Online No Longer an “Ugly Stepsister” at Miscellany News

The Miscellany News has “entered into the next generation of online journalism,” according to its editor in chief in a recent piece for Inside Higher Ed.

 

The goal of the online transformation, the EIC wrote, was to shed the stigma of the paper’s online version as an “ugly stepsister” to the print edition:

 

On our new site, reporters can contribute live blogs, attach videos and other multimedia to their articles, and display high-resolution photography in a way that our print publication never could. Best of all, The Miscellany’s site is flexible, no longer burdened with the stagnant design so common among news sites in the 1990s. We have become one of only a handful of college newspapers in the country . . . to adopt a Web 2.0 approach and craft our site using up-to-date CSS and XML standards.

 

 

The site (screenshot above) is especially exciting because it is proof that a Web-friendly, Web-first j-philosophy can exist within smaller student newspapers, a group of publications that have the least amount of resources and assistance enabling them to make the leap to an online news world.

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Should Attempted Suicide Story Have Been Run?

A short article run in The Chronicle at Duke University earlier this month about a student’s attempted suicide has spurred vicious criticism on campus and even a poster campaign calling for the editor in chief’s resignation.

 

Via College Rag, critics’ two main points of contention: The article effectively identifies the student involved (by naming his dorm and gender, leaving an easy-to-follow gossip trail); and the incident is only slightly newsworthy at best (since it concerns a private citizen carrying out an essentially private act).

 

A letter to the editor from a former Chronicle editor asked: 

 

What, exactly, was the point of running that story? The student was apparently not charged with a crime, nor does the attempt appear to have had newsworthy ripple effects beyond the predictable gossiping about it. Lest you think that suicide attempts are inherently newsworthy, please ask yourself when you last saw a major newspaper run an article about the suicide attempt of a non-public figure.

 

Last week, angry students peppered Duke’s campus with posters adorned with similar complaints and unflattering photos or faux-photos (it’s not clear which) of the newspaper’s editor in chief. 

 

The story and reader reaction highlight the journalistic difficulty of dealing with suicide and attempted suicide.  Do I think an incident that brings police and EMS to a campus dorm late at night deserves coverage?  Yes, I do.  If I was a student living in the dorm, I would be interested to know why sirens were blaring outside my window and I think it is important to hear from authorities instead of just hall gossips.  Should the story’s reporting have been more general, avoiding references to the student’s gender and the specific nature of the incident (including labeling it an attempted suicide, a term whose connotation runs far deeper than its literal law enforcement meaning)?  In my opinion, again, yes.

 

What do you think?

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Nebraska J-Students Rock Out Election Coverage

University of Nebraska journalism students will be alllllll over Election 2008.  On Election Day, they will carry out live reports via the student multimedia news service NewsNet Nebraska and provide real-time updates on a special section of NewsNet’s Web site.

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According to a Nebraska j-prof coordinating the coverage:

In preparation for Election Day . . . students have researched and investigated the issues. Stories in pre-production that will air on election night will include profiles of senatorial and presidential candidates; state legislative and congressional races; the GOP in small-town Nebraska; the college vote; the affirmative action amendment on the Nebraska ballot; the history of exit polls; the blogging and You Tube phenonema during this election cycle.

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Breaking News(y): Two Cool New Media Classes at Missouri

Students at Missouri University’s School of Journalism are currently enrolled in a pair of cool new media courses, courtesy of new MU J-School partner Newsy.com.  The yet-to-be-launched site, founded by an MU alum, “offers an unprecedented global and macro point of view,” according to The Maneater student newspaper.  “The site collects video news from various media outlets worldwide and then analyzes and compares how multiple sources report the same story.”

 

 

Sounds impressive enough.  Interesting to see what it will actually look like.  In the meantime, its main contribution to MU is its staffers’ development of two courses that debuted this fall: advanced global converged news and global online marketing and advertising.  (Say that three times fast.)

 

In the latter class, according to the instructor, also Newsy’s vice president of marketing and community:

 

Students are learning about tools to analyze and track traffic to see what types of videos are popular with what type of audience.  The class is learning how to create a buzz online, how viral marketing works by using social networking sites like Facebook, social media sites like Digg and communication platforms like Twitter.

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Student Journalists’ “Campaign Coverage ’08”

As election day nears, a college journalism initiative worth knowing: A team of students from the University of Utah and China’s Cheung Kong School of Journalism at Shantou University have been covering all-things presidential and political during the U.S. election season for an online endeavor they have dubbed Campaign Coverage ’08.

 

 

As the site describes the effort’s aim:

 

From gavel to gavel at both political conventions through Election Day, the Campaign Coverage ’08 team will file stories with over two-dozen media outlets in China and the United States. Hard news, human interest, opinion and election-year color, the team of international journalists from two starkly different political systems engaged in this historical undertaking will bring a unique and fresh perspective to political media coverage.

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Afghan J-Student Sentenced for Blasphemy

A journalism student in Afghanistan has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for blasphemy, ironic because it is actually being hailed as a small victory by human rights advocates who were worried the sentence would be death.

 

According to The Associated Press:

 

Prosecutors alleged that [24-year old Parwez] Kambakhsh disrupted classes by asking questions about women’s rights under Islam.  They also said he illegally distributed an article he printed off the Internet that asks why Islam does not modernize to give women equal rights..  He also allegedly scribbled his own comments on the paper.

 

The Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and the International Federation of Journalists have each made public statements of distaste about various facets of the case. The scariest charge: Kambakhsh’s sentence may be a consequence of his journalist brother’s criticisms of the country’s political leaders and atrocious human rights record.

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Is it time for Journalism 101 2.0?

The debate between the power of online and print in collegemediatopia continues.  (See previous post!)  Another back-and-forth made popular as of late: Should the inverted pyramid be rejected from a j-school near you?  Or more generally, is the old style of j-writing and reporting not worth the j-101 class in which it is being taught?

 

According to an editorial in The New Hampshire:

 

Some students [at the University of New Hampshire] claim they want more variety to their journalism education. They call for specialized training in magazine writing and sports writing, in features and in new media techniques. Meanwhile, they complain about the beginner journalism classes.  They claim, in the face of a struggling newspaper industry, that learning traditional techniques and styles of writing is passé and unnecessary.

 

The TNH response: “They are wrong and we think our classmates need to look at the reality of their situation, and understand what is valuable about the things they are learning. . . . What they [employers] are going to care about [prior to new media or feature-writing talent] is that you can identify news and report it, which is what you are learning at UNH.”

 

I personally agree.  Use new media.  Let alternative storytelling styles run wild.  But first, learn the basics.  What do you think?

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Take That Newspaper Death Watch: Part II

Interest in student newspapers at Vermont colleges and universities is up, and not just the Web versions!  As The Burlington Free Press reports, “Never mind online editions, which are popular among parents and alumni.  The students themselves are still reading the good old hard copies.”

 

 

Even The Cynic at the University of Vermont is optimistic about the popularity of its print(errific) edition.  Same for The Campus at Middlebury College.  According to the paper’s editor in chief:

 

We have tried in past years to enhance the potential of the Web site by making it an interactive portal for more than just our print newspaper (blogs, videos, etc.), but have not been able to make much progress.  Our focus here on campus remains on the print issue.

 

But wait, the naysayers will argue, a focus on print will leave you less prepared to enter the Webedeviled world of the professional j-industry.  Maybe so.  But I think it’s also time for a chicken-and-egg question in response: Along with what students need to learn about the professional press awaiting them in the future, isn’t it time for the professional press to look back and learn from certain facets of the studet media’s obvious print success?

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Student vs. Student: To Be Settled at UND

There is now a second Student at the University of North Dakota.  The UND Student Senate passed a bill this past week allocating start-up funds for a new newspaper, The Student Journal.  It debuted Thursday. 

 

 

The paper seeks to fill a niche perceived by its founders: An apparent lack of coverage in The Dakota Student, the official UND student newspaper, aimed at student organizations.  Interestingly, and possibly as a rebuttal to the founders’ charge, The Dakota Student covered the Senate session objectively.  I’m sure an editorial will soon follow.

 

A greater amount of voices in collegemediatopia is great, certainly.  This one smells like a bit of inside baseball to me though, with two student senators being so involved with the new pub’s creation.  I say an early story should be an investigation behind-the-scenes of the Student Senate.  Show your editorial independence!

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“Vilest Rag You Can Imagine” Celebrates 90th Birthday

As The Globe and Mail reports, The Ubyssey student newspaper at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver turned 90 years old recently.  That makes it “old enough to be John McCain’s dad,” according to an editorial the paper ran to mark the occasion. 

 

 

The newspaper has distinguished itself as a crusader against racism, sexism, fraternity hazing, and parochialism.  Past critics declared it a “glorified gutter newspaper” and “the vilest rag you can imagine.”

 

But honestly, its current chief editor could care less: “The newspaper’s very ‘now.’  We’re doing this now.”  It’s a stance former staffers must admire.  As an old Ubyssey editorial noted: “[T]he main aim of the paper is to print the news while it is ‘hot.'”

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So Where’s the Beef with J-School Enrollment?

The latest Journalism Industry Scaring Students story appeared yesterday in The Arkansas Traveler at the University of Arkansas.  As the nut graf mentioned, “They [j-students] hear about the decline of newspapers, the layoffs, the buyouts.  They hear about the drop in advertising revenue, the hiring freezes . . . [a]nd they’re worried.” 

 

Butttt, as this piece and others have noted, students are still enrolling in journalism schools and within j-departments at universities nationwide.  In fact, enrollment at most schools/depts. is growing (although many related articles admit the basic news-editorial sequence is not as robust as yesteryear). 

 

So, where’s the beef?  Seriously, with “harsh job prospects” awaiting them, according to the Traveler, why are students still enrolling en masse?  Is it their love of writing?  Their infatuation with the pop culture aura of the journalist-as-superhero?  Their loathing of other subjects like math and science?  Their idealistic belief that they will be one of the remaining few to merge the words newspaper and career together?  Or maybe their hope that new media’s worldwide (web) domination will soon lead to an explosion of related j-jobs?  

 

In the words of Joe Grimm, j-industry guru:

 

Interest remains high, journalism school enrollment stays strong, students are interested and willing-there just aren’t as many jobs.

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National ‘Enquirer’ News

I swear I’m not playing hometown favorites!  Yes, I am currently in Singapore, and yes this is now my second post on The Enquirer, an independent online news outlet launched earlier this month by impassioned j-students at Nanyang Technological University.  But the paper has more than earned this follow-up post, in part by its appearance in more blogs and news articles over the past few weeks than almost any other college media outlet or issue that the RSS aggregator Gods have placed before me.  

 

 

The latest story comes from The Straits Times, the national newspaper of Singapore.  It connects the site’s start with students’ concerns about the administrative censorship of a recent article in the NTU campus newspaper, The Nanyang Chronicle.  Accrding to Enquirer co-founder Chong Zi Liang (affectionately known by some within the university as “Francis”):

 

As the Chronicle is funded by the university, the administration has the final say on whether some stories can or cannot be reported. I felt there was a need for an independent avenue to report these stories which can’t be covered in the Chronicle.

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It’s the E-Content, Stupid

College news media 2.0 must always remain content-focused, according to the exec. ed. of The Detroit Free Press and a finalist for the directorship of the j-school at Texas Christian University.  

 

According to a Daily Skiff write-up on Caesar Andrew’s recent visit to TCU, the longtime journalist touted new media as the means to deliver the real goods: the content.  In Andrew’s words:

 

It’s not just an awareness of digital trends, and it’s not just the purchase of certain equipment.  It is really creating a fluency as it relates to the digital options for telling stories. . . . Ultimately, it’s not about the technology . . . that is just the means of getting someplace.  But the content, still, makes all the difference in the world.

 

It’s a nice sentiment certainly and one with which it is tough to argue.  It’s also the same thing I’ve been hearing now for years, even as the e-medium continues to be driving the messages created and debated in the college j-world.

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Student Journalists’ Futures To Be Outsourced?

As a colleague who passed along this USA Today story noted in an e-mail, “It’s not college journalism, but still, wow.”  The basics: MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton speechified on Monday at the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association that outsourcing might be in journalism’s next wave.

 

According to Singleton:

 

One thing we’re exploring is having one news desk for all of our newspapers in MediaNews … maybe even offshore . . . In today’s world, whether your desk is down the hall or around the world, from a computer standpoint, it doesn’t matter.

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Rebel Yell Copies Stolen for Homecoming Float Construction

Editors at The Rebel Yell report that members of UNLV’s Greek commuity stole hundreds (possibly thousands) of copies of the student newspaper recently to help construct a float used in a homecoming event this past weekend.

 

 

Is float construction merely a cover, however, for a larger Greek grudge?  As the editorial shared:

 

For the last couple of weeks, representatives of the Greek community have been persistently requesting to have a special page in every issue of the Rebel Yell solely dedicated to Greek community activities, events, updates, et cetera.  The Greeks make up less than 2 percent of the student population at UNLV, so we didn’t necessarily think that this merited devoting a special page to Greek Life in every issue or even every other issue. This may have strained relations with Greeks, but we still hope it was sheer laziness that contributed to their use of our newspapers to make paper maché.

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