper. The only real question should be, is will people in our generation continue this paper/news watching trend, or will they remain loyal to the media outlet that grew up with, the internet.

I believe enough people are going to keep watching television news as well as reading the paper with their coffee every morning to keep our old fashioned media in business. If for no other reason, people will continue to do so because of the credibility that these news outlets have earned in the past century. Newspapers and television news have been trustworthy for the most part and lasted through many tough times in our country's history. The online community has really only just begun and its success will only be able to be measured with time and longevity.

Television sets and newspapers will continue to battle with this online community. But in the end, the online community will do what so many say, "respect your elders".

So for all of you writers, anchors and reporters, keep learning about the industry and keep doing what you have been and want to do, because the end is far, not near.

It's ironic that the last blog of the year covers a question that I think we've been beating around the bush on the whole time. I mean, we've spent so much time debating the relevance and importance of the Internet, but I don't think we've been realistic about things.

I really don't like this question because it doesn't treat the online community - and bloggers specifically - as what they truly are: Parasites.

How can a parasite survive without its source of food? You look at any of the really established, proven blogs like the Drudge Report or DailyKos or RealClearPolitics and you see a helluva lot of downstreaming. Literally, Matt Drudge writes maybe an article a day. (For good reason - he's a partisan hack.) Everything else on his site is a link to legitimate (most of the time) news sites.

But that's not to say that traditional outlets don't need to get their acts together. While the bloggers are just repurposing or linking to the regular media sites, it's important to note that bloggers and citizen journalism still do serve a purpose and help mold the agenda, just as broadcasters did in that medium's infancy. Terry Heaton, in his TV News in a Postmodern World, Part XXXVI, says it well.

"Broadcasting needs to return to its roots in order to have a successful future, and I'm not talking about the business basics. In its infancy, the industry was driven by an entrepreneurial spirit that brought us innovation after innovation and built a model that lasted for 50 years. But the business rules and concepts that carried the industry are exactly what's killing it today, and the only way out of that is to get back to that entrepreneurial spirit. Invite the right-brainers around you; get out the whiteboards and zero base your company."

While I don't think traditional media outlets are in danger of dying off, that may change. They need to let go of their dug-in ways and find a way to get that agenda-setting ability back from hack-jobs like Drudge.

"Even at the best sites, the notion of a new form of journalism that takes advantage of the vast technology is not really accurate."

This is only one of the findings from this year's State of the News Media content analysis of online journalism. The analysis is conducted annually by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which is affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

When I came upon the results of the study, I was hardly surprised. They fit in smoothly with the findings the project made on cable television, newspapers and radio. In other words, none of our beloved mass media was breaking new ground. Instead, they tend to rely on each other as much as they do on unadventurous reporting and the ever-so-effective tactic of firing staff and making room for more ads. The result-€”lightened content and jeopardized credibility.

But while the big news Web sites seemed immersed in the mud of mass news, the Web had something all the other media struggle for: innovative potential. A bright future, baby. Now the Web only has to take advantage of all its opportunities.

Although online news often only rehashes stories covered in other mass media, the stories are better-sourced than any other medium except newspapers.Chart courtesy of The State of the News Media 2005.

Want an example? Look at Ohmynews from South Korea. Ohmynews is journalism at its best, a dazzling prospect of what can be accomplished in online journalism. And you know what? Those reporters are -€”Dare I dare say it? -€”citizen journalists in the best sense of the word.

They are men and women on the street, who research or write about people, events and places important to them. They are driven by passion, a motive that seems to have vanished from some of America's journalistic strongholds. (Yes, I am bitter about Bob Woodward's fall from grace, especially after reading this article setting straight what investigative reporting really means.)

Ohmynews boosts journalistic competition by ranking the stories according to their relevance for readers. The audience decides what it wants to read because it has value for them.

This is the kind of competition journalism needs so the Web can live up to its almost unlimited potential as a news medium. And I cautiously predict that this won't kill the old news media, but motivate them to face the journalist changes necessary for the future.