It's been quiet for quite a while, so I just wanted to give a brief glimpse at a few of the resources I've discovered during the last several months:

- NextNewsroom (http://www.nextnewsroom.com/ -- not to be confused with the NewsroomNext project) - A college media group gets serious about modeling industry-wide change for others to emulate/adapt.

- News Videographer (http://newsvideographer.com/) - A good source of information for a new-to-video person like me.

- Shawn Smith's blog (http://www.newmediabytes.com/) - This fella is a producer at the news source for a good chunk of my old home state. Some of his ideas are intriguing.

- Wired Journalists (http://mediageeks.ning.com/) - If you have the google toolbar installed with Web Clips, this site's Yahoo-Pipes-based feed stream will get automatically installed, and it will keep you busy finding all sorts of new approaches to media. In fact, it's likely that if you watch this site's feed(s) for a bit, all three of the other sites will pop up.

Labels: journalism, media, multimedia, news, newspapers, newsrooms, organization, skills

Andrew Donohue is executive editor of voiceofsandiego.org, a nonprofit, independent online newspaper focused on issues impacting the San Diego region. According to the organization's funding description, the publication is the only professionally staffed, nonprofit online news site in the state focused on local news and issues. Donohue oversees news coverage and reports on local politics. He also won the 2006 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Online Investigative Reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists. Donohue's examination of an affordable housing program in San Diego abused by participants and contractors showed "the value of cultivating sources and displaying integrity," according to contest judges quoted by SPJ. "Goes beyond just good reporting in dimension, documentation and results."



Bobbi Bowman is diversity director for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, one of the most active professional journalism organizations in North America. Recent printed works include articles on immigration and diversity issues for the San Francisco Chronicle and The Poynter Institute.

Labels: diversity, editors, education, gljjif2007, media, multimedia, newspapers, online, video, young journalists

It had been about six weeks since I mailed off an internship package to my number one choice. I, being confident that I'd already built up a good rapport with the "key folks" within that organization, banked on this being the most promising prospect of the several internship programs I'd applied to for the summer.

I had a phone interview with this organization's recruiter about a week after I mailed in my application. The phone interview seemed to go well:

"I'm really interested in working with "so-and-so", I really admire their approach to multimedia. And I'm especially impressed with the "such-and-such" story that you all published about "such-and-such" topic."

I was confident that I'd at least demonstrated that I knew several things about the organization and the folks responsible for producing the aforementioned work. I was then told I would be contacted in about a week or two, whether or not I was to be brought on as an intern.

Two weeks pass and I meet with my multimedia coach, who happens to work for the organization to which I had applied. She suggests that I call the recruiter and then, if I didn't hear back, send an email.

I had already called, left a message and did not get a response. So, per my coach's advice, I sent an email. And still I got no response.

Four weeks pass, and then five and then six. At this point my anxiety level had reached its highest heights. I was tired of being patient. I wanted to have some idea of what my summer would have been like.

So I hastily picked up the phone and dialed the recruiter's direct line. The phone rang twice and I heard a voice on the other end:

(paraphrased) "I'm sorry, but we did not choose you for the internship. Our multimedia editor is looking for someone who has all the skills required for producing multimedia and just hadn't had a chance to do it at a daily paper. You mentioned that you had not yet learned Flash."

I held the phone to my ear in complete shock (though my voice and tone did not express this to the recruiter). Not only was I disappointed that my ideal summer would not come to fruition, I also didn't understand how my not knowing Flash seemed to be the deciding factor in why I didn't qualify for the multimedia internship.

I immediately wished I went to school as a Flash design major or computer programming major, on top of majoring in journalism. If ever I've felt inadequate, it was after that phone conversation. It was hard for me to swallow the fact that I had worked so hard to learn every other skill involved in online media; and the one skill I have yet to learn has me wondering what else is out there for the multimedia producer who doesn't yet know Flash.

Labels: internships, multimedia

This, by far, is the most addicting thing ever.

It brings up an interesting topic, though. Do you guys at BGSU consider this type of work journalism? At Ohio University, they put the students who aspire to do this type of work in the in the school of telecommunications or in visual communications, which in no way has any affiliation with our J-school. I think it's bull.

If you watch a good one, let us know by posting it in comments.

Labels: college_media, flash, journalism, media, multimedia, online, video

Read this New York Times story, titled All the World's a Story, and start the debate in our "Comments" field below.

Is journalism, reporting and news organizations better off as a free agency model? No real newsroom, no full-time reporters, instead you outsource the story. A free agent reporter is picked up for an assignment pitched by readers, who contribute the initial facts and lead maybe. They're calling it "Wiki-journalism."

I dunno man. What do you think of the pro's and con's?

Labels: journalism, media, multimedia, news, newspapers, online, organization, story_planning

We're finally getting soundslides down here at my mid-sized paper. If you don't have it, you most likely will within six months: It's cheap and handy.

Since we're getting it, I figured this was a good time to put a bit of a public service message out there to anyone going into newspapers: You'll likely be using this product, so spend a few minutes to use it correctly.

I've been looking at soundslides presentations since The State News at MSU started doing their own groundbreaking, home-grown versions, and one thing has disturbed me a ton: Most papers leave captions turned off. For example: This or this. They're nice, but they lack default access to a layer of information that would be easy to provide.

I had always thought that this was a flaw of the soundslides software until I saw this. In the first two (and most other examples available), captions are hidden behind a button, if they're available at all. In the third, captions are automatically turned on.

Now I know that we have a choice (which, incidentally, is what convinced us to finally purchase the product).

We can try to be TV stations (we'll fail), or we can be the next step in what was formerly known as print media, with a blend of images, sounds, text to provide information and links to even more information. Newspapers' strength has always been their ability to provide exactly as much context as a reader wants, whether he or she is browsing the headlines or reading a 48-inch story all the way through, complete with breakout boxes. Now it's up to us in the next generation to keep that context available instead of letting it wither.

Do you think we're up to the task?

Labels: career_advise, college_media, education, flash, journalism, maestro, media, multimedia, news, newspapers, online, story_planning, student_press, video

Actually, you'll look like a goober if you DON'T read this.

PEJ's 2007 State of the Media report

Labels: interviewing, journalism, multimedia

This is by far, the coolest job post I have ever seen. It looks as though the position is a little out of an entry-level job seeker's league, but it's exciting for anyone interested in the multimedia industry to know how much newsrooms are investing in these positions.

Click here and turn on your sound.

By the way, if you are a print reporter, you can easily become a self-proclaimed multimedia journalist. Utilize your school equipment that is available for rent, shoot some photos, video, or audio, and find a computer equipped with multimedia software and play around. If you need a little guidance what software to use with certain types of media, email me. I'm not sure if BGSU has an available multimedia lab, but if it doesn't, I can suggest some tried and true freeware to download to your own computers.

Beware, though. Once you start playing around with posting multimedia, it's hard to stop.

Labels: east_coast, flash, job_posting, journalism, multimedia, video, virginia

For photographers and page designers, there are quite a few Web sites on the Internet where you can build your own online portfolio.

Doing this will help your internship hunt tremendously. It's a low-cost way to organize and present your work. When you get an editor's attention, they can quickly see your work online instead of waiting for the mail, and losing focus of you in the meantime.

It's also an easy way to show off your work to family and friends who don't get to regularly see the print versions.

The most popular page design site is News Page Designer, this is where all the professional designers have their portfolios.
One very nice up-and-comer is College Front Page. There both photographers and designers can build their own CFP Personals Page, which shows off your work in a very nice revolving slideshow, complete with detailed captions you can type explaining your thoughts for each piece.
CFP Personals also is a bit more fun, it's sort of like the Facebook of journalism portfolio sites.
Photobucket is one of the more popular free sites for amateur photographers.

Regardless of where you build an online portfolio, you'll need to make your pages into much smaller jpg or pdf images. News Page Designer has a tip sheet on how to do this.

Labels: applications, applying, career_advise, clips, college_media, editors, flash, internships, job hunt, media, multimedia, newspapers, online, portfolio, resumes, skills, snd