Dispatches from the living amongst journalism's walking dead

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Throwing my hat into the ring for journalism’s future

Beginning this Friday, members of the Online Journalism Association will have the opportunity to shape our industry’s future by voting for the next ONA board. While there are a lot of great candidates, I hope my fellow journalists will give me a shot.

When we were asked to submit a platform, I described my wishes for the organization.

So I realize that platform isn’t too specific. So over the next couple of days, I will lay out here some of the ideas I have for ONA to carry out this vision. If I get elected to the board, great. I’ll do my best to figure out what’s possible and try to get some of these accomplished, If not, I hope those who serve on the next board will consider these ideas.

Platform One: Bring In New Blood, Support New Leaders

I’ve met a lot of innovative, hungry journalists in my travels with Digital First and as a freelance journalism trainer. These are the folks who stand out in their local newsrooms – teaching themselves a new tool or programming language, staying late to work on personal projects and always making themselves available to help their less digitally savvy colleagues.

These journalists are often the primary source of digital support in their newsrooms, but they need support, too. Many are somewhat isolated from support within the industry, perhaps because they are in sparse media markets or have a less than encouraging newsroom culture. That’s why I propose a two-fold outreach effort to reach these journalists:

1. Aggressive expansion of local ONA chapters in the Midwest, South and West.

Tapping into the resources we have in ONA at the corporate level of many large journalism companies (DFM, Gannett, Tribune, Cox, Scripps and several TV networks), we should kick off local meetups at the city, state or regional level (depending on the market). these key players can help identify local leaders who can lead the charge for local meetups. We can help by luring in attendees with appearances by national industry leaders and personalities (many of whom are members).

While we could use it, the push wouldn’t be to get these local groups paying membership dues right away. Our initial goal would be just getting them into holding regular (or semi-regular) meetups to discuss tools, tactics and journalism issues. To fully tap into the resources ONA can offer, they’d then need to move toward a more formal membership agreement.

2. Train the Trainers.

What ONA does with ONACamp and collecting online tutorials is great – and I propose we add a new element in the form of “Train the Trainer”-type events. As I said above, many of the people pushing change in their local newsrooms are lonely players and they may not have much in the way of preparation or confidence to be trainers.

While we may not be able to offer this training in person, ONA should launch an online series of tutorials from the great trainers in our midst to help local leaders become better trainers. I’m thinking of tutorials in preparing engaging presentations, developing skills assessments and setting up incentive-based training programs. I’d imagine we could also offer sample checklists, handouts, training programs, evaluations and the like.

Cover It Live

How to Set Up A Chat Using CoveritLive

Lauren Boyer, a business reporter at the York Daily Record/York Sunday News, contributed to the following step-by-step directions for setting up a live chat between readers and panelists using CoveritLive. Many of these steps would also work for setting up a liveblog on your site where multiple staffers could contribute and readers can leave comments and questions.

First: Go to coveritlive.com and create a (free) account.

 

Cover It LiveCreate a chat

  1. Click the “sign in” button in the upper right hand corner and log in.
  2. Click on My Account in the upper right hand corner. The Build tab on the home screen should be highlighted.
  3. Fill out the information about your chat accordingly: Time, date, title and a link to where the chat will be displayed on your site (if you don’t have this yet, put in your home page and add the real link in later). You can schedule chats and liveblogs as far in advance as you’d like (and CiL recommends getting the file prepped and on your site days in advance, if possible).
  4. Click Next. On the next page, select a category (likely News or Sports).

 

Embed Code

Customize your embed code to the size of the chat window you want (make sure it will fit into your online story or blog template). Copy the code and paste it into whatever platform you plan on using for the chat (this might be a story file on your website or an entry on your blog).

If you are embedding the chat onto Facebook, WordPress or other sites that don’t allow iFrames, check the right box under the displayed embed code to get a custom code for you.

Set Your Panelists

Under Additional Options, click Add Panelist/Producers. Under Add Panelists enter your guest panelist’s e-mail address and press the green plus sign. Adding Producers would allow another person (presumably a member of your staff) to have admin access during the chat.

Then, click the green “Send Invites” button at the bottom. Click “Save” at the bottom of the screen.

 

More Options

Under Additional Options, you have these options available to add to your chat or liveblog:

  • Enable Email Comments: Would allow users to email in comments that will show up in the chat console.
  • Enable Reader Login Options: Make it so only logged-in users can comment. Login options include Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or your own comment system.
  • Add Twitter Feeds: Add tweets from specific Twitter accounts or a running hashtag to the published stream. This is excellent for liveblogs, but could also work with chats.
  • Send an email invite to readers: Allows you to craft a custom email to send readers who wanted a chat reminder.
  • Add a Coming Soon Reminder: Enabling this gives you a special embed code that will have a box for readers to sign up for reminders when the chat starts. (Note: Make sure the link in your Location field is right!)

 

Notify your panelist

After you’ve set up the panelists in CoveritLive, let them know that they should have received an e-mail from an application called “Cover It Live.”

Tell them it’s important to save that email, as it has the link inside that they’ll need to click on at the time of the scheduled live chat. When they click on it, they will need to enter a login or username. It’s easier to tell them to enter a new username, since they probably don’t have a CoveritLive account (your staff, however, should have accounts).

Once they click on the chat link on the date of the chat, it will open what Lauren describes to participants as a “90s-style chat room” or an instant messenger window.

 

At Chat Time

Sign back into your CoverItLive account. Under My Account on the left hand side of the screen, click Upcoming. Locate your chat under CiL Events, click Launch Event Now.

Note: If you’re on an account used by multiple people, click Settings on the left-hand side of the chat console and change your display name to your name.

Only you and your panelist can see the reader comments coming in to the right side of the chat screen. To approve comments, thus making them visible to the public, click the green plus sign on the individual comment. To send a private message to the sender, click the yellow key sign. To block a user, click the red circle.

CoveritLive Chat screen

CoverItLive Chat Screen View (Image: CoPress)

Inside the chat, you have a lot of options for what you can do to enhance the reader experience, like adding polls, uploading media, adding trusted commenters (like other staff), displaying a scoreboard and adding in options on the fly.

 

Ending Your Chat

Just Xing out of the screen won’t do anything. Go under Tools on the left side of the chat screen, and click option that says End Live Event.

 

Afterward

Access Your Past Chats: Go to My Account > Completed Events. Select the event you want and click on the buttons along the top of the menu to see what options you have available.

Edit Entries: You can edit your chat after the fact here, if need be.

Save your Archived Chat: Keep this content around for others to see. You have the to either leave the chat on-screen for a user to replay or you can copy it all down as HTML and save it in a file in your CMS. This is a good idea if you want the chat to be searched by Google.

Check your chat stats: Log into the account and click Completed on the left side of the home screen. Click the button to select your event and click the “Statistics” button (looks like a pink, blue and green bar graph).

 

New Crowdsourcing, Curation and Liveblogging Training

Hi all! I’ve been traveling a lot for Digital First lately to spread the gospel of social media to my colleagues. So, if you’ve seen my presentations before, you’d know that I make very wordy Powerpoints so that people who weren’t there to see me prattle on about my favorite things can still follow what we went over (also, they keep me on task in-session).

So here are some recent training sessions that might be of use to you, your staff (or students, if you teach). Please let me know if there’s anything out of date or if you know of new tools I should be touting around DFM and on the interwebs at large.

Basic Overview of Twitter, Facebook and Google+

Social Media for Photographers

Social Media Roles for Editors

Curation for Journalists (including a step-by-step guide to Storify)

Crowdsourcing and Verifying Tips From Social Media

Liveblogging, Livetweeting and Chats

Advanced Social Media Techniques (gathers a lot of the above)

Citizen Journalism Is Booming In Egypt and The Middle East, Despite Serious Risks

(Eds note: This is also cross-posted at The Huffington Post)

“American? You are welcome here.”

I must have heard that three dozen times during my visit to Cairo, Egypt last week. Every Egyptian I met made it a point to let me know I was safe in their country.

Egypt is, after all, in something of a PR crisis following a revolution this past spring and regular demonstrations ever since. For a country that relies so heavily on tourism, foreigners’ continued fears are directly affecting many residents, from the guys hustling camel rides at Giza’s pyramids to the restaurants and hotels that are usually bustling with Western tourists.

Many people told me, “Go home, tell Americans it is safe here.”

So there you go. I can at least vouch for myself and say I never felt in danger (except for when I took Cairo cabs – talk about a rush!).

My tour guide lamented the notably smaller number of tour buses lined up in front of the Sphinx and Great Pyramids. She told me the numbers had been down all year, but she was really hoping they’d pick up in the fall, usually a very busy season.

Though tourism may be down, another industry (if you’d want to call it that) is thriving all over post-revolution Arab World: Citizen journalism.

Many online news outlets have launched or grown after the dust has started to settle following the Arab Spring. MediaShift describes the citizen journalism landscape as three-tiered: Independent bloggers; joint initiatives from citizen journalists; and larger citizen journalism platforms such as Global Voices and Menassat.com.

Citizen journalism has a long history in Egypt , in particular. Since the early 2000s, bloggers and activists were chronicling complaints and demonstrations against then-President Hosni Mubarak outside the purview of the mainstream media.

While the news availability may be spreading, there are still dire consequences for citizen journalists (and professional journalists) for writing negative posts about the wrong parties.

In March, Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad was arrested for criticizing the Egyptian military’s role in the revolution. He was sentenced to three years in prison for libel. Human Rights Watch called his arrest “the worst strike against free expression in Egypt” in more than three years.

On Monday, activist and blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah was arrested for speaking out against the military junta’s role in violence that erupted at an Oct. 9 Coptic Christian protest in Cairo.

Despite the dangers of doing civic journalism in a time of such upheaval, I had an opportunity to work with some Arab journalists who are doing just that all over the Middle East. I was actually visiting Egypt as an instructor with the International Center for Journalists, helping to guide a selected group of journalists working on investigations of civic issues in their home communities.

Some in this group were documenting cases of staggering government corruption. As part of their coverage plans, each had to consider how to best protect themselves – and the citizens they’ll be working with – from the imprisonment (or worse) that could result from such reporting. It was quite sobering for this American journalist to see what others are willing to risk for the truth.

While the consequences may not be as frightening, citizen and independent journalists in the U.S. also play a key role in exposing and reporting either ignored or unknown happenings in their communities.

This is what we’re trying to help facilitate through OfftheBus, The Huffington Posts’s citizen journalism program covering the 2012 election process. We’re recruiting an army of volunteers to help make sure our elections are honest, fair and open.

For some, this means reporting stories we at the national level may be missing, as OfftheBus contributor Alex Brant-Zawadzki did when he was first to report on the raffle of a Glock pistol by a Republican organization in the home district of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who had been shot by the same kind of gun earlier this year. The story was eventually picked up by news outlets all over the U.S.

Even those who wouldn’t consider themselves reporters have a role to play in holding the nation’s candidates and campaigns accountable. Our reporters can’t be everywhere at once, so keep your eyes and ears open for suspicious tactics, messages and outreach efforts – and let us know what’s going on.

One of the ICFJ program participants I met in Egypt, Ali Ghamloush, is leading a citizen journalism effort in Beirut, Lebanon. He co-founded AltCity, a social venture aimed at expanding access to tools, resources and spaces for independent publishers, activists and tech entrepreneurs.

Ali told me about a sort of newsroom-on-wheels that AltCity takes to more remote areas of Lebanon, giving basic training and computer access to citizens eager to tell their own stories.

His program got me thinking about how we at OfftheBus could be providing more resources to people right here in the U.S. who want to have a role in civic reporting. We might not have a bus to take to your town (but it’d be pretty cool if we did), but we do have the wide reach of The Huffington Post to help citizen journalists report, edit and publish their work for a potentially huge audience. Please, email us and let us know what more we can do to help you share your own stories.

Check out the ongoing work of OfftheBus citizen journalists on the 2012 elections and Occupy Wall Street. We’ll soon have more citizen journalism projects available, so sign up for our email list so we can let you know when they’re starting up. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to read the latest work from our volunteers.

Training: Intro to mobile journalism tools

Last week, I taught a mobile journalism workshop as part of APME’s Newstrain seminar at the Newseum here in Washington, D.C. While I’m not a mobile journalist per se, I am a journalist that loves my smartphone. The class was aimed at those who are new to most mobile news gathering, reporting and publishing apps and practices – with and without smartphones.

We got into:

As part of the training, I gave out a handout of entry-level mobile tools for gathering media, reporting news, publishing and being productive on the go. I gathered these from my own experiences and those of other online savvy journos I know. Check it out (also after the jump) – and tell me what, if anything, you’d add. 

New media ethics, same as old media ethics

Earlier this week, the Patch site in Palo Alto apologized after a freelancer  plagiarized a story from another website.  An apology posted on the site stated that copy was lifted from VentureBeat, an online tech news site. It doesn’t state if the freelancer will continue to work for the site, but the apology includes this:

The writer has been told that taking work of other writers or news organizations without attribution is absolutely not acceptable.

I would hope, at least, that this isn’t the first time said freelancer has heard this.

Patch sites haven’t had the best rep when it comes to plagiarism, similar lifting incidents have occurred in West Hollywood, New Rochelle (NY).  But really, this isn’t about Patch at all. It’s about all of us in the growing new media world.

The spate of plagiarism charges leveled at Patch are indicative of an industry that is growing so fast that it’s leaving its employees behind.

New media ventures are hiring up a storm right now. Patch boasts that it is the largest hirer of journalists in the United States. Huffington Post, Politico, TBD and others are also hiring for online-only news operations. These workforces are hired cheap to work fast, which can lead to inexperienced journalists working with little or no hands-on editorial leadership if not handled correctly.

Not that a lack of knowledge about ethical and legal issues is limited to inexperienced journalists. I can personally account for several instances where journalists far above my pay grade and double my experience have revealed a startling lack of regard or knowledge for media ethics (especially as it pertains to the web).

Because many new media orgs don’t have the manpower to constantly monitor the work of employees and freelancers after they get started, it is important that there is some degree of ethics and legal training for all new hires and contract employees. I’m not talking about asking them to sign some document of complicated legalese in their first-day pile of healthcare forms and sexual harassment policies – I mean real policies and guidelines, laid out in a way that will stick.

Short of a formal class or sit-down on these issues, a document outlining the highlights of new media ethics and legal issues should be distributed to new employees. It should be straight-forward, easy-to-understand and outline definite consequences.

Here’s what I would highlight on the copyright and plagiarism front:

  • Don’t copy or use text, images or multimedia without permission from anywhere on the web – this includes Facebook, Twitter and Google images.
  • Credit all sources and link whenever possible.
  • When aggregating others’ coverage, don’t use more than a paragraph – and ALWAYS link to the original with named credit.

What else?

A Beginner’s Guide to Location-Based Services

Foursquare and other location-based services hold tremendous opportunity for media companies willing to get on board with an unconventional approach to interaction while it is still in its infancy. Following is a very basic overview of these services, including a glossary and tips for those who may not be familiar with these tools.

What are location-based services?

These are any programs or applications that take advantage of the mobile web and GPS capabilities of certain mobile phones to create an interaction based on a user’s location.

An Overview of What’s Out There

Foursquare is a popular location-based app that combines elements of Twitter, city guides and computer games. Users “check-in” to locations via a mobile app, alerting their friends as to their whereabouts and earning points, badges and special offers from local businesses.

Gowalla is the next closest competitor, though it operates on a slightly different system. Here’s an excellent comparison. Gowalla’s best asset is its “trips” features, which lay out a group of destinations in a particular city for someone to trace the path. This has huge potential for media and the travel industry.

Twitter added geolocation to its tremendously popular service earlier this year – and in mid-June they unveiled Twitter Places, which has venues targeted by geolocation that users can append to tweets. One leg up on the others is a feature  where users can explore recent tweets and other venues in their Places location.

Keep an eye on Twitter in this space – they have a lot more users than all the others combined, which could really push geolocation services further into the mainstream.

You can also never leave Facebook out of the equation. They are constantly developing new features to take on other social media – and word is they’ll be launching their own location-based features this summer.

There’s also MyTown, which isn’t as widely used, but has a unique focus on the gaming aspect of these apps. MyTown has a touch of Sim City and Monopoly in its gameplay, allowing users to accumulate and spend virtual cash to buy and rent property.

Early forerunners to these apps are Loopt and Brightkite, which were mobile apps/sites for early adopters of smartphones to find one another. Problem was – there weren’t all that many of us to make it very interesting. Loopt has recently added new features to become more focused on recommendations. Brightkite has, for the most part, remained without a focus on gaming, existing for more of a bare-bones check-in to alert friends as to your location.

Glossary of Common Terms

Check-in: This is where you tell the app where you are. You can check-in from just about any kind of venue – hotels, restaurants, stores, attractions, intersections, etc.

Shout: A tweet-esque message accompanying a check-in on Foursquare (though Gowalla offers something similar). This can be sent out to Facebook and Twitter if you have it set up that way.

Tip: User-added advice that pops up when you check in to a venue on Foursquare. This is what makes Foursquare useful, so tip often!

To-do: Like a tip, but more of a note to oneself.

Badges or Pins: Certain patterns of check-ins can lead to a user earning these virtual rewards.

Trips: Gowalla offers a collection of venues one can check into on an organized tour of a city. You can create these yourself or take public trips.

Mayorships: Some businesses offer exclusive offers for the user who has checked in to their location the most on Foursquare – aka The Mayor.

Do’s and Don’ts of Location-Based Services

Don’t check in at home – not only is it cheating, but it can be dangerous. Don’t check it at someone else’s house without permission and really, don’t check in anywhere you think it might not be wise to share (like where your kids go to school, for instance).

Don’t broadcast your location to Twitter or Facebook unless it’s actually interesting. At least include a shout or message if you intend to share your location beyond the service.

Don’t cheat. Foursquare is a game people take seriously, so don’t check in as you’re walking/driving by a place or otherwise stack your stats.

Note: That said, you can go to m.foursquare.com to leave shouts if you aren’t on the scene but want to update users as to what’s happening at a location. This is good for breaking news when you aren’t on location.

Do know that it isn’t for everyone. If you don’t like people knowing where you are, don’t use it. If the only places you regularly go are your home and workplace, Foursquare isn’t made for you (and that’s OK).

Upcoming: Using Foursquare in journalism

Need-to-Know Twitter Tips for Journalists

As we’re hiring new staff members for every position from web producers to listings editors and transit reporters, a lot of my job at TBD will be devoted to bringing all those new hires – plus some of our existing staff from News Channel 8 and WJLA – up to speed on social media tools and practices.

I don’t think it’ll spoil anything to say we plan to use social media quite a bit in every aspect of TBD, so that training will be very important both before launch and as we go into the future and technology changes. Some of our staff, I imagine, will already have a rich background in social media use, while others may not be as comfortable just yet – so many levels of training will be vital.

I’m in the process of officially updating all of my documentation, so I’m in full resource re-evaluation mode. As I post on training plans, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on what you think is missing and offer your good examples of social media use you think we should take to heart.

Today – Twitter!

So most of us know now that Twitter is a rich way for reporters to connect with sources and readers as well as build their own brands. In addition to the basics of Twitter use, new users need to know how to find the right journalists, sources and locals to follow, using/understanding hashtags and how they can use Twitter for better reporting. I usually point newb reporters to the work of tweeting reporters on Muckrack and use the live presser tweets from @theHyperFix as a good example of live-tweeting.

There are a million great resources on using Twitter. I’ve collected quite a few I like to use.

The next logical step in Twitter training is using it’s vast amount of data to find information, track trends and find sources for stories. Sites like BackTweets, TweetGrid and Twitter’s own pretty formidable search engine can really help a journalist looking for people tweeting about [insert subject here] in their area and beyond.

Web Up The Newsroom recently had a great post about using Twitter search tools in reporting and sourcing that I think may be the best description of I’ve seen geared toward reporters.

Aside from the data search, Twitter’s geolocation data makes it easy to watch trends and tweets as they happen on a map – which is great if, say, news just broke in a certain area and you want to see what’s happening there from afar. I particularly like Bing’s Twitter maps (which can turn into quite a timesuck if you let it). SocialGreat is also nice if you just want to see what places seem to be trending across all the geolocation platforms.

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If you’d rather see a list than a map of trending local topics, you could check your Twitter home page – or, better yet – check out Trendsmap (using data from another great site, What The Trend). A lot of the time, these are silly chain letter hashtags or obvious news (like how Gulf and Oil are trending here right now), but sometimes you can see reaction to real-time events pop up in these trend searches (check it out right after a celebrity death or during a big sporting event to see what I mean). Trendsmap also has a great visualizer.

If you know what keyword you’d like to track over a course of time, Trendistic has a decent trend graphing application.

Aside from Twitter, there’s obviously a lot of other social media we’ll want to use in our day-to-day operations…but that’s for another post, my friends.

In the meantime, what are your favorite tips and tricks, apps or uses for Twitter I should be sure to pass on as we start training?

A new media how-to roundup

Every now and again I try to pass along tips on how journalists at any point in their career can add to their skill set. Here’s some great tips and how-tos I’ve found lately you might find helpful if you want to break into media – or break out.

  • Taking the plunge and starting your own blog or news website? OJR has a great checklist to help you get off on the right foot. Whether you’re a college student or a mid-career journalist looking to get your name out there in a new way, this should really help you figure out your plan. And, if you use WordPress to host your blog or site (I recommend it), here’s a friendly DIY guide to WordPress troubleshooting from our friends at the OJB.
  • If you’re looking for a new online storytelling or crowd-sourcing technique, try using a lifestream or eventstream to tell a story in a narrative form using tools like Tumblr or Posterous. Using a stream, you can combine blog posts, tweets, images and other sorts of updates around a subject from several different people to flow into a single “stream” in chronological order. It’s sort of like a Friendfeed that tells a story. Try it out.
  • Or if you want to get really experimental, try the “mapped” writing model for online news. This technique isn’t so much a narrative as a “choose your own adventure”  for long-form news. It involves an overall summary (or nut graf, if you will) followed by a series of “threads” that don’t need to be read in a particular order. I learned about this model back in online journalism class back in j-school – and I never thought it would come into use. Whaddya know.
  • Data fiends, multimedia producers and Flash fanatics can get great ideas for unique and innovative maps from 10,000 Words. Data visualization is a big deal for online media, buy now the key is making those maps simpler, prettier and fun. (Note: The images on the post are blown out, but it’s a solid list of examples). If you’re just a wannabe data fiend, the blog also has tips for finding and visualizing data. Very cool.
  • User-generated content doesn’t have to mean “amateur” content. The Knight Digital Media Center offers up some great tips for training citizen journalists that could make submitted news a valuable information asset for your site (and it helps the community too). Remember, not everyone had to sit through several credit hours’ worth of copy editing class – so just be patient.
  • Reporters, in particular, should consider expanding their social media brand by setting up a YouTube account. Those cats at Old Media, New Tricks have great how-to advice for branding yourself on YouTube. Yes, it can be more than just funny cat videos.
  • Take it from me, it’s tough to manage comments on your blog or news site, let alone learning to love them and use them to your advantage. I think a lot of the opinion in this piece is a bit pie-in-the-sky (because I’ve been there), but they offer good tips, nonetheless, for understanding online communities and managing commenters.
  • If you haven’t been using Twitter lists yet, here’s Mashable’s primer on what they are and how they work.
  • This is more for organizations rather than individuals, but Social Media Today has tips for making employees into effective Social Media Ambassadors. Hint: It goes beyond just getting everyone on Twitter and calling it a day.

Recommended reading: Content, traffic and pay walls

Recommended reading for April 21st

These are my recommended links for April 21st:

Twitterizing your staff

Newspapers all over the country all seem to be springing into action on Twitter. If they aren’t already there, many are at least starting to check it out for use in their newsrooms.

Steve Buttry, the Information Content Conductor (how’s THAT for a title?) at Gazette Communications in Iowa is holding a webinar entitled “Leading Your staff Into the Twitterverse” through the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Here’s the tipsheet he’s including for the webinar of several resources for those getting started on Twitter. It’s got a lot of info on how to set up and run an account and how to make Twitter work for you as a journalist (including an answer that question I get in every training session, “What do I say?”).

Check it out. Also, revisit yesterday’s post about my own Twitter tips.

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