What’s a Wiki?

Continuing from the last blog post, here’s the second part of digital journalism terms and definitions.

If I’ve missed any terms please email me (wired@sfu.ca) and I’ll add it.

Mobile Optimized: A mobile optimized website is a website that is optimized for mobile devices. Meaning, it has been designed and formatted to read and navigate easily on the small screens of mobile devices – Yellow Schmello.

Mobile Web: The mobile Web refers to the use of the Internet through handheld mobile devices. Increasingly, smartphones and other devices with wireless data access structures access the same “full” Internet traditionally accessed on desktop or laptop computers – Techpedia.

Multimedia journalism: The collective use of many media types–such as text, audio, graphics, animation, video, and photographs–to convey information –The Multimedia Journalist.

Open Newsroom: Open newsroom involves inviting online readers to become a part of the story process – Columbia Journalism Review.

Paywall: A system in which access to all or part of a newspaper website is restricted to paid subscribers – Dictionary.com

RSS: Really Simple System allows subscribers to receive updates, such as news headlines and blog entries. from websites and blogs.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization is the use of methods and techniques to improve the visibility of a website. It uses natural means to achieve natural listings on search engines – SEO Best Tools.

Smartphone: A cell phone with built-in applications capable of Internet access.

Social Media: A variety of Internet-based tools and platforms that allow users to share information and interact.

Tag: A common type of metadata used to describe a piece of content that associates it with other content that has the same tag. Tags can be specific terms, people, locations, etc. used in the content it is describing – Poynter.org.

Wiki: A wiki is a website which allows its users to add, modify, or delete its content via a web browser usually using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor. Wikis are powered by wiki software. Most are created collaboratively – Wikipedia.

To learn more about digital journalism, enrol in the New Media Journalism Certificate program offered by Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies.

For more discussions and articles on digital journalism, go to SFU’s New Media Journalism on Twitterand Facebook .

Apps for the digital journalists

A digital journalist using a smartphone to record U.S. President Barack Obama.

We previously mentioned the iPhone or smartphone being essential to the digital journalist, but what kinds of apps and software should you have loaded on your mobile device?

Obviously you need the basics like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but there are so many more. You’ll need an app to take notes with, record and edit video, upload to a cloud server and other functions that have become important for digital journalists.

The Wired Reporter has come up with a few lists of essential apps. Here’s one from a U.K. journalism site, another from the National Association of Black Journalists, and this one from the Poynter Institute.

Digital journalism challenging the old school rules

The News of the World in England published its last issue after it was learned reporters had hacked into the mobile phone voice mail box of a missing 13-year-old girl who was later found murdered.

Not all reporters are fond of digital journalism because they see it challenging the ethics of journalism.

The best example is the sanctity of the newsroom. In the pre-digital newsroom, the news stories being produced for future issues were like trade secrets. Reporters who discussed stories in progress outside the newsroom walls risked being hauled into the editor’s office and berated or, worse case scenario, fired.

In today’s digital newsroom there are no walls. News is not protected until it rolls off the presses. Instead, articles are instantly posted to the news outlet’s website and shared through social media channels. Increasingly, journalists will use their own social media to develop a story. I know of one reporter who routinely tweets that she is about to interview a celebrity or CEO and asks her followers what questions they would like her to ask the individual, a practice known as crowd sourcing.

The web-first news approach and experiments in open newsrooms are a result of the changing media ecosystem. News outlets today compete against bloggers, tweeters and citizen journalists, who instantly post news. As a result we are seeing Ivory Tower journalism crumbling and journalism ethics evolving – yet many old school reporters are reluctant to change and cling to the past.

There’s been a great deal written about this topic. Here are a few of the better posts on the subject.

• Social media poses digital dilemmas for journalists – Journalism Ethics for the Global Citizen

• Ethical Challenges for Digital Journalism – Richard Gingras, head of Google News Products

• ‘Rules of the Road’: A conversation starter on digital journalism ethics – Steve Buttry, The Buttry Diary

• Online Journalism Ethics – Poynter Institute

• A Revolution in Ethics – Center for Journalism Ethics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

To learn more about digital journalism, enrol in the New Media Journalism Certificate program offered by Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies.

Don’t forget to visit SFU’s New Media Journalism on Twitter and Facebook for more discussions and articles.

Publisher sees nothing but upside in digital era

Here’s a great quote worth sharing about the future of digital journalism:

“This is like a Gutenberg moment. We’re reinventing storytelling on a digital platform. Suddenly, we can use every form of storytelling in one place — pictures, graphics, words. If we need an interactive map, show me the map. If it’s a plane crash, show me the video. We see a new art form that’s going to be a much more dominant form of storytelling. That’s the exciting part for me.”

The quote is from Larry Kramer, former senior editor at The Washington Post, who just became publisher and president of USA Today. Kramer, a multi-millionaire, is taking over a financially-troubled USA Today but he sees nothing but upside.

Here’s a Politico.com blog entry on Kramer’s appointment, some background on Kramer in Poynter.org and an article from The Washington Post.

• To learn more about digital journalism, enrol in the New Media Journalism Certificate program offered by Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies.

• Don’t forget to visit SFU’s New Media Journalism on Twitter and Facebook for more discussions and articles.

Tulisa, Twitter and the reporter

Tulisa and some rappers.

Being part of the crowd is not a bad thing for a journalist, especially if you use it to verify and collect information.

A recent buzzword in today’s digital talk is crowdsourcing. It sounds complicated but its not. Think of it as interviewing a group of people using social media. It can be a very powerful tool for journalists.

Let’s say you’re assigned to interview British singer Tulisa, reputed to be the sexiest woman in the world. The only problem is you don’t have a clue who she is. Many reporters would just conduct online research to fill in their knowledge gaps. The problem with that is most of the information will have been duplicated over and over, and probably originated from Tulisa’s publicist.

However, the savvy digital journalist crowdsources her fans by reaching out to them through Twitter and other social media. By using @officialtulisa (Tulisa’s official Twitter account that her fans read) in your message, you could tweet that you’re interviewing the singer and ask fans what questions they would like you to ask her. Of course, many of the questions will be lewd or just plain lame but some will be insightful. If you take things a step further, you could interview those knowledgeable fans using Skype to get even more details.

This is a simple way to crowdsource. For some more advanced techniques for journalists, read this great post at Poynter.org.

• To learn more about digital journalism, enrol in the New Media Journalism Certificate program offered by Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies. Click here to register for a June 23 information session on the program.

• Don’t forget to visit SFU’s New Media Journalism on Twitter for more discussions and articles.

New ideas needed to bring in new readers

I resent this article I found on Poynter.org.

The article, 8 strategies for reaching elusive young readers, has some great ideas. However, the second point – Hire young people – strikes me as a bit of ageism. It would have been better to phrase it: Hire young-thinking people.

Normally this sort of thing wouldn’t bother me but I’m getting cranky in my old age.

D’oh!

Anyway, great read. Here’s the link.

• Don’t forget to visit SFU’s New Media Journalism on Twitter for more digital journalism discussions and articles.

• To learn more about digital journalism, enrol in the New Media Journalism Certificate program offered by Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies. Click here to register for a June 23 information session on the program.

Print dollars replaced by digital dimes

Newspaper print advertising is down, according to the 2012 State of the Media Report.

The financial crisis for newspapers is not a viewership crisis. It is a revenue crisis.

That’s one of the points raised in a webinar this week that featured Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Centre’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The webinar, hosted by the Poynter Institute, discussed the findings of the 2012 State of the Media Report.

Let’s not go into lengthy detail to discuss the report, but instead, here are some of Rosenstiel’s interesting remarks:

• This is Year 16 of the digital revolution.

• People are accessing more news from news media sites as a result of mobile devices.

• People access news sites more frequently and longer on mobile devices than PCs.

• Newspaper websites see a spike in traffic between 10 p.m. and midnight, as viewers take a longer, more in-depth looks at news stories.

• Tablets like the iPad provide us with more of a print experience.

• Online subscriptions are gaining traction, with the New York Times boasting 400,000 subscribers.

• The high cost of printing and circulation will result in many newspapers offering online-only issues during the week and just one print issue on the weekend.

• 15 newspapers a year vanish.

• Online advertising is not growing at the rate print advertising is declining. As a result, newspapers are trading print dollars for digital dimes.

• The number of people who consume news using social media is low.

• Companies like Yahoo and Google could start becoming news content producers as traditional news media newsrooms shrink.

To learn more about digital journalism, enrol in the New Media Journalism Certificate program offered by Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies. Click here to register for a June 23 information session on the program.

You will be assimilated

In the words of Star Trek's Borg: "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."

Let’s face it, traditional journalism is giving way to digital journalism. So if you hope to get a job as a journalist today, you must know how to tweet, post on Facebook, shoot digital photos and video and post them on to YouTube and Flickr. Reporters also need to understand the audience for each social media platform and how they use it.

In many ways, being a digital journalist is more demanding. For example, suppose you’re assigned to cover the annual teddy bear picnic (believe me, every reporter gets these cheesy assignments once in awhile), instead of just collecting quotes and info for a 12-inch story, you might also have to shoot video and stills, record digital audio, tweet live (pics and text) and post content to Facebook and your newspaper’s website.

When you get back to the newsroom, your job is to write the feature, post it and the photos to the website, edit and post your video clip, create a slide show using your photos and the digital audio….

You get the idea. Simply put, today’s digital journalist is telling stories in a variety of different media.

So what about all those traditional journalists? Can those old dogs learn these new tricks?

An article I read this week at Poynter.org gives the impression that it’s unlikely, describing the relationship between old and new as “toxic.” That print-versus-digital animosity is also evident in the documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times.

But things are never so black and white and not all old dogs are digital stranglers. In my experience, many traditional journalists have led their newspapers into the digital age – even pushing the agenda when management hasn’t kept up. And if I could use myself as an example, my journalism career spans from paste-up to social media and I find new media fascinating because it offers many channels for telling stories and reaching audiences.

So to the journalists who abhor digital journalism, take the advice of the Borg, “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”

To learn more about digital journalism, enrol in the New Media Journalism Certificate program offered by Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies. Click here to register for a June 23 information session on the program.