Writing for New Media

Readings on current ethical and legal issues -- Let's chat!

2009-07-08T18:29:00.000-07:00

In addition to the readings on our schedule, here are links to three recent stories that pose interesting questions about legal and ethical issues affecting journalists. What is your take on these? This discussion will replace our class meeting of July 14. Leave your comments below and feel free to comment more than once during the week.

Judge Says Blogs Not Legitimate News Source; No Shield Protections

Restoring The Post's Credibility With Readers -- and Staff. Update: A Sponsorship Scandal at The Post was just published July 12.

Was Wikipedia correct to censor news of David Rohde's capture?

Blogger jailed in Anna Nicole Smith defamation suit

2009-06-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

The latest reminder that YOU are responsible for anything you post online, even on a professional news organization's site or someone else's blog:

A real estate agent in Houston who blogged about Anna Nicole Smith was jailed for contempt last week in a defamation case brought by the late Playboy model's mother.
Legal experts said bloggers are increasingly the targets of such litigation, which are testing the bounds of free speech.

Read the full story here.

Syllabus is now live

2009-05-24T12:07:00.000-07:00

The syllabus for our summer MCOM 407/507 is now live. Check it out. Please note that the schedule is a downloadable Word document with many clickable links in it. Because of the complexity of scheduling a hybrid version of the class, I found it hard to embed the schedule in an HTNL page without making things confusing for students.

Getting to know summer 407/507 students

2009-05-18T14:26:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I'd like to start the semester by asking each of you to reply to this post and give us a sense of your level of Web and design skills. Have you taken Digital Publishing? Do you have a Web site, blog or Twitter account? You don't need to say a lot, but just enough for us to get a sense of where we are all starting from. Thanks!

Fall 2008 Critique Assignments

2008-09-12T11:01:00.000-07:00

Here is the schedule for the presentations beginning Sept. 17.

Sept. 17

Alyson Blimmel
In Cold Blood: A Legacy

Aja Jackson
Afro-Latin Americans

Oct. 1

Joycelyn Anthony
Cloning: How It Works

Oct. 8

Gboyinde Onijala
And a Song Shall Carry Them Home

Dani Holtzer
Churchill’s Speeches

Oct. 15

Erin Stasi
Super Volcano

Ryiesha Simms
Inside the Toughman

Oct. 22

Erica Plummer
Stoves for Guatemala

Melissa Deutsch
The Whale Hunt

Oct. 29

Jeff Koslovsky
Can You Spot the Threats?

Chris Cuno
Enron Blame Game

Nov. 5

Beth Schaffer
Spam Wars

Sarah Springfield
One Day of War

Nov. 12

Kaitlyn Hart
Budget Balancer

Marianne Riker
Ray of Hope

Nov. 19

Samantha Bolden
Smuggling Children

Shannon Minter
The shootings at Kirkwood City Hall

Dec. 3

Nicole Balzanna
Ground Zero Timeline

Jacob Verdis
Lebrew Jones and the Death of Micki Hall

More challenges for upcoming grads

2008-04-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

The Baltimore Sun reported this week some unsurprising but nonetheless not-good news: Graduates are going to find it tough to get jobs in the weak economy.

The article opens by noting how the class of 2008 began school in good economic times but leaves school in a recession:

That's depressing timing for Nikki Goh, who transferred from a school in Malaysia to Towson University two years ago because she believed the job opportunities here would be far better. When she graduates in May with a degree in mass communication, Goh, 22, will be heading back to Kuala Lumpur to regroup - and then to Britain to try to find work.

So ... you can become depressed or you can take to heart the advice we've been hearing over and over lately: Do everything you can to make yourself the BEST candidate for the job. If nothing's out there after graduation, consider a post-grad summer internship to give you added experience and contacts.

Our Trip to The Washington Post: A day to remember

2008-04-01T18:42:00.000-07:00

Students and faculty who were lucky enough to make our cutoff for the trip to Washington on March 28 came back with lots of excitement and great ideas. I plan to do a full post (or more) on some of the great things Rob Curley showed us and talked about. In the meantime, I'll let some of the students do the talking via their blogs.

Annie Sullivan: "Overflowing with personality, Curley showed an impressive interactive slideshow of projects he has been part of in the past. Listening to him for 3 hours was like watching an exciting, educational, and downright comedic television show."

Ryan Reed: "On the way back to campus we all discussed what we learned from the day. I believe everyone was inspired to learn and do more when it comes to online journalism. As a senior graduating in May, the trip proved to be invaluable and I plan on taking what I learned with me wherever I may end up."

Heidi Greenleaf: "I now realize the significance of online journalism and the role it will play in the future of newspapers. Not only do I have to know how to write, take photos, blog, edit audio and video, but I also have to put all of these ideas together to create a multimedia package for whatever I’m writing about."

Noelle Ciara: "Annie, Danielle, and I are very inspired to start our own blog-type of website for TU students. There is so much that we’re missing out on and we’ve got big plans to change it. ;-)"

Update (April 8)
Two more students have posted on the trip:

Danielle Dyer: "Rob Curley jumps into all aspects of his job. No assignment is too small or unimportant. He truly makes you want to make every little, minuscule thing lavish and extravagant."

Jon Parr: "My teachers have been incredible in showing me what skills I'll need in the real world. But nothing could have prepared me for Rob Curley... nothing. A week later, my head is still reeling over what he showed us, what he taught us. This wasn't a field trip to the Washington Post, it was a few hours into Curley's mind."

Cutting edge multimedia

2008-04-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

Rob Curley, our host at last week's Washington Post/WPNI tour, talked at length about the great things ahead for the Las Vegas Sun. On his Facebook page, he singles out a recent package, "Pace Is the New Peril," as one of those great things:

I have many friends who work at the Las Vegas Sun, and today's lead story on LasVegasSun.com about the recent construction deaths at the rising new resorts in that town is an amazing piece of what "newspaper" journalism should look like in 2008.

The text, the photos, the video, the interactive graphic and bios, and all of the auxiliary supporting documents make this an amazing piece of storytelling that works on so many levels. This is a textbook example of how traditional journalism and new-media journalism can work in tandem to serve a news organization's mission.

While the package is not likely to win any awards for its design, it is a great example of what today's journalist should aspire to. Bravo to the the Sun.

A new Sun rises

2008-02-20T18:28:00.000-08:00

The Baltimore Sun is closing its Baltimore County bureau, but that doesn't mean it's only scaling back. MediaLife Magazine reports that the Sun will be launching a new Web site and free paper this spring, both aimed at attracting young readers:

The new paper, to be called b, and an associated web site, bthesite.com, will come out on April 14. It will be aimed at 18- to 34-year-olds, and it will be distributed during the week in special newspaper boxes and places like coffee shops and bars. It will carry news, sports, opinion pieces and information on local entertainment. ... The timing of the announcement of this new venture is surprising, given that the Tribune Co. said earlier this month that it would undergo a huge round of cost cuts, including cutting 400 to 500 jobs across the various newspapers it owns.

Schedule for presentations (Spring 2008)

2008-02-07T07:45:00.000-08:00

2/13
Greg Stoops
The Whale Hunt

2/13
Jenna Standifer
Cloning: How It Works

2/20
Emily Tognocchi
One Day of War

2/20
Stacy Williams
Ground Zero Timeline

2/27
Elizabeth Malliakos
Spam Wars

2/27
Julia Conny
Supervolcano

3/5
Mark Fischer
The Enron Blame Game

3/5
Jewel McFadden
Was It Suicide?

3/12
Melissa Dockman
Afro-Latin Americans

3/12
Jon Parr
Can You Spot the Threats?

3/26
Rachel Thompson
Stoves for Guatemala

3/26
Jami Katz
And a Song Shall Carry Them Home

4/2
Anthony Fair
Inside the Toughman

4/2
Jack Cole
Islam in Europe

4/9
Heidi Greenleaf
National Geographic Explore the Human Heart

4/9
Megan Sharlow
In Cold Blood: A Legacy

4/16
Nicole Rossi
United Nations Multimedia

WashingtonPost.com wins three photography awards

2008-02-01T09:53:00.000-08:00

If you want to see some good photos and slideshows, you don't have to go farther than the WashingtonPost.com. Three of their photographers have won awards for their work:

Jahi Chikwendiu won the White House News Photographers Award for Photographer of the Year for his work on several series, including "'Continuous War': Cluster Bombs in South Lebanon" and his photographs of D.C. public schools. The WashingtonPost.com gallery of photos for the cluster bombs story also won first place in the Photography and Audio (narrated) category.

Also picking up awards:

The photo gallery "Struggle in Mississippi Delta," produced by Whitney Shefte with photography by Carol Guzy, won first place for Best Use of Photography.

The story "Crisis in Darfur Expands," by Travis Fox and Brian Cordyack, won first place in the Multimedia Package category.

Spring 2008 MCOM 407 students: Welcome !

2008-01-25T12:47:00.000-08:00

I realize classes don't start until next week, but I wanted to welcome you to MCOM 407 and get you started thinking about your semester project. The most important step for success in this class is coming up with a strong story idea early on, so I highly recommend you begin thinking now.

You will be working on a multipart multimedia story during the semester. AS you begin thinking about possible ideas, it's important to do a couple of things:

1) Look for a specific story idea, not just a general topic. For instance, "sports" is a general topic. "Special Olympics" is more focused. "How local coaches and Special Olympians are preparing for this year's events" is a story idea.

2) Make sure your idea is for a FEATURE story, not one or more news stories. The goal is not to write short accounts of events that happen during the semester but to create a coherent "big picture" story.

3) Start making a list of possible sources and consider how much access you will have to them. Many previous projects have failed because students tried to work with sources outside the area or sources that have limited availability. Stories dealing with minors or with people on the wrong side of the law are particularly tricky.

4) Think about multimedia possibilities. You will be combining words, photos, audio, video, animation, maps, slide shows and more to create your project. Make sure your topic lends itself to such rich multimedia.

5) Make a point of regularly checking this blog and some of the blogs listed on the online syllabus.

See you soon!

The new 5 W's and an H

2007-12-05T18:30:00.000-08:00

Paul Bradshaw has another thought-provoking post in his Online Journalism blog. This time around he asks:

Have you ever been to one of those meetings where there is a lot of talking - but no action? That’s what most news websites and blogs are like at the moment. One endless meeting.

Bradshaw suggests that online journalists go beyond that to connect with readers by employing "Five W's and a H that should come *after* every story." They are:

Who can I connect with?
What did the journalist read to write this?
Where did this happen?
When are events coming up that I need to be aware of?
Why should I care?
How can I make a difference?

Bradshaw followed up with a mock-up on how this would work. A fascinating idea that bears serious consideration.

Mashing up audio and database

2007-12-05T17:59:00.000-08:00

The New York Times created something unique in my experience when they combined audio clips and a database to tell the story of people wrongly convicted of crimes. The result is titled “Exonerated, Freed, and What Happened Then.” Notice the "Choose a category for comparison button."

Ready for a job?

2007-12-04T10:49:00.000-08:00

Mindy McAdams summarizes advice from Fiona Spruill, editor of the nytimes.com Web newsroom, in a Q&A at the Times site.

Journalists who can flourish in both the Web newsroom and the print newsroom today:

* Can package the news online.
* Can create original multimedia.
* Have solid journalism credentials.
* Have strong technical skills.

Journalists who expect to get a job will “walk in the door with”:

* A proficiency in Photoshop, HTML and blogging software.
* An understanding of Web publishing systems (content management systems).
* Experience in the production of multimedia — including the use of audio and video editing tools.

From still photos to video -- and beyond

2007-12-03T08:50:00.000-08:00

An article in the latest American Journalism Review looks at the spread of video on news Web sites. Perhaps most interesting is that not only are many still photographers making the change to video, but some are actually retiring their still cameras and grabbing frames from their HD video cameras.

While that news is mildly surprising, it is just one more step in the age of convergence -- and one more reminder that tomorrow's journalists need to be versatile. Towson professor Sandy Nichols reports on a recent class visit:

Mark Miller, News Director at WBAL-Radio, just spoke in my class and talked about this very phenomenon in radio news. His reporters are now carrying video cameras out in the field to capture video for the web, but also using the cameras for still shots for the web. They are all also carrying a computer to edit the video and clips, as well as record the voice-overs.

He showed the class several examples of stories on their Web site, emphasizing the importance of multimedia storytelling to an industry that has traditionally relied on sound to tell stories. He's spoken every semester since I've arrived at Towson, but this is the first time he's made such a strong statement. "If you want to be successful in radio now," he said, "you MUST know how to work across platforms."

Imagining the Future of Newspapers

2007-11-19T07:54:00.000-08:00

The Newspaper Association of America has asked 22 people on the cutting edge of journalism to imagine what the future of newspapers will be like. Their answers -- some of which imagine "newspapers" will exist in the future -- are in a blog on the site. It's very thought-provoking reading about the future you are likely to inhabit.

Photos of the Year

2007-11-10T08:17:00.000-08:00

Editor and Publisher magazine offers a gallery of the winning entries in its latest Photo of the Year competition. If you want to see what strong photojournalism looks like, spend some time with these.

2007 Online Journalism Award Winners

2007-11-06T19:36:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post a list of the 2007 OJA winners. It's here, but unfortunately, no links are included.

The good news is that links were included in the list of finalists.

From CNN: Tips for better audio, video and photos

2007-11-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

CNN offers several tips and links to resources for people who want to submit work to the cable giant. But the same tips can help you become a better multimedia journalist.

Great way to add audio to your modules and podcasts

2007-11-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

Want to easily add a professional-looking audio player to an online project? Head to
BooMP3.

It's free audio hosting. Once you upload the audio, the site gives you the code to insert a link and a player into your blog, which looks like this: http://ravensfanatic.blogspot.com/

(Thanks to Stacy Spaulding for the tip!)

Laptop thefts and data backups

2007-11-06T11:19:00.000-08:00

During the fall 2007 semester, two students in my Writing for New Media class had their laptops stolen, one from a dorm room and the other from Cook Library. Make sure that if you use a laptop, yours is not the next to go: Don't leave it lying around anywhere out of your sight.

In the second case, the student's only backup was a flash drive that was in the laptop. That points to a critical lesson I was taught some time ago. For anything important that you are doing, you should keep your work in at least three places, one of which should be physical media (CD or DVD). I would recommend backing up your work at least once a day to CD or DVD or uploading it to Tiger or another FTP site (if you use Comcast or Verizon at home, you get free storage through them; otherwise, there are more than 100 online file storage services available, most for free).

Lessons for the day: NEVER leave your laptop out of your sight and ALWAYS keep a backup of important files somewhere other than with your laptop.

Fighting back against copyright infringement claims

2007-11-05T07:06:00.000-08:00

It's not news that the big media companies are cracking down on copyrighted material being posted to YouTube and other online sites. But what is news is that some people are calling the media companies on their actions. An interesting Washington Post article reports on an increase in challenges against so-called "takedown notices.

Get some attention for your blog

2007-11-05T05:51:00.000-08:00

In "Be More Than a Blip in the Blogosphere," Washington Post writer Dan Zak offers 10 tips for building an audience for your blog. All are good, and No. 1 might just sound familiar:

TELL STORIES RATHER THAN STICKING SOLELY TO LINKS OR PHOTOS. "Unless you're Perez Hilton or the peeps at TMZ or the Superficial, [links and photos] won't keep people coming back," says North Bethesda resident Melissa Jordan, 42, of Church of the Big Sky ( http://www.merujo.blogspot.com). Make stories compelling and, most of all, relatable.

So what are you waiting for? You're doing the work; you might as well get the readers.

Great new idea for working on the go

2007-10-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

Thanks to colleague Stacy Spaulding for the tip on PortableApps. The site offers a wide range of software applications (free or shareware) that can be loaded onto a USB flash drive. As the site notes:

Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind.

Applications include some class favorites, such as Filezilla, the Firefox browser and Audacity. You might also want to check into Kompozer, a free HTML editor (like Dreamweaver) and GIMP (offers many of the features of PhotoShop).

A Fairy-y Use Tale

2007-10-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a clever video that explains the concept of fair use using snippets of Disney films.

Video to accompany This American Life's "Meet the Pros"

2007-10-11T08:16:00.000-07:00

If you'd like to watch the Nike commercial that is discussed in the TAL episode we began listening to in class, you can find it here. You can also download the TAL episode at the iTunes store for under a dollar.

Advice for young journalists

2007-10-02T06:03:00.000-07:00

What do you journalists need to do/read/think about? Some good discussion this week, starting with Paul Bradshaw’s post, “How to be a journalism student.” Mindy McAdams follows up on that post with “More advice for (young) journalists,” and lots of readers join the discussion. Whatever your final opinion on the various bits of advice offered, it all makes for good reading.

Ethics for editing audio

2007-09-20T18:58:00.000-07:00

Just how much editing is appropriate when you are handling audio clips? This overview from a professional journalist answers that question.

Washingtonpost.com debuts high definition podcasts

2007-04-11T10:03:00.000-07:00

Media Life Magazine reports that Washingtonpost.com is producing the first podcasts in high-definition, designed to be viewed on HDTVs or computer screens. Media Life reports:

They will be downloadable from iTunes or washingtonpost.com. In what washingtonpost.com claims is a first for a news organization, these high-definition podcasts will also be available in the highest spec possible for the new Apple TV. The goal, explained washingtonpost.com managing editor Tom Kennedy, was to fulfill the consumers’ desire for HD content and to help them move away from watching videos on a small box on their computer screen. It’s one of a number of new things newspapers have been trying recently to monetize their sites.

Best of Photojournalism 2007: Web Site Winners

2007-04-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

If you want to get some inspiration, take a look at the winners of the National Press Photographers of America Best of Photojournalism competition. Lots of multimedia, slideshows and other unique projects to get your creative juices flowing. A companion story offers reactions and overviews of the winning entries, as well as audio clips of the judges' comments. Be sure to check out the winner for Best Audio Slideshow, "A Prayer for Father Tim," by Jim Gehrz and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Advice for writers: Know how to tell stories

2007-02-16T10:22:00.000-08:00

Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Hallman Jr. came away from a dinner conversation with an editor and offered advice for those trying to break into or move ahead in journalism. At the top of the list, he writes in Quill magazine, is the ability to tell compelling stories:

Despite the changes sweeping our industry, it’s critical that we don’t forget that the foundation of this business remains storytelling, no matter how we do it: video, online or print....

What is a story? If you don’t know the answer, start learning and be able to define it succinctly. How do you focus a story? How is reporting for a story different than reporting a news article? What is the point of the story? If you can’t answer those questions, you likely won’t make that first cut....

A story takes readers on a journey. The mysteries, questions and answers are revealed throughout that journey. Putting it together requires in-depth thinking at each stage of the process: reporting, structuring and writing. The story doesn’t rise and fall on the writing, although that’s obviously important, but with the thought behind the story.

Online tutorial for multimedia storytelling

2007-02-12T09:48:00.000-08:00

The folks at the Poynter Institute -- one of the best friends of working journalists - have just added a training module on multimedia storytelling to the NewsU site. The module is based on a course by Jane Stevens at UC Berkeley and should be a great aide to help you with your semester project. To get started, you'll need to register (free and easy), then under the Courses menu choose Online Multimedia.

Introduction to Web 2.0

2007-02-09T12:21:00.000-08:00

See what college students are up to

2007-02-09T08:48:00.000-08:00

A great blog named Innovation in College Media offers news, examples, interviews and more. Well worth an occasional look to see what's happening on the cutting edge of journalism.

New newspaper reporters need multimedia skills

2007-02-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

Think that since your goal is to work for a newspaper, you won't need multimedia skills? Think again.

Asked what skills he would look for it hiring a newspaper reporter, Ryan Sholin lists these:

I would want someone who knows enough HTML to write their own Web update into a content management system without needing training.
I would want someone who has no fear of a digital camera, a video camera, or an audio recorder.
I would want someone interested in using databases, maps, and public records as source material.
I would want someone who knows how to tell a story.

Yes, that's for a NEWSPAPER reporter. He has a lot more to say about the skills you should have to get a job in online news. (via Mindy McAdams' Teaching Online Journalism blog)

In his column in Editor and Publisher, Steve Outing shares the same perspective:

Every hire counts at many small papers. It's long been common practice to look for people able to do multiple tasks, because the money often isn't there to hire people who are highly specialized, the way a wealthier metro paper might. But the Internet era requires more than finding people who can snap a news photograph and write a story and lay out the front page.

Small newspapers often look for recent college graduates to staff their newsrooms, in part because those employees won't demand high salaries. Hiring journalists and ad sales people right out of college makes even more sense today. Not only will recent graduates probably fit within your budget, but they'll have an understanding of the modern media picture -- at least, they will if they went through a credible journalism or communications program.

My advice is to ONLY hire people whose skills cross media platforms. Look for people who not only understand and are enthusiastic about online media, but who also can serve the print edition well. If a job candidate says she has always aspired to be a newspaper reporter, and doesn't come in the door with some multimedia skills and experience such as video and audio production, frankly I'd keep looking. You might even go so far as to look skeptically at candidates who look great when it comes to new-media skills but lack the experience or motivation to work on the print side, if you simply can't afford that much specialization.

World's oldest newspaper no longer on paper

2007-02-06T11:56:00.000-08:00

The oldest newspaper in the world ... is no longer being printed on paper. Sweden's Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, founded in 1645, became a Web-only publication on Jan. 1. Many people in the news business think it's just the first of many "papers" that will stop being delivered on paper.

Important changes in MCOM computer labs

2007-02-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

Beginning this semester, saving your work to My Documents will send it to a partition on the local computer's hard drive (notated as the D: drive). That will give you access to that work ONLY from the one specific computer you saved it on.

If you want to get access from other lab computers, you need to use SAVE AS to send the file to your V: drive as well.

Quick way to add a link to your blog onto your home page

2007-02-05T09:45:00.000-08:00

1) Go to your home page using Internet Explorer.
2) Right-click on the page and choose View Source.
3) In the window that pops up, change the current URL (http://mcom407.blogspot.com) to the URL of your blog.
4) Save the file to a new folder on your computer -- something easy to remember like mcom407. Name it Welcome.html
5) Download (if you have not already) Filezilla. Using it, transfer your new Welcome.html file into the WWW directory in your Tiger account.

That's it! If you already have Filezilla installed or you're working in the labs, this should take about two minutes.

Best advice for journalists: Think of your audience

2007-02-01T08:26:00.000-08:00

Rob Curley is widely regarded as one of the most technologically innovative people in the newspaper business. During the last decade, he has been involved in lawrence.com, naplesnews.com and now is at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. But as much as he lives for technology, he tells Presstime magazine that the best career advice he ever got was

it’s not about the technology ... our industry really is about is connecting with our audience. Technology is nothing more than developing new ways of connecting with our audience and giving them something that they never knew they needed, but love having.

Bill [Snead, of the Lawrence Journal-World] always said we have to give our readers these little gifts and surprises whenever we can. The key is the connection, not the delivery method or the software. With every project, I now ask myself a million times, “How does this connect to our readers and what are they getting out of this?” Taking newspapers into the digital world isn’t about the coolest software; it’s about the coolest connection we can make with our audience.

If you keep that in mind, you'll do a great job in this class.

UPDATE: Rob Curley's work at naplesnews.com recently won FOUR major prizes in the Newspaper Association of America’s Edgies competitions: Best Overall News Site, Most Innovative Multimedia Storytelling, Best Advertising Program and Best Local Shopping & Directory Strategy. His earlier site, lawrence.com, picked up two additional awards: Best Design and Site Architecture and Best Local Guide or Entertainment Site. Check out those and the other winners for lots of great ideas.

And here's a peek at what Rob's up to in his new job.

Minimester grading scale

2007-01-29T09:10:00.000-08:00

The following scale was used for final projects in the Minimester 2007 section of MCOM 407:

Slideshow (20 points)

No title page -2 points
Not at least two minutes long -5 points
Not at least six original photos -5 points
Does not tell a story -8 points
Additional points deducted for typos, no headline, no captions, etc.

Text (40 points)

Trunk: 10 points for a well-written trunk that incorporates compelling links to all branches
Branches: 20 points for well-written branches, with the required minimum of 10 sources
Photos: 6 points for original photos, including thumbnails, large photos and captions on both. Photos must be different from those used in slideshow.
Links: 4 points for useful links incorporated into branches
Total text package of 2,501-2,999 words -5 points
Total text package of 2,001-2,500 words -10 points
Total text package of 1,501-1,999 words -15 points

Minimester asset list for final project

2007-01-18T11:40:00.000-08:00

Here are the files you should have posted (at a minimum):

In your WWW folder:
Welcome.html – add a link to your trunk
trunk.html
branch1.html
branch2.html
branch3.html
photo1small.jpg (150 pixels wide)
photo2small.jpg (150 pixels wide)
photo3small.jpg (150 pixels wide)

photo1.html
photo2.html
photo3.html
photo1large.jpg (150 pixels wide)
photo2 large.jpg (150 pixels wide)
photo3 large.jpg (150 pixels wide)

In a new subfolder named slideshow:
400_300 (a folder of jpgs)
600_450 (a folder of jpgs)
audio_hi.mp3
audio_lo.mp3
index.html

The Price of Plagiarism

2007-01-08T06:47:00.000-08:00

I can't overemphasize the importance of attributing any information that you did not uncover on your own. Every year, many professional journalists find their careers over because they were sloppy with attribution. Already in the first week of 2007,
Jacqueline Gonzalez of the San Antonio Express-News newsroom employee resigned after admitting she used, without attribution, information from Wikipedia in her Christmas Day column. Two other instances of plagiarism were uncovered in other column.

In an article in the Express-News, Editor Robert Rivard was quoted as saying "Nothing is more important to us than the trust of our readers. They have to know with some certainty that we act swiftly and unequivocally in the face of such a transgression."

The best advice: When in doubt, attribute. If you are writing for the Web and found the information on the Web, provide a link to the original source.

Posting a podcast to your blog

2006-11-28T18:13:00.000-08:00

If you are adding podcasts to your blog, all you need to do is upload the mp3 files to your Tiger WWW account, then link to them from your Blogger entries that explain what the files are about. That's it!

Podcasting: Starting to catch on or ...?

2006-11-28T18:06:00.000-08:00

Business Week has an article this week called "What Podcasting Revolution?" and the BBC has one called "Podcast numbers show 'few hooked.'" Both are based on a recent survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The good news is that the survey found 12 percent of U.S. residents online had downloaded a podcast, up from just 7 percent earlier this year. The bad news is that only 1 percent of the respondents say they download a podcast on a typical day.

Despite its title, the Business Week article offers optimism that podcasts will catch on:

Researchers at the Diffusion Group forecast that 11.4 million Americans will tune into podcasts by the end of this year and 21.7 million Americans—or about 10% of those using the Internet—will download an episode in 2007. "We are going to see it reaching into the mainstream consumer market," explains Andy Tarczon, founding partner of the Diffusion Group. Tarczon is confident of growth because he believes that both the availability of podcasts and the increase in people buying digital media players capable of serving podcasts will increase interest in them.

Gannett embraces multimedia and citizen journalism

2006-11-07T07:36:00.000-08:00

The Gannett Corp., which owns countless newspapers, announced this week that it is converting the newsrooms of those papers to "Information Centers."

The restructuring includes initiatives to involve citizens in the process of journalism, mine online community discussions for story ideas, and focus more on database-driven services, and is the first wide-scale undertaking in the industry. As the Washington Post reports, "It's pretty big," said Michael Maness, Gannett's vice president of strategic planning. "It's a fairly fundamental restructuring of how we go about news and information on a daily basis."

Working with the SoundSlides software

2006-11-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

I encourage you to use SoundSlides software for your final slideshows. This program allows you to combine audio and photos into a professional slideshow, with NO technical wizardry.

You can download a demo of the program here and learn how to use the program at home.

Instructions on getting started are here.

Once you have exported your project, you need to publish it. To do so, follow the instructions here under the heading "Some internet publishing experience." You should create a new folder on your Tiger account (suggestion: Name it "slideshow" and put it in your "flash" folder) and upload the files and folders there.

You need to link directly to the FOLDER to get your slideshow to play. For example:
View my multimedia slideshow.

(See the code for this link.)

Podcasting at the Baltimore Sun

2006-11-02T10:33:00.000-08:00

John Lindner of the Baltimore Sun is producing an interesting series of podcasts in which he interviews bloggers. John's "Blography" pieces are a nice model for what you will be doing for this class.

Audio editing/podcasting resources

2006-11-02T10:25:00.000-08:00

A handful of sites I've recently come across may help you with your final audio and podcasting projects.

The first, O'Reilly's QuickStart: Digital Audio Editing site, offers hints on cleaning up audio, doing fades and other nifty tricks.

The Wiki Audio Recording Guide offers a great deal of information on all aspects of audio editing.

It offers more than you'll ever need to know, but this Guide to Podcasting is a great resource for beginner podcasters.

Finally, the Radio and Television News Directors Web site offers a nice guide to gathering sound for radio, also available in a full-color PDF file.

Online journalists need same skills as editors

2006-11-02T10:16:00.000-08:00

The EditTeach Web site posts results of a survey of more than 400 online managers and producers. Rich Gordon, who supervised the research, writes in a column for Poynter Online that the most important lesson was that "the traditional journalism job that most resembles online newsroom roles is that of copy editor. What online newsrooms need are people who have news judgment and can copy edit, write headlines, package and present content on a page."

Bloggers, ethics and the law

2006-10-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

A couple of recent articles deal with important topics for bloggers. First is a Washington Post article about how a blog post escalated into major ordeal for a Washington executive. A PR specialist interviewed for the article noted that:

It's like pamphleteering on the corner, only its cheaper, quicker and vastly more broad....But unlike the traditional media, it's completely unregulated in that there's no fact checking, no editing. It has all the potential for creating a lot of damage to someone's or something's reputation very quickly, and it's almost impossible to eliminate it. Any unsubstantiated rumor has a very good chance of getting out there.

Meanwhile, USA Today ran an article about the increasing number of people who are filing libel suits based on blog posts. The article notes:

Legal analysts say the lawsuits are challenging a mind-set that has long surrounded blogging: that most bloggers essentially are “judgment-proof” because they — unlike traditional media such as newspapers, magazines and television outlets — often are ordinary citizens who don't have a lot of money. Recent lawsuits by Banks and others who say they have had their reputations harmed or their privacy violated have been aimed not just at cash awards but also at silencing their critics.

Audio recorder recommendations

2006-09-22T13:53:00.000-07:00

For your work in class, you will likely find it helpful to have your own digital audio recorder. A model like the Olympus WS-200S, available for under $100 delivered from Amazon.com, will be sufficient. But if you have some extra cash and want to produce professional-quality audio clips, you should look into the flash-memory recorders that have just come to market. The New York Times recently did a nice roundup of three of them, with retail prices between $350 and $500. Because they have no moving parts, they make quiet recordings of the highest quality.

Advice for writers: Learn multimedia

2006-09-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

Emily Sweeney of The Boston Globe notes how her professional development has shifted from writing and reporting to learning how to use multimedia tools. She thinks that learning those skills is essential for all journalists:

Reporters who can produce an edited MP3 clip or a video clip to accompany their news stories can become a valuable asset to any newsroom. And even if you never use an interactive map or video with your news stories, this kind of knowledge can help you collaborate more effectively with designers, photographers, video producers, and other folks in the newsroom.

In a piece for Quill magazine, Sweeney offers seven tips for becoming a "multimedia superhero."

Multimedia Critique Assignments

2006-09-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

As of Sept. 7, here is the list of approved sites:

Kristen Johanson: Being a Black Man
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/interactives/blackmen/blackmen.html

Karen Mulaney: Derby Girls: Thirst for Blood http://extras.insidebayarea.com/features/rollerderby/index.swf

Joe Griffin: Afghanistan Essay
http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2006/afghanistan_multimedia/

Matt Vensel: Big Trigg
http://www.brendakenneally.com/bigtrigg/

Megan Farrell: Chernobyl Legacy http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2006/04/26/world/20060426_CHERNOBYL_FEATURE.html

Casey Seales: Diseases on the Brink: Measles
http:nytimes.com/packages/html/health/20060430_BRINK_AUDIOSS/blocker.html

Sheebah Smith:Tainted Trials, Stolen Justice
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/justice/justice.html

Elizabeth Etzel: Journey to the Border
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/interactives/journeyborder/index.html

David Livinsgton: Battle of Gettysburg
http://www.army.mil/gettysburg/flash.html

Vanessa Hudson: Unearthing the Tse-Whit-Zen
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/klallamintro.html

Amber Browning: Jazz Scenes http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060610/MULTIMEDIA/306100002

Joyce DeLeon: Leave or Die: America's History of Racial Expulsions http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared/news/interactives/lod/index.html

Jazzmen Tynes: Six Months After Katrina
http://www.newsobserver.com/content/multimedia/20060226katrina/

Maureen Green: Speaking of Faith
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/recovery/index.shtml

Justin Cherot: Anatomy of a Fight
http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/flash/2006-02/17661206.swf

Chris Troxell: Expedition Panama
Via http://www.interactivenarratives.org/

Shelby Venson: From Hell to Healing: http://www.billingsgazette.com/modules/flash/20050821meth/20050821meth.html

Webby Awards nominees announced

2006-04-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year when the nominees are announced for the Webby Awards -- the best of the Web. The nominee list is a compendium of some of the best online sites, including blogs.

A hiring editor tells new graduates: Look to the Web

2006-03-20T09:27:00.000-08:00

Anthony Moor, associate managing editor/online at the Orlando Sentinel, and editor of OrlandoSentinel.com, thinks young journalists need to carefully consider working on the Web:

After a long freeze brought about by the dot-com crash and 9/11, Web editors are hiring and Web operations are expanding again. Safa Rashtchy, a senior research analyst at the securities firm Piper Jaffray, recently predicted that online advertising will reach its tipping point in mid-2006. That's prompting news organizations to realign their resources to focus more on Web journalism.

Moor lists several suggestions for success in landing a job in online journalism:

Have good news judgment
Be Internet literate
Know of HTML
Be able to think in multimedia
Have experience writing a blog

Hmm, kinda sounds like MCOM 407 doesn't it?

Similar thoughts from the recent College Media Advisers conference in New York:

This is a wonderful time, a golden time, a fantastic time for media careers.
Single media journalists are a thing of the past.
Two to three years in the on-line/multi-media world is a significant track record and gets you to places unimaginable in traditional media.
Minimum skill set for top jobs: Writing; Reporting; Interviewing; Ability to collect audio, video, and photos; Ability to edit audio, video and photos; Ability to upload to web audio, video and photos

Capturing audio over the phone

2006-03-20T09:20:00.000-08:00

If you need to record a phone conversation as part of your research (or for a podcast), you can learn the basics from this article at the Online Journalism Review. The link to the Radio Shack recorder no longer works, but you can find several different types of phone recorders at Radio Shack; some work with cell phones as well as land lines.

Maryland law requires that ALL parties to consent to having telephone conversations recorded. Make sure you ask for permission to record!

Grading the profile project

2006-03-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

Here are the criteria I used to grade your first project. This project is worth a maximum of 15 points on the 100-point scale for the entire semester. The breakdown:

9 points: Your main article. Here’s what I look for:

Is it clearly focused with a strong central theme about your subject?
Is it well organized?
Is it at least 750 words long?
Does it reflect good research (more than just talking with the profile subject—background research, other interviews, etc.)?
Have you included at least a few useful links?
Does it meet standards of AP style?
Are there errors in grammar and spelling?

3 points: Your photos. Here’s what I look for:

Are there at least two thumbnails (resized proportionately, not squashed out of shape), each with a caption?
Does each thumbnail open a new html page with its own caption?
Is the point of each photo clear?
Are photos technically good?

3 points: Your audio clip. Here’s what I look for:

Is the audio clear and easy to understand?
Is the clip well edited with smooth start and end points and internal edits?
Does the audio clip make a clear point?
Does the audio complement rather than repeat what is in the article?

The dark side of Facebook

2006-03-15T10:51:00.000-08:00

In a recent article titled "What You Say Online Could Haunt You," USA Today explores the growing incidence of students getting expelled, suspended, arrested, booted off teams and dropped from consideration for jobs because of their online profiles. Just one more reminder that the Web is indeed an open book.

Blogs: Old news or just getting warmed up?

2006-03-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

A couple of interesting articles recently on the blogging phenomenon. First is "Twilight of the Blogs," which argues that the trend is already winding down. Second is "Far From a Twilight: Blog Hype Over — Business Has Just Begun," which sees blogs as a maturing medium and one with lots of promise. Which side are you on?

Blog on the run

2006-02-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

For those times when great ideas or photo ops come to you while you're on the move, Sony Ericsson has unveiled a new phone that lets users post words and images to their blogs.

It is the first time a mobile phone manufacturer has included tools to allow people to blog directly from their handset and shows that blogging is about to get a whole lot bigger.

It's interesting to think about how tools like this will affect traditional and citizen journalists alike.

Weblog glossary

2006-02-27T19:08:00.000-08:00

Want to impress your friends, family and potential employers? Just memorize all the terms in the Guardian Unlimited's Weblog glossary (knowing the definitions would be helpful, too).

Adding your audio clip in the profile template

2006-02-23T18:53:00.000-08:00

You'll be using the profile template to assemble the pieces of your first project.

For the audio clip, you have two choices. Choose ONE of these:

Use RealAudio (what we did in class last week):
1. Capture your audio in Audition and save it as a .wav file.
2. Run your audio file through RealProducer to produce a .rm file.
3. Create a one-line .ram text file with the full URL of the .rm file (e.g., http://tiger.towson.edu/~astudent1/profileaudio.rm).
4. Create a link in your .html file (either in the text or in the sidebar) to the .ram file (e.g., Listen to Frank Smith speak about making doughnuts.).
5. Upload all three files (.html, .ram and .rm) and you're set.
Use Flash audio (looks nicer and isn't as hard as this might seem at first glance):
1. Save your audio file as an .mp3 with the filename of audioclip.mp3. If you want to do this, I advise you do NOT use Audition 1.0. You can use version 2.0 (which should now be installed in VB 207) or instead use Audacity (which you can download free and use at home). To use Audacity, you will need to download and install Audacity, then download and unzip the LAME encoder (instructions are here -- it's very easy). You must choose File>Export to save the file as an .mp3; the first time you do so, you'll have to tell the program where you saved the LAME files.
2. Go to Mindy McAdams' instruction page and download the audio_button.swf (right-click on the link).
3. Connect to your Tiger account. Open your WWW folder. Click MKDIR to make a new folder. Name it "flash"
4. Open the flash folder. Click MKDIR to make a new folder. Name it "audio_button"
5. Open the audio_button folder. Click MKDIR to make a new folder. Name it "audio1"
6. Open the audio1 folder and upload both the audioclip.mp3 and audio_button.swf files.
7. If you've followed these steps exactly, you will not have to do anything in the html code to make your clip play.

What one journalist can accomplish

2006-02-23T12:07:00.000-08:00

If you're not already familiar with the work of Kevin Sites for Yahoo's Hot Zone, take a look at a recent article from the Guardian (U.K.). Halfway through his first year of working with Yahoo, Sites has covered wars in Somalia, Iran, Lebanon, Uganda, Congo, Sudan and elsewhere. Working on his own, Sites produces packages including audio, video, photos and text to help his audience understand the human toll of armed conflict. Three team members back in Los Angeles help edit and choose material for his reports, but Sites does all the newsgathering and writing by himself.

Update (from Yahoo): Kevin Sites has been chosen to receive the 2006 Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism. The Los Angeles Press Club presents the award each year in honor of Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and slain by militants in Pakistan in 2002.

The next big thing for newspapers: Podcasting and Vodcasting

2006-02-21T08:36:00.000-08:00

Online news columnist Steve Outing writes in the current edition of Editor and Publisher online that "It's imperative to reach news consumers through digital channels." Outing's column looks at several newspaper podcast and vodcast initiatives and argues that they are important for the future of news.

Watch what you blog!

2006-02-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

A Washington Post article titled "Blogged Out of a Job" looks at the increasing numbers of people who are being fired for what they post on their personal blogs. It also notes that many "human resource professionals read job candidates' blogs to gather information on them before the company decide(s) whether to hire them."

New York Magazine focuses on blogging

2006-02-19T06:50:00.000-08:00

In its latest issue, New York Magazine focuses on the world of blogs and bloggers. Features include a major feature on the haves and have-nots of the blogging world, a good historical timeline, as well as a piece on the most commonly linked blogs.

A guide to Podcast directories

2006-02-15T20:58:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in the new technology of podcasting and don't know where to begin, check out this
guide to Podcast directories. It will help you evaluate the many directories of podcasts and find some of the best.

Primer on multimedia storytelling

2006-02-08T10:38:00.000-08:00

Here's a good resource touching on many of the basics of our class: Jane Stevens' "Five Steps To Multimedia Reporting." It covers the basics of Choosing a Story, Storyboarding, Fieldwork, Editing and Assembling a project.

Free audio editing software

2006-01-26T07:48:00.000-08:00

You'll need to capture and edit audio for your projects in this class. We have Adobe Audition in the labs, and it's a great program. If you're looking for a good free program to use at home, my pick is Audacity. It downloads and installs quickly and offers far more functionality than you'll ever need.

There is only one quirk with using Audacity: You save your files in its proprietary format, then export them to .wav or .mp3 formats. Nothing difficult -- just an extra step.

Uploading files to BaltimoreStories.com

2005-11-30T09:26:00.000-08:00

If your work has been chosen to add to BaltimoreStories.com, you will have to upload your stories and pictures. This manual explains how to do so. You will need to get login information from me before doing so.

Learn how to create your own Podcast -- in two minutes!

2005-11-22T09:55:00.000-08:00

This article on one of the sessions at the 2005 Online News Association Convention includes a two-minute audio clip detailing how you can create your own Podcasts. It's easier than you think!

Slideshow software

2005-11-16T17:15:00.001-08:00

If you need the Real Slideshow software, you can download it here. You can find a thorough instruction manual here.

Flash tip: Using a button to play an MP3

2005-11-15T06:46:00.000-08:00

Flash Journalism expert Mindy McAdams has come up with a very simple way to use a Flash button (which she has already created) to play an external MP3 -- and you don't even have to open the Flash program to make it work. You can find her tutorial and the sample button here.

Flash tip: Using a button to open a Web page

2005-11-15T06:40:00.000-08:00

As I went over in class last time, to make a button cause a Web page to be opened in a browser window, you just need to follow these steps:

1) Create a button and save it to the library.

2) Create a new layer and drag the button to it.

3) Select the button.

4) Open the Actions panel and do these steps in the Actions panel:

Global Functions>Movie Clip Control>On>Release
Global Functions>Browser Network>Get URL

Then add the URL, in quotes. The resulting script should look just like this:

On (release) {
get URL ("http://www.towson.edu");
}

Video podcasts at washingtonpost.com

2005-11-11T11:52:00.000-08:00

washingtonpost.com is now offering users video "podcasts" of select original video news programming. Users can subscribe to existing and newly released video directly from washingtonpost.com or via software such as iTunes.

Video available so far includes news and short-form documentary pieces on the preservation of New Orleans jazz after Hurricane Katrina, large-scale evangelism events and updates on National Zoo panda cub Tai Shan.

The video podcasts may be found at this link.

(Source: CyberJournalist.net newsletter)

Resources for our Flash lessons

2005-11-03T10:36:00.000-08:00

With the tools we used in the first Flash class, you can create actual cartoons. To learn how, watch this Macromedia presentation. The animator uses the same shape drawing techniques we used. The presentation is an hour long, and the latter half includes some animation techniques we did not cover.

In our third Flash class, we'll be working on slideshows. You'll find templates and instructions here.

For the timeline template, go here.

Yahoo Leads Podcast Initiative

2005-10-11T07:13:00.000-07:00

From today's Washington Post:

"Yahoo Inc. introduced a test site yesterday devoted exclusively to downloadable audio programs known as podcasts, a move that some say puts the search engine on the forefront of a cutting edge technology and puts it ahead -- at least in this arena -- of its biggest competitor, Google.

"The site, at http://www.podcasts.yahoo.com/ , offers not only a search feature for podcast fans but also a lineup of podcasts that are new, noteworthy or just popular."

Flash Journalism: Professional Practices Today

2005-10-06T07:41:00.000-07:00

Learn how online news organizations are using Flash for multimedia presentations of all sorts in Mindy McAdams' article for the Online Journalism Review. If you want to learn much more about Flash, Mindy has also written a great book on Flash Journalism.

Ten Years that Changed the World

2005-09-02T17:43:00.000-07:00

Wired magazine recently ran a great retrospective of the first 10 years of the World Wide Web. It's amazing how much has changed in such a short period.

Assessing online news

2005-03-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

10 years out, Nora Paul looks at the promises of online news and finds few of them fulfilled. She concludes, "New methods for crafting and delivering compelling news stories online are still a long way from being fully developed." A very interesting read from Online Journalism Review.

Tips for getting good audio

2005-03-09T21:40:00.000-08:00

While this comes from an article on shooting video for the Web, the tips here are very good if you want to get interesting audio clips for your assignment:

"Ask questions that require a sentence to answer. Avoid questions that can be answered yes or no. Avoid two-part questions – most people will forget the first and only answer the second part. If you need background information, start with that to get interview subjects relaxed with you and the equipment. Then, ask questions that evoke feelings, emotions and opinions. We need to understand why this story matters to people. Use narration to tell the facts of the story.
"Probably the biggest interviewing tip I can give you is something that’s harder than it seems: Stop Talking. Don’t say uh-huh, or yeah, or anything encouraging. Use non-verbal feedback – lean forward, nod, but don’t talk! Let people complete their sentences. And don’t be afraid of silence. You don’t need to jump in to fill space. People often say the most revealing things when they think you’re waiting for them to finish."

You'll also find loads of useful information in this 21-page PDF document called "Sound in the Story."

Grading the first hypertext assignment

2005-03-07T15:40:00.000-08:00

Wondering what I'll be considering when I grade your first hypertext assignment? Here are the guidelines:

1) Does the entire package have a clear theme that is stated clearly in the trunk? This needs to be more than just a topic statement (e.g., "Lint is interesting"). Do all branches support the theme?
2) Is the package based on original reporting?
3) Have you clearly provided the source for all information that you did not uncover through your own interviews? If not, the work is plagiarized.
4) Does the structure of the package make sense?
5) Are there at least two branches?
6) Does the total word count equal at least 1,500 words? If the answer to this or question 3 is "No," you will receive a zero on the assignment.
7) Have the pieces been edited carefully for grammar, spelling and AP style?
8) Do the pieces include a range of diverse sources?
9) Are quotes used effectively?
10) Is it easy to navigate the package? Does every page link to every other page?
11) Above all, does your assignment reflect good storytelling? Is it interesting and interestingly written?

Do all that, and you have an A!

"Print is dead ... get over it"

2005-02-21T09:15:00.000-08:00

Those are the words of Sports Illustrated President John Squires, quoted in a Washington Post piece titled "Hard News." The article examines the changing fortunes of newspapers in our information society and is a good read for any journalist.

RSS for journalists

2005-02-15T15:18:00.000-08:00

You might remember my talking about RSS a few classes back -- a way to syndicate blog content. Well, here's a handy primer on RSS for Journalists. Like the recent article I posted on Podcasting, this will give you a quick overview of everything you need to know to impress your friends (and teachers!).

Who moved my syllabus?

2005-02-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to gain some much needed control of my various Web projects, I moved the class syllabus yesterday. There have been no changes to it; it's just now in a subfolder. To get to any page, just add MCOM407/ before the page name, as in www.towson.edu/~lieb/MCOM407/write4web.html. You can also get to the syllabus from the Course page off www.thomlieb.com.

Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, but I think it will benefit all of us in the long run.

Bloggers in the news

2005-02-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week for bloggers. First, a conservative reporter who asked President Bush a loaded question at a news conference last month resigned yesterday after liberal bloggers uncovered his real name and raised questions about his background.

Closer to home, an aide to Gov. Ehrlich resigned after bloggers connected him to a conservative blog that initiated rumors about an extramarital affair involving Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley--one of Ehrlich's likely opponents in the 2006 elections.

Finally, a reporter for the Durham (N.C.) Herald-Sun was fired in part because of postings on her blog, in which she criticized her place of employment.

A great introduction to Podcasting

2005-02-03T20:04:00.000-08:00

Learn how to add downloadable audio to your blog with this nice overview by Chip Scanlan of the Poynter Institute. Links include tutorials, software to let your computer play blogs, and more.

Good examples of Web design

2005-02-02T08:36:00.000-08:00

Anne Van Wagener of the Poynter Institute surfs the Web and turns up some nicely designed sites. Her column is a good overview of sites that offer new ideas about news design and online storytelling, as well as tools to help you become a better designer.

Fifth Annual Bloggies Awards

2005-01-30T08:46:00.000-08:00

Take a look at the nominees for Bloggies and get a sense of the wide variety of content on the best blogs. You can also view the archives of winners from previous years.

More (free) reading to get you thinking

2005-01-27T19:13:00.000-08:00

For lots more about the changing role of the public in journalism, download or read online "We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information." It's a fairly quick read and should give you plenty of ideas for your project.

Students play part in convergence project on terrorism

2005-01-27T10:27:00.000-08:00

Students from UC-Berkeley were part of a team that has created an investigative report on how the new front line of terrorism has moved to Europe. Read about the project or view the project. Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute calls the project "a prime example of what many who touted 'convergence journalism' hoped might happen -- journalism that leverages the strengths of each media to tell a more complete story than any one media could tell on its own."

How Wikipedia works

2005-01-26T17:36:00.000-08:00

To follow up on a good question raised in class: There is no formal editing structure with Wikipedia. It just depends on the contributors. If you go to any entry and then click the tab for Discussion, you'll see how it works to keep out nonsense like "a duck is a member of the canine family."

Setting up your blog

2005-01-26T15:03:00.000-08:00

To create your blog, you'll need to choose a title that appears at the top of your blog (I picked Writing for New Media) and an address that replaces the x's: xxxx.blogspot.com. Your address should be unique and easy to remember. I used the course number, mcom407.

To add a link, you just type the words you want to act as your link, then highlight them, then click the link button (right next to the T text button). Then just enter the full URL, including http:// and you're set!

Baltimore Sun: The New Digital Democracy

2005-01-17T11:17:00.000-08:00

The Jan. 16 Baltimore Sun ran a good overview that explores the many ways the new digital communications are changing the way we live. It particularly focuses on breaking down barriers between producers and consumers, and on creating new communities. Take a look at this article before it disappears into the archives January 29.

Welcome to the Writing for New Media blog

2005-01-10T16:15:00.000-08:00

To my students,

This will be the spot where I provide updates, examples, etc. for our class. Be sure to check in at least once a week.

TL