I’m not shy about adding feeds to Google Reader. I’ve got 79, which is neither astronomical nor shabby. But today I noticed that I regularly turn to a mere handful for reliably good dirt on online journalism, social media, multimedia, etc. I can always expect solid links, instruction, inspiration and news about the news from:
Now that I’m making better use of Delicious and try to feed it with a bunch of great finds pertaining to online journalism every day, this just isn’t enough.
Mindy McAdams implores journalists who get online to do this in a recent post. And the sentence has been reverberating in my head all evening.
I’m fortunate to work for a newspaper where many people do get it. We commit sizable resources to video, audio and other multimedia. We’ve launched a radio studio with hourly reports. We’re about to unveil a new website that gives readers tremendous power to find information in the way that most makes sense for them.
But, a few days after getting back from a vacation in Montana during which I avoided the Internet, I have to wonder: Where can I take the lead?
This is likely a case where there’s no upper limit on leadership. And I was not the driving force behind any of the initiatives listed above, so I’d like to find that area where I can “step up” in my newsroom.
Helping my co-workers learn and master our new django site admin will certainly give me one avenue. Any other ideas?
Problem: I went to the Spokane County Interstate Fair on Sunday and took my camera. As usual, I uploaded my photos (mostly of rabbits — I don’t know why either) to Flickr. Great service, love the interface and community. But what it lacks is an embeddable slideshow player.
Quick fix:Slide fills that void — sort of. This free service lets you select photos from your accounts on Flickr, MySpace, Facebook and more. You can also upload directly. Here’s my customized show, with comments and two great sets of online tools following it.
Mixed verdict: It’s great that Slide easily interfaces with social networking tools so you don’t need to upload again. But the presentation options are pretty cheesy. (However much I enjoy feeding my Viewmaster nostalgia, I’m not sure I’d want to present a professional project with this or similarly campy presets.) I also wish there were built-in controls. And I had to hack the generated code a bit to get rid of some redundant, annoying buttons, including one that said “rock out” and linked to MySpace. (Why?) Still, I give Slide big credit for being fun, free and embeddable.
But wait, there’s more: I found Slide through a toolkit Ryan Sholin put together. Also included: data visualization, maps, audio, polls and live streaming video. Most of these are embeddable and blogger friendly.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t also recommend Mindy McAdams’Journalist’s Toolkit (”a training site for multimedia and online journalists”). The resources here are vast, go beyond embeddable tools and fall under the categories of:
Audio
Blogs and Blogging
Design
Flash
HTML and CSS
Photojournalism
Random Tools (FTP; Soundslides troubleshooting)
Video
Data
I haven’t begun to take full advantage of these links, but I’m glad to see that my colleague Colin Mulvany’s video journalism blog is included. I’m especially eager to cruise through the 10-minute Flash crash course and the photojournalism tips.
These two toolkits reinforce that you can find online almost all the instruction you need to make leaps in digital training. All you need is some time, discipline and curiosity.
I came to the online world via the night news copy desk. I truly loved parts of that job: editing the wires, writing heds that thousands of people would see, catching mistakes at the 11th hour. But I decided to leave to bolster my resume with online experience.
In some ways, I’m still a copy editor. When I post a story, I edit it (of course). When things are slow, I read the stories I haven’t seen. They’re live by that point, but I figure it’s better to catch the error later than never.
My job also involves news judgment, which I developed doing the wires and laying out local news pages.
I’ve often thought that my copy editing background is what helps me be especially effective in my position. But I’ve wondered whether this is common among online producers.
I found at least one parallel in this list via Mindy McAdams via her colleague. In it recent grad Nick Rosinia, now working for MLB.com, passes on pointers to editing students. I liked his opener:
The new job title is “editorial producer.” It means little else than the Internet is too cool to have “copyeditors,” but you might win a few points with a recruiter if you know it.
He goes on to address writing heds, cutlines and teasers, and the importance of being clean and quick. All things I confront daily, all things that a good copy editor should handle adeptly.
At the end of her post, McAdams writes, “It looks like there will always be jobs for good copy editors.”
I hope she’s right, but I might tweak that statement a little. It looks like there will always be need for good copy editing skills, because in online journalism you often are your own copy editor.
BTW, searching Journalismjobs.com for the keywords “copy editors” turned up 67 listings today, most at daily newspapers. If you’re willing to work in a small town and have little job security, there certainly are jobs for good copy editors right now.
When I shifted to the online producer’s seat last month, I had to get up to speed on a lot of stuff. Fortunately, the Web is brimming with resources that helped me do just that. Whether you need inspiration for a video project or just need to look up an HTML tag, here are a few good places to begin. I plan to keep adding to this list, so check back.
HTML and other coding
• W3 schools: Use the lefthand nav bar to find tutorials on HTML, XML, CSS, Javascript and more. Find useful references for each of these languages. (Choose the language you need references for; on the next page, they will appear as links lower on the nav bar.)
Google Maps
• Google’s tutorial: How use the various WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) functions available in MyMaps. Thanks to Brea at breajones.com for this one (via Wired Journalists groups — see below).
• 100 Things to do with Google Maps Mashups: I have barely begun to scratch the surface of mashups yet, and this puts me way behind the curve. But this site is full of ideas; link back to the originating blog, Google Maps Mania, for more.
• Google Maps API tutorial: OK, this is way above my head right now: a guide to making your own interactive maps using Google Maps. This requires knowledge of scripting and databases that I’m only beginning to flirt with. But I include it here for anybody who’s far beyond me.
Video and multimedia
• Mastering Multimedia blog: I had the luck of learning the basics of video shooting and editing with Final Cut from one of the best in the business (who also happens to be one of my supervisors), Colin Mulvany. This is his blog, where he passes on great advice.
• Multimedia Shooter: Check out the tutorials, gear guide and examples of great multimedia journalism.
Career-related
• Journerdism/94 career-related links: This will help you be a better networker and job hunter. Will Sullivan’s site is definitely worth adding to your RSS feed for all the great tidbits he finds across the Web.
• Wiredjournalists.com: A social networking site for multimedia/online journalists. Fight the revulsion at the thought of joining one more such network: This one will put you in touch with like-employed people for ideas and feedback. Feel free to look me up.
