I've recently been playing with widgets and Blogger gadgets, trying to figure out how they work and how they'll help me become a better blogger. Many of the widgets I come across fascinate me at first, and I'm tempted to add them all and see how they change over time (in the news feed gadget, for one, I can see the headlines of the blog I've chosen to link to change every time I log on to Blogger).
But now that I've tried so much of it out, I've been thinking about which widgets will be useful in the long term. Some are fun to play with, but adding them all makes a reader overwhelmed by all the sections on your page. Better to pick the widgets that best serve the topic you're blogging about.
I think that, in this age where people are just starting to blog and are experimenting with all these new add-ons, there's too much emphasis on what you can do and not enough on what actually fits. For example, it's cool to post a link to the day's most popular YouTube videos or include an RSS feed of the latest sports headlines, but if your blog is about classical music, of what interest are these add-ons to your readers?
Because I'm thinking about writing--and probably blogging--about classical music in the future, I've wondered what sorts of music-related widgets I can add to enhance my blog. I've seen some classical music bloggers link to related Web sites that their readers might find interesting in a blogroll, and I've seen RSS feeds from The New York Times' classical music section, but I think some of these bloggers have neglected the coolest, most useful widget: the embedded mp3 player.
This particular player won't play anything because I haven't attached an mp3 file to it. (I would if I could, but while I'm in Italy, I have no access to the digital music files on my laptop at home.) But in my opinion, finding the mp3 player is the hard part, and selecting one to play is as easy as a click. I found this player on a Google tips Web site just by typing in "embed mp3" on Google's main page. Anyone could have done it.
So why don't more classical music blogs take advantage of all the embeddable mp3 players out there? I think even bloggers, not just out-of-touch traditional newsies, need to learn more about the wide world of widgets.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
News flash: journalists aren't doomed!
College journalists who haven't entered the workforce yet have been trained to fear the very worst after they've secured a diploma, but Rich Gordon sees a much cheerier picture.
According to Gordon, a professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, the modern era of journalism should be defined as a changing job market rather than a shrinking one.
"All is not lost," Gordon said in a Skype interview with our Power Journalism class last week. "As jobs in newspapers decline, opportunities for all kinds of other platforms are growing."
My association with the changing nature of the newspaper has always been a negative one. After all, I go to school to learn about print journalism, I practice print journalism, and my dream to be a classical music critic can only exist if print newspapers hang in there. But now I have hope. There are other, equally rewarding ways to earn a salary, like starting a classical music blog, freelancing or working for an online arts publication.
Gordon's predictions come from the fates of other companies like Kodak, companies who may have lost out in the transition to digital but who reinvented themselves to fit into the 21st century.
"If you go to their website right now, you'll see that they're hiring," Gordon said. "Not for the jobs they had 10 years ago, for different kinds of jobs."
But in case you were so brightened by Rich Gordon's news that there's no longer any need to worry, think again: as the newspaper must reinvent itself, the new wave of journalists must do so too.
These days, Gordon said, "Every journalist needs to be able to create content in multiple forms on multiple platforms." Translation: don't know how to work a video camera? Learn. Never had to take your own pictures while interviewing people on assignment? Get used to it. Never recorded interviews with the intention of actually posting them for audiences to listen to? Too bad.
Knowledge of multiple forms of media is a must, but the most valuable skill a journalist can have is knowledge of all things computers: HTML, videomaking programs, networking and more.
Computer literacy is, in fact, so valuable in the modern newsroom that Northwestern's journalism school has just introduced a nine-month program in which computer science majors work with journalism graduate students to learn about the media industry. According to Gordon, when these computer whizzes graduate, they'll all be a shoo-in for any Web design job at a major newspaper.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work quite as well the other way around. A journalist like me, who has next to no experience with Web design or computer programming, could never learn everything I'd need to know in a tech job at a newspaper in nine months. Still, Gordon might have talked me into buying a copy of "HTML for Dummies" to get a leg up on the competition.
According to Gordon, a professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, the modern era of journalism should be defined as a changing job market rather than a shrinking one.
"All is not lost," Gordon said in a Skype interview with our Power Journalism class last week. "As jobs in newspapers decline, opportunities for all kinds of other platforms are growing."
My association with the changing nature of the newspaper has always been a negative one. After all, I go to school to learn about print journalism, I practice print journalism, and my dream to be a classical music critic can only exist if print newspapers hang in there. But now I have hope. There are other, equally rewarding ways to earn a salary, like starting a classical music blog, freelancing or working for an online arts publication.
Gordon's predictions come from the fates of other companies like Kodak, companies who may have lost out in the transition to digital but who reinvented themselves to fit into the 21st century.
"If you go to their website right now, you'll see that they're hiring," Gordon said. "Not for the jobs they had 10 years ago, for different kinds of jobs."
But in case you were so brightened by Rich Gordon's news that there's no longer any need to worry, think again: as the newspaper must reinvent itself, the new wave of journalists must do so too.
These days, Gordon said, "Every journalist needs to be able to create content in multiple forms on multiple platforms." Translation: don't know how to work a video camera? Learn. Never had to take your own pictures while interviewing people on assignment? Get used to it. Never recorded interviews with the intention of actually posting them for audiences to listen to? Too bad.
Knowledge of multiple forms of media is a must, but the most valuable skill a journalist can have is knowledge of all things computers: HTML, videomaking programs, networking and more.
Computer literacy is, in fact, so valuable in the modern newsroom that Northwestern's journalism school has just introduced a nine-month program in which computer science majors work with journalism graduate students to learn about the media industry. According to Gordon, when these computer whizzes graduate, they'll all be a shoo-in for any Web design job at a major newspaper.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work quite as well the other way around. A journalist like me, who has next to no experience with Web design or computer programming, could never learn everything I'd need to know in a tech job at a newspaper in nine months. Still, Gordon might have talked me into buying a copy of "HTML for Dummies" to get a leg up on the competition.
Monday, November 24, 2008
I believe in audio
Blogging, as I'm learning, isn't just about writing down my opinion for all the world to see and then walking away. It's about experimenting, blurring the lines between professional and amateur news, and using mixed media to present a message. Keeping all this in mind, I've recorded an audio clip modeled after the NPR segment "This I Believe" to prove that even reporters who are used to stepping back and remaining anonymous can stick their necks out--21st-century style.
Monday, November 17, 2008
How Local is Too Local?
I'm pretty sure that, of all the news in my home county newspaper, about .00001 percent of it mentions the street on which I grew up. I'm not terribly disturbed that more news about my street isn't regularly published, not only because hardly anything newsworthy happens on my street and also because there are thousands more streets competing for attention in the rest of the county.
But seriously, how cool would it be to know why that ambulance roared by my bedroom window at 2 a.m. the other day?
A while ago, it occurred to Adrian Holovaty that people of the 21st century crave information they don't have, probably because so much of it is at our fingertips that we're intrigued when it is not. He created EveryBlock, where residents of 11 densely populated cities across the U.S. can check out the latest news, police blotters, photos and more from their own backyards. While each city has a main portal site where news from all over converges, locals can use filters to only display an area, neighborhood or even street of interest.
Some newspapers have observed this trend of megalocal news coverage from both locals and professionals like Holovaty with interest, wondering how they can incorporate the really local into their own general news. They know they need to pull readers in, especially in the face of plummeting revenue, and what better way than to talk about what's going on at the neighbors'? But newspapers probably won't gain anything focusing on superlocal coverage, at least not without losing other vital parts of the paper.
Some non-newspaper websites that have tackled local-local news, as it is sometimes called, by going straight to the source: the locals themselves. These websites serve as portals for discussions on street- and neighborhood-specific issues between its residents and is not necessarily newsworthy. (Every neighborhood has its stereotypical old grouch who always finds something to complain about, hot-button issue or not.) However, some of the issues brought up on these sites can't be gleaned from town hall meetings, police briefings or other public events reporters have access to--thus, these sites should clearly be on a reporter's radar.
The question that remains, then, is how a reporter who finds pertinent, newsworthy local information on such websites should use it. The best way is to use these online discussion panels as a starting point for a larger story, perhaps even one that connects with a national issue. (For example, my hometown paper has of late focused on the locals' angry reception of the downtured California State Prop 8.) Seeing these discussions at least gives a reporter an idea of the general public feeling and can show the reporter how a story might go based on personal and phone interviews with similar locals.
I've given references to my very localized hometown newspaper, one that gets all its international news from wire services, one whose reporters cover nothing but news that occurs inside Santa Cruz County lines. So what of huge papers with bureaus all over the U.S. and the world, like the New York Times? Can they benefit from websites like EveryBlock? Only to a very small degree, I think. Since their readership expects thorough coverage not only from within the city but throughout the entire country and world, their Bronx beat reporter should make efforts at crowd-sourcing through sites like these. The guy stationed in Tel Aviv needn't bother.
But seriously, how cool would it be to know why that ambulance roared by my bedroom window at 2 a.m. the other day?
A while ago, it occurred to Adrian Holovaty that people of the 21st century crave information they don't have, probably because so much of it is at our fingertips that we're intrigued when it is not. He created EveryBlock, where residents of 11 densely populated cities across the U.S. can check out the latest news, police blotters, photos and more from their own backyards. While each city has a main portal site where news from all over converges, locals can use filters to only display an area, neighborhood or even street of interest.
Some newspapers have observed this trend of megalocal news coverage from both locals and professionals like Holovaty with interest, wondering how they can incorporate the really local into their own general news. They know they need to pull readers in, especially in the face of plummeting revenue, and what better way than to talk about what's going on at the neighbors'? But newspapers probably won't gain anything focusing on superlocal coverage, at least not without losing other vital parts of the paper.
Some non-newspaper websites that have tackled local-local news, as it is sometimes called, by going straight to the source: the locals themselves. These websites serve as portals for discussions on street- and neighborhood-specific issues between its residents and is not necessarily newsworthy. (Every neighborhood has its stereotypical old grouch who always finds something to complain about, hot-button issue or not.) However, some of the issues brought up on these sites can't be gleaned from town hall meetings, police briefings or other public events reporters have access to--thus, these sites should clearly be on a reporter's radar.
The question that remains, then, is how a reporter who finds pertinent, newsworthy local information on such websites should use it. The best way is to use these online discussion panels as a starting point for a larger story, perhaps even one that connects with a national issue. (For example, my hometown paper has of late focused on the locals' angry reception of the downtured California State Prop 8.) Seeing these discussions at least gives a reporter an idea of the general public feeling and can show the reporter how a story might go based on personal and phone interviews with similar locals.
I've given references to my very localized hometown newspaper, one that gets all its international news from wire services, one whose reporters cover nothing but news that occurs inside Santa Cruz County lines. So what of huge papers with bureaus all over the U.S. and the world, like the New York Times? Can they benefit from websites like EveryBlock? Only to a very small degree, I think. Since their readership expects thorough coverage not only from within the city but throughout the entire country and world, their Bronx beat reporter should make efforts at crowd-sourcing through sites like these. The guy stationed in Tel Aviv needn't bother.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Stuffy News Sources Step it Up with Video
In 2004, the video was as much of a novelty as was the blog--in terms of covering the election.
But traditional news was already losing its grip on public interest and advertising revenue four years ago, and newspapers in particular knew they had to change the way they presented the facts to the public--but how? It should have been an easy answer--after all, it wasn't as if the video camera was a brand-new invention at the turn of the 21st century--but the video didn't burst onto the news scene in one day. It's slowly crept from novelty and experiment in 2004 into what we now view as the norm on any newspaper's web site. No matter what newspaper it is, if it has any credibility at all, some video will be featured above the fold--er, at the top of the screen.
The New York Times, though its dusty old-guard reputation precedes it, picked up on the video craze fairly early and has now officially gone video crazy. With every hour, it isn't just the headline story that changes on www.nytimes.com, it's also the featured video! The New York Times now has a membership on YouTube and has in just one year posted more than 700 videos to its profile. Here's one of the latest videos, dealing with the topic that hasn't yet escaped the forefront of Americans' minds: the 2008 election.
Just viewing this one-and-a-half-minute clip shows why the New York Times has so violently embraced the video as a source for news: it tells the story of a revolution in The Bronx better than text and any amount of photos could.
But traditional news was already losing its grip on public interest and advertising revenue four years ago, and newspapers in particular knew they had to change the way they presented the facts to the public--but how? It should have been an easy answer--after all, it wasn't as if the video camera was a brand-new invention at the turn of the 21st century--but the video didn't burst onto the news scene in one day. It's slowly crept from novelty and experiment in 2004 into what we now view as the norm on any newspaper's web site. No matter what newspaper it is, if it has any credibility at all, some video will be featured above the fold--er, at the top of the screen.
The New York Times, though its dusty old-guard reputation precedes it, picked up on the video craze fairly early and has now officially gone video crazy. With every hour, it isn't just the headline story that changes on www.nytimes.com, it's also the featured video! The New York Times now has a membership on YouTube and has in just one year posted more than 700 videos to its profile. Here's one of the latest videos, dealing with the topic that hasn't yet escaped the forefront of Americans' minds: the 2008 election.
Just viewing this one-and-a-half-minute clip shows why the New York Times has so violently embraced the video as a source for news: it tells the story of a revolution in The Bronx better than text and any amount of photos could.
An Epic American Night...In Italy
It's now 2:30 p.m. in what will probably pass as one of the most important political days in my young adult life, but there's a good chance I won't remember a minute of it.
Last night, I stayed up without sleeping until 6:30 a.m. (9 p.m. on the West Coast) to watch all the states' returns come in and to see what everyone already knew was coming--Barack Obama's acceptance speech. I'll remember the excitement I felt every time a new state flashed on the MSNBC virtual map, leading us closer to a conclusion to the stat-packed night, and I'll remember watching the interesting patterns developing in the form of blue and red clumps in the counties of battleground states. And I'll most certainly remember the first address of the first black president, one delivered with such determined fervor that I could tell Obama knew the serious trouble he was getting himself into and knew he could conquer it all.
But my memory will probably go fuzzy after the time that I fell into bed at 6:30, especially considering that I had to wake up a mere three hours later. All the more reason, then, to document my findings from newspapers from all over the world in this blog.
I looked up the online translated version of Il Messaggero, the most widely read newspaper in Rome, and my beliefs were instantly confirmed: that most of Italy was overjoyed by Obama's victory. The paper proclaimed Obama won "by an avalanche of votes"; a reader in support of the outcome wrote in a comment "long live REAL democracy." European leaders hailed the new president's election as "a turning point" that made the year a very strong one for democracy in the U.S. and the world (EU president Jose Barroso), a "wonderful example of democracy given from the United States to the world" (Nicolas Sarkozy), and a testament to new "progressive values and a vision for the future" (Britain's PM Gordon Brown). Even Russia welcomed Obama with open arms, assuring him a "full partership of trust."
It's a shame I couldn't have been right in the middle of the action--say, celebrating on campus with fellow U of O students or dancing on tops of cars with other Santa Cruzans (yes, they really did do that)--but in a way, being in a foreign country for these elections has made me see the importance of the perspective of the world, not just that of the U.S., in these elections. I think the American media focus so much on Americans' reactions to the election results that they don't immediately take into account what foreign leaders--and foreign equivalents of the average joe--are saying. Thus, had I been in the U.S. while this was happening, I wouldn't have thought to read up on foreign perspective.
Thank goodness for the Internet--and thank goodness for study abroad!
Last night, I stayed up without sleeping until 6:30 a.m. (9 p.m. on the West Coast) to watch all the states' returns come in and to see what everyone already knew was coming--Barack Obama's acceptance speech. I'll remember the excitement I felt every time a new state flashed on the MSNBC virtual map, leading us closer to a conclusion to the stat-packed night, and I'll remember watching the interesting patterns developing in the form of blue and red clumps in the counties of battleground states. And I'll most certainly remember the first address of the first black president, one delivered with such determined fervor that I could tell Obama knew the serious trouble he was getting himself into and knew he could conquer it all.
But my memory will probably go fuzzy after the time that I fell into bed at 6:30, especially considering that I had to wake up a mere three hours later. All the more reason, then, to document my findings from newspapers from all over the world in this blog.
I looked up the online translated version of Il Messaggero, the most widely read newspaper in Rome, and my beliefs were instantly confirmed: that most of Italy was overjoyed by Obama's victory. The paper proclaimed Obama won "by an avalanche of votes"; a reader in support of the outcome wrote in a comment "long live REAL democracy." European leaders hailed the new president's election as "a turning point" that made the year a very strong one for democracy in the U.S. and the world (EU president Jose Barroso), a "wonderful example of democracy given from the United States to the world" (Nicolas Sarkozy), and a testament to new "progressive values and a vision for the future" (Britain's PM Gordon Brown). Even Russia welcomed Obama with open arms, assuring him a "full partership of trust."
It's a shame I couldn't have been right in the middle of the action--say, celebrating on campus with fellow U of O students or dancing on tops of cars with other Santa Cruzans (yes, they really did do that)--but in a way, being in a foreign country for these elections has made me see the importance of the perspective of the world, not just that of the U.S., in these elections. I think the American media focus so much on Americans' reactions to the election results that they don't immediately take into account what foreign leaders--and foreign equivalents of the average joe--are saying. Thus, had I been in the U.S. while this was happening, I wouldn't have thought to read up on foreign perspective.
Thank goodness for the Internet--and thank goodness for study abroad!
Friday, October 31, 2008
PR, Personalized
As the 21st century dawns and the blogosphere takes over, journalists at print newspapers aren't the only professionals who are worrying.
Public and media relations journalists don't quite know how to handle the new phenomenon either. Gone are the days when a standard, canned news release sent out to the same e-mail list day and and day out suffices as "public relations". Because blogging is all about injecting personal opinion and using filters to skip to what you really want to read about, public relations has to be about personalization too. As PR expert and blogger Steve Rubel put it, "For the first time, public relations means relating with the public."
Unfortunately, anyone who's been in the PR industry for more than five years probably doesn't have formal training in blog-speak. They're used to the standard news-style press release; how do they approach bloggers and customize their response for each and every one of them? How, some might think, is it possible to cultivate a relationship with someone whose face they'll never see and whose voice they'll never hear?
PR professionals have to resign themselves to the fact that connecting with people in the blogospohere is simply more difficult than typing up a few paragraphs and hitting the "send" button. They also have to get used to the fact that their role is no more significant than the perhaps thousands of other commentators of a blog, and their carefully-crafted messages might get lost in a sea of comment threads. A white paper released by the PR firm Edelman shows how these new obstacles can actually be used to a PR company's advantage.
The white paper points out that bloggers don't want to hear things that don't obviously interest them, so strategic communicators can't simply send a them press release that's "scattershot" because it's designed to interest everybody at once. Sending the kind of information that might pull a blogger in requires research--reading the blog--and selection--picking the elements of a general release the communicator thinks will be most valuable to the blogger.
Suddenly, with the advent of blogs, strategic communications has just gotten a lot more strategic, and I believe that's the way it should be. After all, public relations journalists have always striven to connect with their contacts and build a relationship of trust, and what better way than to do it through blogging? Whereas in a traditional PR situation communicators might not know much about the convictions of their clients, in the blogosphere it's increasingly more possible to intimately get to know your target audience. Companies should take advantage of online buzz by using it to direct the buzz in their favor.
The same applies to communicators of the future, even if they're not strategic communicators and even if they don't plan a future in PR. Every journalist should understand not just the power a blogger holds, but the power anyone who comments on a blog can hold. Were I to pick three blogs where I commented on a post and left a link to my blog, I may be able to double my traffic level in a matter of days depending on the popularity and audience of the blogs. (Now that's power journalism!) I myself am not a strategic communicator, but in blogging, all communicators have to think strategically.
Public and media relations journalists don't quite know how to handle the new phenomenon either. Gone are the days when a standard, canned news release sent out to the same e-mail list day and and day out suffices as "public relations". Because blogging is all about injecting personal opinion and using filters to skip to what you really want to read about, public relations has to be about personalization too. As PR expert and blogger Steve Rubel put it, "For the first time, public relations means relating with the public."
Unfortunately, anyone who's been in the PR industry for more than five years probably doesn't have formal training in blog-speak. They're used to the standard news-style press release; how do they approach bloggers and customize their response for each and every one of them? How, some might think, is it possible to cultivate a relationship with someone whose face they'll never see and whose voice they'll never hear?
PR professionals have to resign themselves to the fact that connecting with people in the blogospohere is simply more difficult than typing up a few paragraphs and hitting the "send" button. They also have to get used to the fact that their role is no more significant than the perhaps thousands of other commentators of a blog, and their carefully-crafted messages might get lost in a sea of comment threads. A white paper released by the PR firm Edelman shows how these new obstacles can actually be used to a PR company's advantage.
The white paper points out that bloggers don't want to hear things that don't obviously interest them, so strategic communicators can't simply send a them press release that's "scattershot" because it's designed to interest everybody at once. Sending the kind of information that might pull a blogger in requires research--reading the blog--and selection--picking the elements of a general release the communicator thinks will be most valuable to the blogger.
Suddenly, with the advent of blogs, strategic communications has just gotten a lot more strategic, and I believe that's the way it should be. After all, public relations journalists have always striven to connect with their contacts and build a relationship of trust, and what better way than to do it through blogging? Whereas in a traditional PR situation communicators might not know much about the convictions of their clients, in the blogosphere it's increasingly more possible to intimately get to know your target audience. Companies should take advantage of online buzz by using it to direct the buzz in their favor.
The same applies to communicators of the future, even if they're not strategic communicators and even if they don't plan a future in PR. Every journalist should understand not just the power a blogger holds, but the power anyone who comments on a blog can hold. Were I to pick three blogs where I commented on a post and left a link to my blog, I may be able to double my traffic level in a matter of days depending on the popularity and audience of the blogs. (Now that's power journalism!) I myself am not a strategic communicator, but in blogging, all communicators have to think strategically.
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