New Ways of Doing Journalism

After reading this blog about new media, I was pleased to find that I had actually used several of the media listed: Google Maps, Moms Like Me, Politifact, Newseums Front Pages, MLB.com At Bat, Kaiser Family Foundation, Flu Trends, and Wikipedia.

Out of all of them, I really found Politifact an excellent model for investigative/political journalism. I used it during the election when I was practicing my fact-finding on candidates, and I love how they take politicians' quotes and fact-check them. There's no point in reporting the news without questioning the sources. The site, a project of The St. Petersburg Times, even has an Obamameter that verifies all of the president's claims in his speeches and rates them from "true" to "false." Very useful, especially after the recent State of the Union address last month.

Flu Trends is a pretty neat concept: the spread of influenza is tracked across the nation based on people's searches online. The Centers for Disease Control is actually using the data mapped by searches to isolate the flu in hard-hit areas. This concept can be applied in so many areas. For instance, news sites can track which stories readers want to know more about, like the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. People will search for both questions answered in news stories and also let editors know of any holes in the story.

I really like that the blog mentioned Wikipedia as a useful source of information. Being a college student, many of my college professors warn against trusting Wikipedia because it's generated by users... so what. The site does have a team verifying information, and the more users using the site means the faster the information is updated. I would never used Wikipedia as a primary source, but it is a great starting point for research and may make you consider something you never thought about before. It starts from the beginning and gives you the background in detail instead of just the latest covered in news stories.

Newseums Front Pages has come in handy this semester as a new design student. With a project due every week, it's nice to have a reference point of what other people are doing. Online news sites are great, but they aren't the same as the front page, and for me, I'm designing for print, not online, so this is extremely useful. Plus it gives you a tour around the country, with all the news stories legible in the newseum. The only problem about this site is that the pages aren't logged except on very big news days, like Sept. 11 or Haiti Earthquake. But there is an easy solution: Save the pages as a PDF.

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After looking at ads from the Newspaper Association of America, my thoughts were confirmed: I don't need to panic about my future as a journalist. I need to adapt.
All the world-is-doomed talk has been driving me nuts for the past three years. All I know is that I LIKE news. I LIKE people stories. I LIKE being connected to the world around me. Yes, the newspaper industry did suffer a loss, but so did every other business during the recession. When times are hard, toughen up. I'm trying my best to educate myself and prepare for my future-- hence, taking two capstone (specialization) courses at the University of Florida, and possibly a third. It isn't enough to graduate with an editing specialization. Writers are self-editing, and copy editors are being laid off. Specializing in magazine production is no good if I can't write anything worth reading to fill the pages. And advanced feature writing is useless without an appealing place for publication. Right now, my three specializations are giving me the chance to learn from people who have been through it all, which to me, is the best way to prepare for a career in journalism.

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I loved the article on the Times' policy for its writers and Facebook.
One of the biggest rumors going around the career fair this week is that an interviewer will ask an interviewee to pull up his or her Facebook page during an interview. If he or she refuses, consider the rest of the interview and application worthless. I think it's a valid test. Why would a company hire someone whose personal life does not represent the company's mission. Why would the Times hire a completely biased reporter or a party-consumed college kid? They wouldn't. It's like a reporter walking into a barbecue restaurant while wearing a shirt that says 'PETA loves animals' and expecting a good interview.
Facebook has become a social "Big Brother" of my generation. People are quick to delete things they are ashamed of so no one else can pass it on. Privacy settings help conceal bad behavior from family members but allow people to share photo albums of party pics with their closest friends.
At my college paper, a recent ethical problem I've been seeing as an editor is students enrolled in the College of Journalism using other journalism/public relations students as sources in their freelance stories: It is a conflict of interest to interview someone for a story if they, too, have been published by the same publication. I don't understand how students are missing this. If someone says her major is journalism, don't interview her. Simple as that.

In another article, Facebook Connect received great reviews. I'm not sure if I understand what it does. It sounds like you can link Facebook to blogs. I'll have to play around with it this week and return to blog about it.
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The last article I read this week wrote about job-searching online-- using online resume sites (like Monster.com).
The main problem for sites like these is the applicant pool is far too large. Recruiters are resorting to using niche job-search sites.

Applicants can also stand out by using multimedia sites to build an online resume that shows off talent better-- journalists can load their clips, sound files, video footage and photos all in one spot. Who is a recruiter going to hire? The student who has been blogging once a week for two years and updating their portfolio, or the person who writes a good essay/cover letter? The flat resume doesn't represent your personality fairly or give you a place to present your work. From a recruiter's point of view, a resume is the only way to get to know you, so be smart and don't do like these people did: NotHired.com-- great source of what not to do.