norton, brian

There have been plenty of posts about Storify, a (relatively) new tool in curating social media. It’s a great and useful tool that will certainly help to shape the future of journalism.

I’ve used it a few times myself:
- Curating a Twitter debate about a College Football Playoff
- Taking a look at the new home of the CWS, TD Ameritrade Park
- And even curating advice for college journalists

That’s why I found this blog post, on the great 10,000 words, to be interesting. It’s the pros and cons of Storify. I really hate to critique the post of a new blogger (see Elana Zak’s tweet here — let’s face it, my blog sat empty for months so who am I to criticize), but I have one major gripe.

Zak discusses Storify as if it is a new form of journalism. One in which fact checking “takes a back seat.” She also asks why someone would use this instead of pounding the pavement (as she says it, “why was I using this instead of going out and finding real people to interview?”).

The problem here is that Storify isn’t a new form of journalism. It’s a new tool for journalism. It’s a tool just like Twitter, a computer or a pad of paper and a pen. It’s a way for journalists to harness the discussion on the Internet without having to do a lot of copying and pasting, taking screen shots, etc. It saves time and makes for an easier reading experience.

Going out and talking to a few “real” people about the weather by pounding the pavement is just fine. But, with social media and Storify, you can get the view of hundreds of people. The way I see it, a tool like Storify allows journalists to provide a fuller picture of the story. As journalists, shouldn’t that be something we strive for?

Lots of great links to share tonight. These are some of my favorites from this week. The Publish 2 link assist in WordPress makes this very easy to pull off.

TBD.com screenshot
Poynter/TBD.com
Some very cool screen shots from @TBD. Lively, vibrant and yet well organized. I love the Long story short part.

YouTube – The Decision….PART DEUX!

YouTube | Aug 6, 2010
Congrats to Anthony Tolliver for signing with Minnesota. Classic AT vid. Good things happen to good people.

Coming (Very) Soon: TBD.com
News Channel 8 / TBD | Aug 6, 2010
Extremely excited to see @TBD when it launches next week. Such a great, creative crew. Fun stuff.

How The Guardian is pioneering data journalism with free tools
Nieman Journalism Lab | Aug 5, 2010
Great read on The Guardian’s data journalism blog. They do amazing work with mostly free tools.

The Evolution Of The Journalism Job Market: We May Be Headed Into A Golden Age
Business Insider | Aug 3, 2010
Golden Age of journalism on the way? Honestly, makes sense to me. Communication is key now.

Dana O’Neil: The Shot and The Effect at Northern Iowa
sports.espn.go.com
Great read about UNI and the impact that beating Kansas had on the athletic department.

Airline pilot to jetski from London to New Zealand on “the ultimate ride”
www.gadling.com
I couldn’t imagine riding a jetski 12 hours a day from London to Auckland. Those Kiwis are adventurous.

Cancer victim tried to pack a lifetime of mothering into two years
Dallas Morning News | Aug 1, 2010
Wow, talk about a powerful read. This really helps put life into perspective.

Media Cache – Norwegian Newspaper Taps Into Web’s Efficiencies – NYTimes.com
NYTimes.com | Aug 1, 2010
I dislike the loss of copy editors, but some interesting thoughts on newspaper/online split from Norway.

I’m extremely excited to see what the TBD crew has in store for us at launch, which is finally coming some time next week.

TBD is a project I have followed someone closely. Who am I kidding, what online journo hasn’t been following TBD closely? There is so much buzz they held a media session today and I wouldn’t be shocked to see TBD as a trending topic on launch day next week

Why all the interest? They have assembled an interesting crew and have a bunch of great ideas, starting with the TBD Community Blog Network.  You can see the post below for more information.

A few tidbits that sound especially interesting to me:

- Complete this story box. Each story will have a box that allows for readers to submit corrections, thoughts, etc. about how to improve the story (and, I believe, stories will be much more fluid). This is very true.

- List reporter. There will be one beat that is focused just on lists like “Best $6 meals in D.C.” or something like that. I think this is a very creative way to tap into an Internet favorite: lists. They drive traffic and spur conversation. Lists are something we really want to launch on our site but finding the time is tough. This sounds like a great solution.

Twitter is buzzing today, so check there for more information on TBD. A few feeds to focus on:
Jeff Jarvis
Mark Briggs
TBD
Steve Buttry

Related links:

Coming (Very) Soon: TBD.com
News Channel 8 / TBD | Aug 6, 2010

Journalistic blogging is fair, balanced and ethical | Media | guardian.co.uk
Guardian.co.uk | Jul 29, 2010
Interesting read on Journalistic blogging.

Swan/Pearl Station Computer – Lost Auction Preview – Profiles in History
www.profilesinhistory.com
Is it sad that I really want this? It’s the Apple II from #LOST. Way out of my price range, I bet.

SCVNGR Launches Sophisticated Rewards Program
Mashable | Jul 28, 2010
SCVNGR is planning an interesting release. It’s like @foursquare mayor rewards, but more sophisticated.

Those wacky Boinx guys release You Gotta See This! iPhone 4 app
The Unofficial Apple Weblog | Jul 23, 2010
If I ever get an iPhone 4, this will be the first app I buy.

Google takes the FTC to school « BuzzMachine
Buzz Machine | Jul 20, 2010
Why does Google understand the news industry’s problems more than most of the news industry execs do?

Metro/Region – Omaha.com
omaha.com
Maybe this is cold, but if a 4% tax is really that draining, you probably shouldn’t be eating out anyway.

NEVER WAKE UP: THE MEANING AND SECRET OF INCEPTION
chud.com
This is a brilliant take on #Inception. Seriously, read this if you have seen the movie.

10 Reasons to Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life – The Conversation – Harvard Business Review
blogs.hbr.org
Very good read here about why we should stop apologizing for our online life. See my blog about this here: http://nortonbrian.com/archives/45

A piece from the New York Times, In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger, has garnered some interesting Twitter comments. The basic premise:

Such is the state of the media business these days: frantic and fatigued. Young journalists who once dreamed of trotting the globe in pursuit of a story are instead shackled to their computers, where they try to eke out a fresh thought or be first to report even the smallest nugget of news — anything that will impress Google algorithms and draw readers their way.

In general, I find the tone of the article to be off base. It’s pretty evident, at least to me, that the writer has a bit of skepticism about online-only news organizations. I could be wrong, as it appears from the outside at least, that the New York Times is more focused on the online product than most traditional “old media,” but I’m not so sure.

Either way, as someone that deals with the delayed deadlines of print mixing with the immediacy of online, I found the article interesting. Personally, I think those tactics (a “big board” of stats and early morning e-mails about a missed scoop) go a bit over the edge. Hard work is key in journalism – print or online – there is no doubt. As Dr. Wirth told me while on my visit to Creighton as a high school senior, don’t expect the average 9 to 5 with journalism. Anyone getting into this business should realize that. But, at the end of the day, we are all human. You should be able to work hard without burning yourself out.

Conference expansion has been a wild and crazy ride for all involved – from the schools involved to the journalists covering the situation. With Nebraska’s official move to the Big Ten on Friday, it placed our sports department right in the middle of the fire. Our online sports team (two of us with some advice from Nick, one of the ASEs) is still relatively new (we only official took the reigns over posting our own content about a year ago) and, with our coverage this week, I feel like we finally found our footing.

We’ve had a few other opportunities before (Dana Altman to Oregon and the hiring of Greg McDermott at Creighton) but there had always been some issues with our coverage. Either we were slow to get the story or we didn’t spend the time planning how best to present the information. This time was different, although to be fair this was much easier to see coming.

So what did we do:

• We built a page to house all of our conference expansion information
• On that page we have a Publish2 widget that shares links from across the country. It’s been fun linking to some of the great work being done on the subject
• We hosted an all-day (well 10 to 6) live chat/blog on Friday during the meat of the news. This was the second time we’ve done an all-day chat (the first was on Signing Day in February). The first few hours were largely readers chatting, then when the actual news broke we switched to a live blog format (almost no reader questions at that point).
• Lee Barfknecht broke the story early on (although I believe KC Star beat us by a little bit).

Overall it was definitely a success and I look forward to seeing the site-wide numbers when all is said and done. The chat was extremely successful with over 21,000 readers joining in at some point during the day. It was a lot of fun to interact with eager fans all day and they were very quick to thank us for our coverage. I think this went a long way in improving the view of our staff on online (along with our daily chats as well).

Now I don’t make this post just to toot my own vuvuzela. Sure, I am proud of what we accomplished. But, with that said, we could done a better job as well. Some things that could have been better:

• The conference expansion page only launched on Thursday (and I only came up with the idea on Tuesday night).
• Our main story was not updated for awhile after we got the initial scoop.
• Not having message boards really hurt us, considering the interest in the live chat. Ideally the message board could have been used for chatter and rumors/speculation from readers and the live blog could have been used to better curate the news. Plenty of readers loved the chat, but a lot were turned off during the first few hours when it was just a chat room (with some news sprinkled in).

Any suggestions on how we can make our breaking news coverage better? We are always looking for ways to improve.