Perfecting the internet search

Below are some links that will be used for a training session with APN journalists.

Savvy online searching skills could be the difference between a good story and a great story.

You need to be the master of Google. You need to find what others don’t, which means you need to get past the top listed links (these are there because they have the most links to the page – this is why wikipedia is nearly always at the top)

Google Advanced Search should be your default position. Search via, time published, genre, location and within a specific site.

Facebook has also beefed up its search-ability with Facebook Search

Twitter has great advanced search options along with a number of tools that help you find stories, sources and information.

TrendMap

Twazzup

Listorious

Looking for some more social media skills? BBC trainer Claire Wardle has made these great screencasts.

Online reporting tools

Below is another set of links for a training session with APN journalists.

Being a good online journalist isn’t just about presenting a story well online. It’s also about harnessing online tools to help you in the reporting process. Here are two tools which will help you keep across the ‘white noise’ of information on the internet.

RSS Reader

Google Reader lets you subscribe to websites so new content comes to you when it’s posted.Think of it as your own personal media monitoring service. Reader keeps track of which things you’ve read so that when you only see unread items when you come back. If there’s a dark blue border around an item, Reader is marking that item as read.

You will need to create a Google account if you don’t have one. You can do this with any email address.

To get you started subscribe to this bundle that I have created for you.

Social Bookmarking

What if when researching a story you come across a webpage that probably isn’t updated regularly, but has some information that is useful. You want to keep a list of websites, like you do in the favourites section of your internet browser. But let’s say you want to do this for all the different areas that you write. Delicious allows you to bookmark all sites under an easy referencing system called tags.

The easiest way to do this is to add a button to your internet browser toolbar.

Adding quick interactivity – GoogleMaps and Timelines

The final set of links for a training session with APN journalists.

GoogleMaps and interactive timelines are quick and easy ways that you can add interactivity to a story.

For a story that is geographically-based, GoogleMaps is a free and easy tool to use. All you need is a Google account and you are ready to go. Google also provides great instructional videos, to help you create your maps.

Dipity is a fantastic online interactive timeline tool. After creating your first three timelines for free, you can continue with accounts that start from $4.95 per month. Check out how the Seattle Times used Dipity in its coverage of police shootings. One of the things I like most about Dipity is the flexibility it gives you for how your timeline can be displayed – in a list, traditional timeline, map or flipbook. Dipity also has a number of instructional videos, which can help you make the most of its features.

The future of journalism

Here’s the video of the Herald Sun’s Future of Journalism panel discussion I was involved in yesterday.

The death of the blog

It’s occurred to me that I have too many bad habits that make me feel incredibly guilty. But before you start thinking of me in this fabulously debauched rockstar lifestyle, I should say that my sparse blogging is one of those bad habits. Keith Richards eat your heart out, I know. But the fact is that stuff happens (I spend three months in the States researching, I’m trying to finish a PhD, I’m training in newsrooms and teaching the next generation of journos) and maintaining this blog slips to the back of the list. I find myself doing exactly what I tell would-be bloggers not to do – I am not regularly updating content. I do think about it most days, but somehow I just don’t seem to get back to the ‘add new post’ window.

I started this blog for a reason. I wanted to blog. I wanted to engage in this space, meet like-minded people and share information. Blogging was growing at such a rate that I needed to be teaching it and I couldn’t very well teach it without doing it. Then, if I am completely honest, as my readership grew I saw the potential for growing my profile. I am afterall a freelance writer, trainer and consultant so it was good to be recognised in my field. Today and probably for the past 12months that I have been slack in maintaining this blog, all of these reasons are still relevant, yet I find it hard to make the time to blog. Why is that? Well, put quite simply, I think we may be encountering the death of the blog.

I get to engage, meet like-minded people and share information everyday – but on Twitter and Facebook. I point to information, yes, information that I didn’t create, but such a high percentage of blog posts are just reactions to other online content. I discuss issues, post reactions and find sources and information – why would I need to blog? But then there are those occasions, like this one, where I have an idea or issue the I want more than 140 characters to dissect. It is at times like these that I find myself finally opening that ‘add new post’ box and writing. So perhaps this post needs the title: ‘The death of the blog (as we know it)’, because I think the days of the ‘you must blog regularly/ daily/ hourly’ are past. Instead the blog fulfills a different purpose. It is a space or destination to point to. A space where you can create content, curate content, but only when the space and facilities of Twitter and Facebook won’t do it.

Some tips for teaching online video

Another day, another conference. Well that is a little of what it feels like while I am over in the States. Across this past weekend I went to another fabulous conference – Journalism Interactive – run by my host, the University of Maryland. Heaps of fabulous sessions, but one in particular that will be of interest to regular readers of this blog – the teach-a-thon. Essentially, a session where 12 journalism educators got 15 minutes each to give a practical tip on teaching some element of online journalism. You can find a full list of presentations here.

One that was of particular interest to me was Andrew Lih‘s presentation on shooting video. I’m lucky as students usually come to my online journalism class having already learnt video shooting and editing in television journalism. I, therefore, focus on ‘what makes a video work online’, compressing video and generally trying to break students of making formulaic TV packages complete with a piece to camera for web video. But I may incorporate the five- shot method Lih, discussed as a way to get students to produce some engaging video without focusing on getting their face on the screen.

Called the BBC 5-shot method and pioneered by Michael Rosenblum, the method involves instructing students to follow a formula in shooting so that the edit process is made simpler.

The Method goes like this:

• Closeup on hands
• Closeup on face
• Wide shot
• Over the shoulder
• Unusual/ side shot

These shots can then be followed by an interview that can be used for audio over the shots taken and spliced between. Why does this method work? It will provide a sequence that can always be cut together and gives students lots of b-roll or fill shots that are usable.  Lih was kind enough to share his handout which you can access as a pdf through  his slideshare account.

Teaching social media curation and verification to journalism students

When I first began teaching social media to students three years ago, I would start the lesson by asking ‘Who uses Facebook?’ Not surprisingly, even back then (three years is a lifetime in the land social media technology) 99.9% were active on Facebook. I would then ask ‘Who uses Twitter?’ And I would generally find only one or two tweeters. This year, however, the response was vastly different. More than half of the students had started a Twitter account. Yes, students did still need some instruction on how to use these platforms effectively as a working journalist, but it appears that there is room (read time – 12 week semesters are just so short) to get into some further detail.

I think there is no doubt that curating social media contributions and collaboration will be an increasing part of the day-to-day activities of a journalist. Hand-in-hand with this development is the need for journalists to have effective strategies for verifying this social media sourced information. I, of course, try to incorporate discussions of these issues, but I have discovered a tool that I think could make the teaching of these concepts far more interactive. Storify is a media narrative platform that allows users to create news narratives by combining information from Twitter, Facebook status updates, YouTube, Flickr and other sources. I first came across Storify at the Online New Association conference (you can read my  post about the conference) and I think it could be a great assignment for students to learn these important concepts.

As Kelly Fincham outlines in her fabulous post on how she uses Storify in the classroom, Storify is not about cut-and-paste journalim, but is a tool for the journalist curate content and add context.

In operation for only a year, Storify has already been used for  stories such as the  death of Osama bin Laden, resignations of Ellen Weiss and Rep. Anthony Weiner and the Casey Anthony’s verdict.

I definitely plan on investigating the use of Storify for my online journalism classes next year. I think setting an assignment where students choose an issue or event to present in Storified format will enable them to practice and understand the principles of:

• information selection from social media
• verification of information
• contextualisation of information in a fast moving medium

An example of how Storify can be used for breaking news

Interested in some further reading? Check out these blog posts for more Storify goodness:

Mark S. Luckie shares how newsrooms and journalists are using Storify.   Zombie Journalism offers journalists (and journalism students) 10 ways they can use the tool, and Poynter tells how Storify’s best uses turns news into conversations.

ONA 2011 conference – top takeaways

I am now one week into a three-month research visit to the US (I’m hoping I will have more time to blog now that I am not teaching). The University of Maryland has been kind enough to host me and I will be using my time here to research users of American participatory journalism sites.

Luckily for me, my visit co-incided with the annual Online News Association (ONA) conference. This annual conference brings together online news journalists, executives, academics and technical representatives and left me feel excited about the future of our industry. Below is an overview of some of the best sessions that I attended.

Entrepreneurial journalism

One of the key themes, for me, from the conference was the success  that start ups in the online journalism space were having. Find a round up of the session in tweets here and a great presentation on the process for getting a journalism start up off the ground.

Using social media wisely

As journalist’s we need to be on Facebook and Twitter – right? We are also finding ourselves solicting images, tips and sources from anonymous internet dwellers. So how do we verify this information? Here are some notes from an ONA presentation on just that – which interestingly highlighted the importance of traditional journalism work – even in this space. Who would have thought!

For some more detailed information on how to use Facebook (particularly the newest features just unveiled), check out Facebook’s Journalism Program Manager Vadim Lavrusik’s presentation. I’ll blog more on my thoughts on these changes soon.

Top techy trends

This was one of my favourite sessions – and not just because Amy offered freebies (bacon toothpaste anyone?). If you think about all of the possibilities that some of these great new advances in technology offer journalism you’ll see that our industry could have a very bright future indeed.

If you are looking for more recaps from the conference, the folks at Journalism.co.uk wrote this great blog post.

What gets you excited about online journalism?

It is the beginning of semester and so I try to fill my first few lectures with lots of inspiring examples of exceptional storytelling online. Here are some of my favourite stories that I have collected over the years.

• An interactive, that incorporates multimedia and showcases what you can do with a breaking news story:  The Guardian Middle East unrest
• The power of involving your audience before you even publish the story and how to present data heavy stories in an engaging manner: The Guardian MP expenses
• Another example of a data story that is presented in such a dynamic and engaging way: LA Times LA homicides
• An oldy, but a goody. How a broad issue can be covered using a multimedia package: Wall Street Journal The rise of rural India
•  The power and beauty of the audio slideshow to tell a story: NY Times: Platoon Ambush
• The use of a timeline to let a user navigate the complex background to a story:The Guardian Path to Arab protests

It’s interesting that the favourites I turn to again and again are all international. I do have a few Australian examples that I use, but none have really captured the imagination of just what is possible so well.

What about you? Do you have any favourite and inspiring online journalism examples?

A journalist’s guide to developing an online presence

At the recent Walkley’s Freelance Journalism conference I was asked to speak on developing an online presence as a freelance journalist. It was a fun session, in which La Trobe University’s Lawrie Zion and Anthill Magazine’s James Tuckerman also gave some very valuable and interesting advice. Here’s a recap of what I presented.

In order to understand the online world – and let’s be honest that’s where journalism is heading – you need to operate in it. Here are my top 6 tools (which are a combination of my personal favourites and those sourced through the Twittersphere) that will not only have you operate in the online world, but can actually help you with your day-to-day job.

1. Twitter: It is the social media tool of the moment and with good reason. It enables you to tap into a huge network of other journalists, potential editors, potential sources and your audience or at least they could be your audience. Twitter is a hugely important tool for finding stories and leads, but it is also invaluable in driving traffic to stories.
2. Google Reader: The internet can feel like a ‘white noise’ of information. For many making the first steps into operating in this space it can be overwhelming just how much there is. Google Reader is the answer. I like to think of it as my personal media monitoring service. Rather than visit the hundreds of different web sites and blogs that I like to read I can have them all delivered to one site. I can even set up a topic based subscription for particular stories or beats that I might be working.
3. Delicious – social bookmarking: Delicious works hand-in-hand with Google Reader for me. Rather than have a large list of browser favourites or bookmarks, I save stories or static websites to my delicious account. I can access these bookmarks from any computer, but more importantly, I can save them under relevant tags so I can easily search for them later. They are also presented in a format that makes it easy to share with others.
4. Flickr: The social image sharing service in absolutely invaluable. It has a great selection of creative commons licensed images that you can use to brighten up any story or blog post. It is also a great way to get high res images  to editors without clogging their inbox.
5. Linked In: I will admit it took me a while to fully realise the benefit of Linked In. Yes, it is an online CV, but I think its real value is keeping in contact with and up-to-date with all of those previous professional contacts. The sort of people that you wouldn’t call for a chat – you don’t have that type of relationship. Linked In lets you see if they have moved on (perhaps to a publication where you need a foot in the door?) and keep up to date with them professionally.
6. WordPress: I love WordPress – you can probably tell that, given my blog is hosted by it. It’s free and really easy and lets you create a blog and therefore an online presence in a few minutes – what’s not to love.

Ok, so there is one glaring omission from this list – Facebook. I have actually done that quite deliberately. Facebook has great potential for bringing users to content of news websites, but I think it is more limited for a freelance journalist. A Facebook network is determined by a mutual relationship (each must accept the other as part of the network) which means that you will continue to draw from a smaller and already engaged personal network. I think this limits its use for an individual. Given that there are only so many hours in the day – I would rank it beneath the others listed above in terms of usefulness.