For Samford Crimson journalists

Did you know that the New York Times is about to roll out a big video campaign?  The implications are worth some thought, says Mindy McAdams. She points to Peter Ralph’s seven strategies for success and Rob Curley’s quantity versus quality debate.

Did you know this? The Samford Crimson has video cameras and we’re ready to upload videos to the site. See me, Emily, Lindsey or Franklin for more ideas.

We’re going to soon be talking about this a lot. We’ll discuss ways that we can think beyond the newspaper paradigm and how we can use the tools already in place to help you develop audiences, cultivate brands and how that will ultimately help your portfolio.

One such little idea is by using Twitter. Here’s a post from Amy Gahran about Twitter for journalists:

Twitter can be quite an effective radar screen for news or relevant issues.

[...]

Twitter can help you engage people on a personal level, and to demonstrate your interest in them. This is something that, IMHO, many journalists resist — but that can benefit journos and their work significantly once they loosen up about acting like human beings in a public venue.

Twitter is going mainstream now. Early this year I started the Twitter stream at al.com. In a matter of days we had more than a hundred followers — when few people around here were on the service. In the first week we broke two big fire stories via Twitter …

Gahran’s also got tips for how you can get started — which I’d encourage you to do. I’d also encourage you to follow (to follow is to friend if you’re in a Facebook frame of mind) relatively talkative people. Follow those who fall into your interests and they’ll tip you off to ideas and great new things.

Also follow a few people of different and varied interests, just to get a nice slice of the conversation.

You can follow me too, if you like.

Mindy McAdams is an author and professor of journalist at the University of Florida. She’s always good for a regular read, which is why she’s including in the blogroll to the right. Recently she’s written a few posts worth your notice.

• Stuff to teach the next journalists
• Gear for recording phone calls
  

A word about recording phone calls: this is one of those laws that changes from state to state. Alabama is a “one-party consent” state meaning that it is legal to record the call so long as one participant knows a tape is rolling. Some states have different rules in place for taping calls.

Do you know the news?

Remix Your News: Edit your own version of the news, using the same video news sources that were gathered from around the world for Global Pulse and Pulse Latino.

Rate The Remixes: Watch and rate news stories from around the world, or remixes made by users like you.

You really have more than one job as a journalist. In print you’re a reporter and a writer. In broadcast you’re an interviewer, an editor and maybe on-air talent. Online you can do it all. One of the challenges that every reporter faces is becoming an expert on a subject and then filtering and compressing it to give your audience a great, informed story in the time and space allowed.

Here the interview aspect of your job is a key. This story at Poynter has subheadings alone that make it worth your time:

• Start with a question that no one has asked in quite the same way.
• Use your ignorance and your status as an outsider to your benefit.
• Look for people who aren’t experts.
  
• Make the story concrete.
• Ask people to tell their stories, ask about key moments, and get out of the way.

I’d like you to meet Professor Leonard Witt from Kennesaw State, who recently linked to a series of videos trying to answer the question “What skill set does a journalism grads need?”

He’s linked to a few videos there, and they are worth seeing. The obvious answers — writing good leads, crisp copy, good sense of ethics and law and so on — will forever apply. Today you’ll also need to be a varied journalist. The less intimidated you are by evolving software and emerging technology the better off you’ll be. If you can write a mean story on deadline and shoot a great picture and bring home good video you’ve become an invaluable resource.

Make sure you’re a solid editor too.

Here’s a story from The New York Times a few weeks ago about some of those “some day” changes that are taking place.

CNN announced on Tuesday that it would assign journalists to 10 cities across the United States, a move that would double the number of domestic cities where the cable news network has outposts.

But in a reflection of the way television networks are reinventing the way they gather news, the journalists will not work from expensive bureaus — rather, they will borrow office space from local news organizations and use laptops to file articles for the Internet and TV. When news happens, they will use Internet connections and cellphone cameras to report live.

You’re going to be asked to know more, learn more and do more when you leave Samford than you might have imagined. We went to help prepare you while you’re here, and encourage you to take a very active role at The Samford Crimson.