Monthly Archives: April 2008

‘Toronto Star’ lays off entire Web staff

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Hat tip: Danny Sanchez

In a huge purge Torstar Corp., owners of Canada’s largest-circulation newspaper, the Toronto Star, is laying off 160 people, including the entire 10-person Web team. This comes as a shock during a time where one would think the Web team might be the safest place to be (at least I’m hoping so, *gulp*).

Most of the job cuts, taken through severance packages, were already expected, but laying off the 10-person Internet staff came as a surprise, said Maureen Dawson, an official with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.

“Their message to the world is that they’re all dedicated to the Internet, but then they lay off the whole department,” she told The Canadian Press.

“The Star has said they would tell us in the coming weeks where the (Internet) work would go. We have an idea where one or two of the positions would go – but not all of it.”

“I don’t think it’s clear where it’s going for them either.”

I’m not sure if Torstar Corp. knows it or not, but Google hasn’t created a Web product just yet that eliminates the need for a Web staff. They might want to keep around a person or two. You know, someone that at least knows HTML or something. More:

But some industry critics suggested that the newspaper would try to shuffle out its older workers, and hire younger and cheaper workers, rather than train all of the veteran staff on new technology like online video.

“We see this trend of seeking to get the older employees out and bringing in new employees,” said Lise Lareau, the national president of the Canadian Media Guild, which does not represent the Star.

“Training becomes an issue. There’s ways of addressing this other than by (voluntarily laying off) the older staff and bringing in newer staff.”

Wait a minute, so there’s openings in Toronto. Robin, to the Canadian consulate, passport at the ready!

Good online journalism-related reads for today

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Read anything good today?

CoverItLive, live blogging for journalists; Is it too much too soon?

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CoverItLive is a , free (sort of) Web-based live blogging platform that can allow news organizations or bloggers to update, in real time, an event or breaking news story. It has been used and touted by both Newsweek and Seattle’s The Stranger. From the creators:

CoveritLive’s web based software takes your next live blog to a new level. Your commentary publishes in real time like an instant message. Our ‘one-click’ publishing lets you drop polls, videos, pictures, ads and audio clips as soon as they come to mind. Comments and questions from your readers instantly appear but you control what gets published. Try our software for your next live blog. Your readers will love it.

I think this might be a little before its time. Live blogging, in theory, works. Through blogs at the Orlando Sentinel, we’ve done live blogging of golf tournaments, NASCAR races, football games and even of the 2008 CES Trade Show in Las Vegas, Nev. All of those worked well with sporadic, well-written updates to their respective blogs.

Having a scrolling, streaming update log, including reader interaction, would seem too easy a thing to spiral out of control and turn into nothing more than a glorified chat session. Live blogging via the traditional method (if you can call something created a few years ago ‘traditional’) still allows you to moderate comments from trolls and put a little thought before posting. Not only that, CIL ties the reader to the page, chaining them to one spot. People don’t have time for that. I think the average reader looks at a news Web site less than five minutes a day. They aren’t going to stick around just to read chatty updates about a sporting event. In this battle, quality will always win out over quantity.

The quicker we post, the more prone to mistakes, errors and lapses in judgment we become. Would journalists live blogging an event in such an instant format be responsible for off-the-cuff remarks or perhaps responding to commenter with a curt response? What about issues of libel? As great as technology is, we can’t let it overshadow that journalistic integrity and those ethics we are supposed to hold so dear.

Admittedly, I have not used this software so I should not be so quick to judge. From a bloggers standpoint, especially if you are one with an established audience, this is a great idea. A blogger is not bound by many of the rules and forces that journalists must hold to, even in the changing technological landscape. From a journalism standpoint I think this would be a dangerous product to implement, even in the most benign of scenarios such as live blogging a parade or charity event.

We put up the walls of copy-editors, senior editors and other checks and balances to not only protect us from ourselves, but to protect our readers from having to sort through the drivel. Breaking down those walls opens us up to more criticism, more liability and a lessening of our credibility as news organizations. All of the information is already out there for the public to find, we are meant to help filter that content into a coherent and cogent conversation. If that conversation is something they can get from an instant message chat room or Web forum, what good are we?

Like I said, great idea, but probably not yet ready to be adopted by a major news organization, even those that are pioneering and championing the online journalism movement. This is related to something I mentioned earlier about “understanding technology before implementing technology.” With each technological step, organizations need to make sure they don’t slough off their journalistic ideals, ethics and mission of truth in order to jump on board with the next new thing.

I’m a geek for sure, but I am also a journalist, and those two things are sometimes difficult to compromise.

Robert Niles: ‘There is no such thing as “off the record” anymore.’

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So says Online Journalism Review editor Robert Niles. Niles says this in the wake of the huge stink made over Barack Obama’s comments at a recent gathering where journalists were not allowed.

Huffington Post writer Mayhill Flower was there, she recorded what Obama said and the rest is very recent history. What’s funny is that the bigger story is what Obama said, which wasn’t that big of a deal, but that he was in a venue that was supposed to be forbidden to journalists.

Why?

He’s a presidential candidate, a potential leader of the free world. Every place he speaks and every word he says is in the public interest. Speaking to an exclusive group of rich fund raisers isn’t the best way to shake that ‘elitist’ stigma, but I digress. We’re talking about journalism here. Says Niles:

With so many people publishing to blogs, Facebook pages and discussion boards, any professional news reporter who agrees to respect an “off the record” request at a meeting is committing an act of unilateral professional disarmament. I say… bag that. Don’t tell organizers that you’re a reporter. You’re a citizen, too. Get in, and report on what you see, just like any other citizen would.

In fact, the Obama incident provides a compelling argument why news reporters ought to contribute to political campaigns, to buy themselves access to more events that they can cover.

I agree. In the blogger/online journalist/grassroots journalism age, nothing is “off the record” for those in the public eye. Politicians, lawmakers and even celebrities need to know, we are the media and we are watching.

Find sounds with FindSounds for your Soundslides or Flash projects

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Find-sounds

Via Lifehacker:

For YouTube videos, presentations, or even just system sounds, having the right sound effect file can make all the difference. FindSounds, a search engine focused on audio files, is a heck of a lot more convenient than typing “.wav” into Google and wading through inconsistent results. Type in what you’re looking for and specify parameters, and the results are offered in playable previews and waveform diagrams. I almost always found relevant results in the 10 or so test searches I performed, and being able to see how long the sound helps winnow down results when you’re hunting just the right sound to fit into a project. Got your own sound clip search methods? Share ‘em in the comments.

This is perfect for those hunting for that perfect bird chirp, child laughing or alligator growl they need to complete their Soundslides, Flash piece or any other project requiring sound. Great tool.

Wired Magazine planning Web-oriented style book

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According to Jon Friedman over at MarketWatch, tech-minded publication Wired has plans to release a style book with the 21st-century journalist in mind (don’t bother with the video, it’s annoyingly pointless). Evan Hansen, Wired.com editor-in-chief says:

“There is often a separation between editorial and technology,” he said. “We’re trying to create a culture where there is a lot of parity. We want to give editorial people a primer on what do you need to know to work well with the tech people. And the tech people can learn about news people.”

Through bad reporting on Friedman’s part, obviously trying desperately to be cool, I can’t tell if the style book is meant to complement the AP and Chicago Style Books or replace them. I would think Wired would not try and reinvent the wheel and is instead making a niche style book. I may be a tech-head, but no one is taking my AP book from me, I love that thing.

Online Feature round up: Virginia Tech Edition

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v-tech

One year ago Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded many more at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. Today news outlets are remembering the fallen students and presenting features related to the massacre and what can be done to perhaps prevent something like this from happening again. Here’s a quick round up of some of the online features that I saw and that stood out.

  • One Year Later (Roanoke Times) – Though I commend them for making good use of a simple blog format, the inconsistency of the embedded video players and some other elements make it seem a little disjointed. I do like the navigation tabs, however when I tried to click on the ‘Interactives‘ tab, I got a Drupal error. It works now, but there are only two items promoted with only text links. Their memorials map is great looking: large, easy to navigate and contains pictures. Why not play it up more with a large thumbnail? Likewise with the video portraits feature. For the time spent on those they are criminally under-promoted.
  • Remembering Virgina Tech (CNN) – CNN basically pulled together all of their stories and video regarding the incident into one story gallery. Since CNN has the resources naturally they have more multimedia than you can shake a stick at. I do, however, really like the gun legislation Flash map. I do think that news organizations need to stop being reluctant to promote outbound links to local media sites. I’m sure local media in each of those states had a story or two about the legislation or about guns CNN could have linked to in order to add some context. Why not do it?
  • Virginia Tech, Still Healing (Washington Post) – Similar to the CNN feature, though I think they have a lot more content. The problem, it’s a bit buried. If you go to the story linked on the front page, it takes you to today’s story. If you weren’t curious enough, or paying attention, you might miss their entire package. You have to click the ‘Full Coverage’ link to get to the interactive features, victim profiles and multimedia. They should have made their main package link a little more obvious. Bonus to WaPo for including some UGC content. Oh, and WaPo still hides behind a registration wall, use BugMeNot to get by.
  • Virginia Tech Shootings (Richmond Times-Dispatch) – A good example of how not to do an online feature. First, they have no overall title or headline, just ‘Virginia Tech Shootings.’ This doesn’t instill confidence in me that they put a lot of effort into it. Second, they constrained themselves to the size limits of their ad space. They limited themselves to the 665px content block in the middle. Not only that, they contained story links in a confusing and floating scrolling box next to the video. The entire thing looks very rushed. Moving down the page there is a block of links that, due to their design, look like Google ads. Their interactive memorial is nice, but is so small and under promoted that some readers might miss it.
  • Virginia Tech Multimedia Gallery (Virginia-Pilot) – Again, more of a multimedia gallery than a full feature. The vertical navigation, going from slideshows to audio to video and then finally the interactive feature, is a bad idea. Like the whole ‘above the fold’ thing, people get bored scrolling. I know they want their newest content up top, but they could have done two columns or something. The interactive map should be a lot higher. The Pilot also linked to the Associated Press’ ‘Virginia Tech: One Year Later‘ feature. Of course the AP made a good showing. Audio slideshow, timeline and victim stories, all housed in a single, self-contained interactive feature. Most impressive.
  • Va. Tech more secure a year after massacre (USA Today) – The McPaper also didn’t package everything together into one feature, but linked to their coverage on today’s story. This is fine, my only problem with this, however, is that the links to their photos, videos and interactive features are more than halfway down the page. Also, their ‘Remembering and moving forward’ video feature is a big, about 300px box, but the link is actually just the tiny, 20×20 ‘GO’ button. People might miss it and mistake it for a mere memorial ad or something, which would be a shame because the video feature is good.

Naturally, those aren’t all of the V-Tech features out there today. These are just the ones I saw. See any others that stand out? Send a link.

Buyouts galore, it’s a journalist blowout sale! Everything must go!

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Yeah, so more bad news out of the newsrooms. Or is it?

Jack Schafer at Slate.com talks about the good news about the bad news coming out of newsrooms. In summary, newsrooms are getting rid of those that have sat in their cushy positions for far too long, cost the paper too much money in salary and are too far in their career to learn the new skills of the modern newsroom.

The “retirement” of the buyout brigade has the added benefit of loosening the ugly stranglehold the boomers have over the press. I may be risking self-extermination by advocating wholesale boomer expulsion, but there are just too many of us—especially the older variety—in top slots for journalism’s good. The sheer weight of our presence blocks the promotion of the next generation of talented journalists to the most desirable beats.

I’m in inclined to agree, almost wholeheartedly. Journalism is one of those jobs that, though difficult to break into, one can hang on to the position for decades. Once a journalist makes a name for themselves they become highly sought after by competitors, so in order for a paper to keep their “star” they must pay them more. That’s fine in the beginning, but eventually it spirals out of control.

Eventually those treasured giants who the paper is forced to pour vast resources into while being rewarded with limited output, must be purged. Buyouts are one way of doing that. This is not always the case however, and buyouts are not limited to those close to retirement age, but it is simply one way of looking at buyouts in a positive light. Not all is grim and gray as it may seem.

Though there’s no surefire solution to this problem now and no wants to be out of a job, but it’s one of the side effects of a market that can’t break out of it’s one-track, linear mindset. We need to learn to deal with it in order to move forward.

I’m going to talk about all of these things in the future, but the first priorities should be these:

  • Fixing and modernizing the revenue model
  • Standardize Web metrics for news sites
  • Dismiss the “More with less” attitude
  • Cross-platform training
  • Understanding technology before integrating technology

New job search website perfect for journalists, indeed

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indeed.com logo

Being on the verge of graduation I’ve been on the job hunt the last few weeks. One problem that always crops up during an immense job hunt is having to case several different Web sites, job boards and association groups sniffing for jobs.

The problem with any job search, regardless of what your specialty is, is have to go to so many sites and often seeing duplicate jobs on many of them. Already I have about a dozen job sites bookmarked, job feeds in my RSS reader from journalism-related job boards and I have profiles at a half-dozen sites that email me when a job matching my description pops up. All of that has been made a little simpler thank to a new job search engine.

Enter Indeed.com. Indeed is a job search engine that culls job postings from nearly every popular board, in thousands of industries and puts them all in one place. I browsed it for about a half hour and it is amazing. Even though it is not journalism specific, it seems to work well for those types of jobs.

It let’s you enter a job title or key words and a location, if you wish. When the results pop up they can be further filtered by job title, salary, company, location or several other criteria. The returned results only take you to the specific board, so if they need you to create an account (HotJobs, Monster, JournalismJobs.com) and upload a resume then you still need to do that. Still, it’s an incredible time-saver and let’s you search hundreds of jobs in your industry in minutes.

Rating: Highly Recommended.

Good luck out there.

Entry-level cameras for the online journalist or mojo

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DSLR-cameras

Gizmodo has an excellent review of four, entry-level DSLR cameras that are hitting the market soon. The four models are from Sony, Canon, Nikon and Olympus, the current digital camera heavyweights. Having at least a modicum of camera skills is essential for an online journalist, so these sub-$1000 cameras are a great addition to any arsenal.

I currently use a Canon Digital Rebel-XT, which is about as entry level as it gets, though I do need to upgrade my lens. If I ever get to the point where I need go bigger I’ll probably go with one of the upper-level Canon EOS cameras or one in the Nikon D-series. Regardless, none of that matters if you don’t know what you’re doing looking through the viewfinder.

Also recommended, the Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1000 for quick, high-quality video. They recently started issuing these to the reporters at the Orlando Sentinel and it has worked out well. The cameras are easy to use, have a long battery life, start up very quickly and shoot very good quality video.

I used one recently to shoot a post-game press conference at UCF. The only problem is MPEG4-only format and the $700 price tag. If, however, you want to be the next Kevin Sites (one of my personal idols), having something like this is also an essential.

What’s in your bag?

The early days of the Mojo

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Via Boing Boing:

The first days of the mobile journalist, courtesy of RCA.

Portable-mixer

This battery-operated RCA back-pack weighs 53 pounds, including batteries. Antennas for transmitting picture signals and receiving orders from a base station extend from top of pack. Range is about one mile. At rear of camera case is an electronic finder and a microphone for the narrator.

Boy am I glad Al Gore created the Internet.

Quote of the Day: Christopher Hitchens

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In response to the Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit the United States:

If Ratzinger is not asked at every stop he makes, and in level yet firm tones, why he and the Vatican continue to shelter Cardinal Law, our profession will have shamed and disgraced itself. We already know that the Pope is a Roman Catholic. What we need to hear is his reason for giving sinecure and asylum to the man who organized and excused the rape and torture of tens of thousands of American children. And then, when he has given his first answer, we need to hear how he answers all the supplementary questions.

This is from the Washington Post’s ongoing “interactive” feature about the state Catholicism, On Faith. Personally, I think they should have gone with a jazzier title, ‘Catholicism WOW!’ (tip: Dogma), or perhaps something more politically oriented, ‘Pope Watch 2008′.

The reason I put the word interactive in quotes is because, though touted as such, there isn’t much interaction beyond a normal story gallery. Right now it is mostly just print stories dressed up with graphics and a powder blue color scheme and a single video. I assume they are going to add more during the Pope’s visit, but they should have started it off with a bang. Perhaps an audio slideshow of Benedict’s history or even of Catholicism.

The Washington Post has the resources to do a lot more (and win Pulitzer’s). We’ll have to see how they play this out.

Rupert Murdoch and Sam Zell named to AP Board

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Everything I just said, I take it back. We’re all doomed.*

Other reads for today:

“Ensuring that the essential values of journalism are carried forward into the unsettling but enormously promising new world of media is a challenge that all of us in the craft, the journalism academy and the concerned public share. USC Annenberg is blessed with extraordinary resources, from its setting in Los Angeles, to its exceptional faculty and students, to the innovative leadership of Dean Wilson. I can’t wait to begin.”

*I’m only half joking, half.

Are Newspapers Doomed?

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I surely hope not.

That’s the question posed on the Britannica Blog’s extremely lengthy, multiple-post spanning forum, Are Newspapers Doomed? (Do We Care?): Newspapers and the Net Forum. Yeah, that was a mouthful.

Like I said, this is a lengthy read spread out over nine posts. The posts are written by various journalism and new media heavyweights such as Clay Shirky and Jay Rosen and include roughly 30 comment responses from other important folks in the new media landscape. Yeah, it’s a lot to digest and to be honest I haven’t even had a chance to read it all since being directed to it by new media maven Jeff Jarvis in his response to the forum (read this, it has some really fun, crudely-drawn charts drawn by Jarvis).

The initial question though I think is a little too simplistic and hurts the discussion. Are newspapers doomed? That’s no more valid of question than when they asked if radio was doomed at the dawn of television or if the music industry was doomed when the MP3 hit the scene.

If newspapers try and stay exactly the same, making money via the standard business model with owners attempting to reap the 15 to 20 percent profit margins like the days of old, then yes, newspapers are indeed doomed. Doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed…yes, doomed. The better question should be, ‘Is journalism doomed?’

To this I say no, journalism will live on. The medium may change, but news and information will always be a necessity. Media barons, owners and publishers need to embrace this changing of the guard and the change being forced upon them by the Internet, mobile platforms and advances in Web applications. Hanging on to the old model like a child holding on to a favorite blanket is a losing battle and is only going prolong the inevitable.

Cutting news rooms and limiting outgoing costs to maintain those profits is not going to allow a news organization, any news organization, the keep up with the speed of the new media landscape. The age-old adage of “Do more with less” doesn’t apply in journalism. It may work in manufacturing, it may work on a labor union-run dock but it simply does not work at a news organization.

To quote Gus Haynes on HBO’s The Wire: “If the paper is still profitable, why are we making cutbacks?”

Our product has a dual-purpose, one of which is intangible: to inform. We aren’t making widgets here, we’re telling people the news. Regardless of how that news gets to them, people will always need some sort of filter and someone to deliver that news to them. Yeah I’m young, I know, and one day my idealism and love of this business will be beat into submission, but not today.

Even though we are in a semi-dark period in modern journalism, I for one am happy to be embarking in this business right now. Once we finally shed this dark shroud of bottom-line thinking and write first, think later style of journalism, I think the industry will emerge into a renaissance period that will embrace the technology and capabilities at our fingertips.

Either that, or you’ll find me greeting you the next time you step into Wal-Mart.