Blog 8: A web design journey from good to bad.

The Rocky Mountain News, which is one of Denver’s two newspapers (the other being the more well-known Denver Post), is an example of a website that is well-designed, easy-to-navigate and up-with-the times in terms of its multimedia content. The website features special-to-the-web additions on regular print stories as well as special projects that utilize photo slideshows and video content. An example of the latter would be the paper’s “We Are America” multimedia piece about a march on the Colorado capital for immigration reform.. This multimedia presentation combines a slideshow with an interactive map and audio—it lets the event be told solely in this very visual, interactive manner—an example of the highest quality Flash/multimedia work that is out there. I think this is particularly interesting and impressive because many other multimedia pieces like it I’ve seen throughout the quarter as I’ve worked on these assignments seem to be largely explanatory or investigative pieces; pieces that would take time to report and therefore allow for time to build on Flash. This piece is simple event coverage, however and was presumably put together with a lot faster turnaround than many other multimedia presentations of its caliber out there.

The Rocky Mountain News is also constantly updating its stories: after navigating around the site checking out various articles and features for about an hour, I refreshed its home page and found completely different lead stories than the ones featured as the lead stories when I logged onto the site. This means that the paper’s web staff likely has the resources and man power to continually update content. The design and content itself, however, aside from web extras, seems reflective of what was in the print version that day. In other words, local Denver area stories are at the top of the website rather than national stories, and the various tabs at the top (news, business, recreation, opinion, web extra) are clear and consistent in their design. The fonts are not too small and the site does not overwhelm the viewer on its homepage with too much content, relying instead on clear, visible links and a singular main photo on its main page.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press’ website, on the other hand, has a design that is not necessarily conducive or inviting (although I suspect it may be going through a redesign). At the Pioneer Press’ website, viewers are presented with the main element of a link to the pdf version of the newspaper that day, with the secondary elements being a laundry list of links to the stories that ran that day. While this arrangement does present the view with the option of reading the newspaper more like the newspaper in print (with the pdf version as its main attraction) as well as the option of reading stories directly on the website, I suspect (and would argue that the Pew study confirms) that viewers don’t go to local news websites like this one seeking the same visual experience as they would get if they read the newspaper in print with their morning coffee. To that end, making a link to the pdf version of the newspaper is a poor decision, and it also makes for a rather unappealing first glance at the website—there are no visuals, no photos, no links to video and no consistently designed tabs linking to the rest of the paper as with the Rocky Mountain News’ website. I would add these things to fix the design, and move the pdf link to a far less prominent place on the paper’s home page.

More News about the News: Blog 7

Over the last five years or so, it seems impossible to hear or engage in a conversation about the state of the news media without the mention of the rise in network news programs that cater to partisan party-politics and outrageous network pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. The argument is that, with the multitude of choices the new media landscape provides or promises to provide, people will begin seeking out news that caters only to their political bent. The third part of the Pew Research Center’s latest study, however, seems less concerned. It finds that “a large majority of the public continues to say that they prefer getting news from sources that don’t have a particular point of view…Only about a quarter (23%) say they prefer getting news that shares their point of view.”

In my estimation, the explanation and discussion provided by Pew concerning these numbers doesn’t go far enough. Yes, we’ve had O’Reilly and Coulter and Limbaugh blabbering on the Fox network for awhile now, but the Pew Research Center fails to measure the blogosphere’s impact on the partisan news “phenomenon.” However, given the Pew Center’s findings in the “Public’s Knowledge” part of the study, it makes sense that this isn’t a concern: If only 4 in 10 people can name Condoleezza Rice as the current secretary of state and even fewer can name Vladimir Putin as the leader of Russia, as the study finds, this is a far bigger problem than those who seek out news on partisan party-politics lines. To alter an old cliché, no news is much worse than possibly slanted news.

The other part of Pew’s findings that confuses me is their “concern” about the growing number of people who only have cell phones and not land phones. It didn’t occur to me until the disclaimer at the end of this section, where it states “the cell-only trend has not yet seriously undermined public opinion polls that use the random digit dialing method” that this was significant because it might present a problem in conducting this important market research in the future. I am among those who use only a cell phone, a characteristic I suspect I share with many of my college peers. For this reason, I’m glad that the demographic is being addressed in terms of studies such as the ones conducted by the Pew Research Center.

Another part of the “attitudes” section of the study that resonated with my own experiences and that of my peers is the claim that there is a “lack of time to follow the news” and “lack of background information with which to interpret the news.” As someone who follows both the news and its trends relatively closely, I may roll my eyes when I hear these “excuses,” but I remember a time when I may have used them myself. In all honesty, daily news consumption has become a habit of mine only within the last few years. I find it’s sort of like going to the gym: I may dread the thought of having to squeeze it into everything else I have to do, but I find that once I do it, I enjoy it and feel much better after I’m “cleansed” with information. I also would argue that the best journalists include “background information” and context in their stories, and that context comes with time and effort put into understanding the issues in the news. That’s not to say that all news outlets should write for an eighth-grader (as they tell you to do in basic newswriting classes), but there are certainly news outlets, and even highly stylized, longer-form writers, who give good context. The argument that newspapers don’t provide enough context, I think, is really yet another byproduct of the laziness of our population.

Blog 6: The News about the News

Little of the actual results from the Pew Research Center surprised me. What I do find surprising, even puzzling, however, is how media outlets are responding to such research. In reviewing the results of the Pew research, I found a few areas where it seemed the current concerns in the industry, at least in my limited experience, don’t completely reflect the results of the survey, at least not directly.

The one striking commonality between the Pew study and current editorial-and-executive talking points is an emphasis on courting younger readers. Though the Pew study measured news habits across all age groups over time, it seemed to highlight the 18-29 set in its results with special subsections like “Many Young People Get No News,” and “Web Helping Keep Younger Readers.” I believe this is also an emphasis of the research (very similar to Pew’s) conducted by Medill’s Media Management Center, and it certainly echoes the concerns I’ve heard from editors in my own experience. For example, the paper I will be interning at this summer required each of its intern finalists to send in a critique of one issue of their paper and their website. The questions on the critique were geared specifically to how the intern candidates, as young people in this coveted 18-29 age group, would suggest making the website more appealing to their peers. While I had suggestions for how the website could improve its utility overall, when it came to analyzing “people my age” and how the website would appeal to them, I was stumped. Reading the Pew results now, I realize it was because I must have somehow internally realized that “many young people get no news”: 27% of Americans under age 30 “did not get news from any of these sources yesterday.”

Yes, younger people are more likely to use the web and “stumble upon news” or go to the web specifically for news. But I think you can infer from these results that young people going to the web for news are the ones with significant news habits, regardless of the medium. Why, then, are we so worried about courting these younger audiences who aren’t interested in news in the first place? Granted, advertising complicates this equation a bit: the youngest age group Pew measured is roughly the same age group widely considered most desirable by advertisers. Therefore, even though we collectively aren’t watching, clicking and reading all that much, the advertisers will continue to hope we do so. It makes me wonder if editors that emphasize courting younger readers and seem so concerned about it are genuinely concerned that the civic engagement of my generation is, and has been, on the decline (which is what I suspect and, what primarily concerns me about the Pew results), or if they’re merely paying lip service to advertisers demands, hoping to hang on to their fragile business.

Blog 5: Converging Convergences?

I didn’t expect much from a piece titled “The Meanings and Implications of Convergence.” Convergence, as Gordon acknowledges, is a buzzword that gets tossed around casually, and at Medill especially. Last year, Dean John Lavine began his post and brought with him a slew of seemingly revolutionary and radical changes (a plan he titled “Medill 2020”). Students, the same students who are supposedly of this new, digital generation and cannot remember a time without the internet, had many questions, criticisms and concerns (some of which they unfortunately kept to themselves) specifically about “new media,” “convergence” and the changes they’d bring to the journalism degree they’d be receiving.

One of the reasons for the outpouring of student concerns I believe, is confusion. At one point last spring, the Dean called a town hall meeting to address students’ questions and concerns. A friend of mine raised her hand and asked, “What exactly is meant by ‘new media’ and ‘convergence’? It seems like they just get tossed around all the time without any thorough explanation.” She was absolutely right. So when I read the title “The Meanings and Implications of Convergence,” I assumed Gordon’s arguments and explanations would fall on very tired ears: Lavine, to his credit, and much of the Medill faculty, have gone to great lengths attempting to engage us in a conversation about what those words mean, about the meaning they’ll have in our curriculum and how, well, they’re pretty important if we ever want a job in journalism.

But Gordon goes beyond a basic speculation of what a multi-platform media landscape might look like in the year 2020. He acknowledges how much has been lost in the word “convergence,” how it means different things depending on what industry one hails from and how, even among communicators, it has very different meanings. One manifestation I hadn’t given much thought to until reading this article was strategic partnerships between TV station’s and newspapers. This trend, and its intersection with the multimedia convergence we’re more accustomed to hearing about, brings up countless issues. Gordon does a thorough job of explaining the strategic and journalistic benefits of these partnerships, as well as the doubts many have. The examples he provides, however, say something, at least to me about who is benefiting from the partnerships, but it may just be my bias: many of the benefits seem geared towards the TV reporters and how the newspaper reporters can help them, not vice versa. For example, “newspaper reporters enable the TV station to provide more detail and depth in their live reports from the scene of a news events,” the sharing of newspaper enterprise reporting and newspaper reporters appearing on-air, all seem to benefit the TV station. There aren’t many examples of what a partnership with a TV station can do for a newspaper. Sure, there are lots you can think up, but I’m unclear and curious, after reading this article, as to what’s being done. If so many jobs are being cut, and there isn’t time to train reporters in audio/visual technologies, as many executives within the newspaper industry are currently bemoaning, why can’t newspaper borrow audio/visual content from the TV stations. I’m unclear as to whether this is happening anywhere yet or not.

Blog 4: The New World of the Digital Photojournalist

Cheryl Diaz Meyer’s essay, “Digital Photojournalism,” raises many important questions about the intersection of digital technology and storytelling in conflicted, often war-torn areas such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Meyer spends much of her essay detailing her experiences as a photographer for the Dallas Morning News stationed in Afghanistan during the U.S. invasion following Sept. 11, 2001. Although she contends at the outset of her essay that “the new technology seemed impressive until we had to carry it along with all of our supplies into the horrendous conditions of war and dust,” her eventual argument is of the persuasion that experimentation—and even temporary hardship—with new digital technologies (such as digital cameras with audio and video capabilities and negative scanners that can transmit images from the field under deadline pressure) is worthwhile because its capabilities enable more dynamic storytelling.

Still, she cautions that there’s an institutional divide in the world of photojournalism, one between old-school digital photojournalists and those who aspire to become multidimensional platypi, a term being use to describe the mix of still photos, video, audio and animation that many believe is the future of photojournalism.

Aside from a photo editor at the Dallas Morning News who tells Meyer that good photography “precludes multitasking,” Meyer presents arguments in favor of bringing the field of photojournalism technologically forward despite her firsthand admission that “Dust, rough roads, and sticky fingers were the bane of our technological existence in Afghanistan.”

Meyer’s insights are telling, but she doesn’t flesh out her argument or her findings about the “two different schools of thought” on the direction of photojournalism fully. It was interesting, though, because the way she hints at the differing views concerning the future of photojournalism is not unlike what I’ve felt exists in print journalism: a subtle but prevalent culture clash between those who not only embrace technology but want to dive into it head-first, and those who want to embrace technology but are weary and cautious, afraid that the unknown, or the takes-awhile-to-get-the-knack of will mar the journalistic process as they know and treasure it.

Messing with NYT copy in the name of the World Wide Web

This article originally appeared in the New York Times on Jan. 21, 2007. The following is a more web-friendly re-working of the original.

NEW ORLEANS--The empty streets, deserted avenues and abandoned houses prompt a gnawing question, nearly 17 months after Hurricane Katrina: Is this what New Orleans has come to -- a city half its old size?

Some economists and demographers seem to think so: the Louisiana Recovery Authority reported a population figure of 191,000 in November, about half of the 444,000 pre-Katrina census estimate.

Though these numbers are disputed, it’s clear that the city’s population will continue to trickle down from its peak of 627,525 in the 1960 Census. According to Elliott Stonecipher, a consultant and demographer based in Shreveport, La., any future gains are likely to be small.''Low tens of thousands, over three or four or five years, something in that range,” Stonecipher said. “I would say we could start losing people, especially if the crime problem doesn't get high visibility.''

New doubts, old problems

The new doubts about rebuilding New Orleans and its population, surprisingly, are largely not based on the widespread damage caused by the flood. Rather, crippling problems that existed long before Hurricane Katrina are mostly being blamed for the city's failure to thrive.

The city was losing people at a rate of 1.5 percent a year before the hurricane, more than a quarter of its population was living in poverty, and as many as one in five people were jobless or not seeking work. An unpublished analysis by William Oakland, a retired economist from Tulane University who has studied the city’s economy for decades, shows unusually low rates of participation in the labor force before Hurricane Katrina.

''There are a lot of people out there not working,'' said Mr. Oakland, referring to the period before Hurricane Katrina. Or, he said, they were working in an underground economy, not measured by statistics.

The pre-Katrina statistics Oakland did find, however, are telling:

--About 4 out of 10 men in the working-age population were out of a job or not looking for one, compared with less than 3 in 10 nationally.

--More than half of young black men ages 16 to 24 were not in the labor force, with unemployment rates among young blacks above 25 percent.

--In places like the Lower Ninth Ward and Central City, half of all working-age people were not looking for work.

--The unemployment rate in impoverished, high-crime areas was on target to hit 32 percent, before Hurricane Katrina hit.

--The poorest 30 percent of households had a lower share of the city’s total income than the comparable slice in any other similar Southern city

“The data is showing New Orleans is really a basket case,” Mr. Oakland said. “The job mobility was very low among the poor, so they just stay where they are, and the social welfare system shored them up.”

In addition to New Orleans’ poverty and unemployment rates, another factor haunting the city's effort to repopulate is the incalculable toll inflicted by ghosts from its past -- a political legacy of corruption and patronage, and a deep racial division with a far more distressing passage toward integration than was experienced, say, in Atlanta.

If you build it, will they come?

The smaller New Orleans is almost certain to wind up with a far higher percentage of its population working than before Hurricane Katrina.

Political leaders, worried about the loss of clout and a Congressional seat, press for people to return. Most of those who have not returned -- 175,000, by Mr. Stonecipher's count -- are very poor, and can be more easily absorbed in places with vibrant job markets, they say.

''Where there are high concentrations of poverty, people can't see a way out,'' Mr. Oakland said. ''Maybe the diaspora is a blessing.''

Others, however, worry that permanently losing so many people threatens the city's culture -- its unique way of talking, parading and eating. ''Culture is people,'' said Richard Campanella, a Tulane geographer who has written extensively about the city's neighborhoods. ''If half the local people are dispersed and no longer living cohesively in those social networks, then half of local culture is gone.''

Fixing what’s broken

Looking to the future, another 50,000 people might eventually be added to the city's population, Mr. Oakland suggested, but there are no guarantees.

There has been little to no construction of cheap housing that would enable the return of the largest category of those still displaced, Mr. Stonecipher noted.

A second category of people, 50,000 or more who have established themselves elsewhere but who could return, may be even harder to recapture, given the combination of past weaknesses and continuing present-day hurdles, including the well-documented failure of the state's Road Home aid program for homeowners, the loss of tens of thousands of jobs since the storm, the crime problem and delays in rebuilding moderately priced housing.

''The longer it lasts, the more likely it is that our population is plateauing, the longer the uncertainty continues,'' said Janet Speyrer, an economist at the University of New Orleans.



*It would also be great to add infographics detailing the "before and after" population, unemployment, and poverty-rate figures. In addition, I think this piece could have better, more web-friendly photos. The one that appeared on the inside page of the print addition, of the dog wandering a street of empty homes, is great. A slideshow of similar-minded photos would be a great way to make this story come alive on the web. Or, if those photos aren't available (strong photos will tell this story best, I think), an interactive district map of New Orleans could be added as a sidebar, which viewers could enlarge and see before-and-after figures and employment statistics per ward. This might be effective because it would illustrate the disparity between areas like the Lower Ninth Ward and traditionally wealthier parts of the city.

Blog 2: Cells and Cellulite

I found this first example particularly interesting due to its relation to a book I read for a class last spring called "Courtroom 302," where a reporter spends a year inside a Chicago courtroom and explores issues of the criminal justice system, not the least of which is prison overcrowding. In this piece, Jacob H. Fries, a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, and a photographer, spent 48 hours in the Pinellas County Jail, a maximum security prison in southern Florida. Along with a team of visual and audio editors, they recorded the sights and sounds of their experiences over those 48 hours,and accompanied their work with infographics that drive home the impact of prison overcrowding.
The thing I like the most about this piece, aside from the fact that this is a story that lends itself to a more multimedia experience, is that its writing stands as a testament to the fact that online storytelling, solid reporting and stylistic writing don't have to be mutually exclusive. Though Fries' 48 hours are meager compared to the year the author of "Courtroom 302" spent investigating a Chicago courthouse, reading, viewing and experiencing this piece allowed me to have a more visceral reaction to the topic. In this case, the reporter was fortunate enough to work at a paper that could provide the resources to undertake this project (as with the Paul Salopek piece we discussed in class). But I think this is an example that proves what is possible.

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My second example is a bit more lighthearted and fun. I often check out various newspapers to see what kinds things they are up to, but I wanted to see what my hometown paper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, was doing in terms of multimedia content. While I didn't quite find the volume and quality of multimedia projects I found in the Chicago Tribune, I did find this. Unfortunately, when I first came across this in the Star Tribune's collection of photo galleries I couldn't quite tell what story this fun, interactive feature accompanied. I also find it hilarious because I sense a hidden regional joke: Minnesotans are stereotypically taller and more broad-shouldered, as are all the body types this how-to piece discusses. Though it might need some work (the fonts on the bottom are too small), it's a good example of interactive "news" you can use. It's the kind of thing it seems we'll be seeing much more of in the coming years as news outlets scramble to court audiences. I could see women's magazines, such as Glamour, or even general lifestyle publications, using an interactive feature like this one, since their content is already very how-to focused.

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Can blogs restore faith in journalism?

Much of the first chapter of Dan Gillmor’s We The Media, felt, at times, a bit like old news. As journalism students, particularly students at a school whose administration loves buzzwords like “convergence” and “cross-platform storytelling,” we frequently hear about many of the themes Gillmor outlines in the chapter, such as the corporatization of news, the opportunities and shortcomings of citizen journalism and the concept of journalism as a conversation, rather than the top-down processed news of our parents’ generation.
It was interesting, however, to note Gillmor’s primary argument that “personal journalism is not a new invention” and learn more about some of the pioneers, such as John Markoff of The New York Times, Tim Berners-Lee and Justin Hall, who helped bring the concept into the 20th century. The world that these pioneers have created—and we, as citizens have created, as Time magazine’s 2006 “Person of the Year” choice would suggest—perhaps raises more questions than answers about the future of the news media, questions the industry has been needing to ask itself for a long time. For example, Gillmor speaks of a media climate increasingly controlled by the demands of Wall Street and dictated by the public hunger for celebrity news. He speaks of an era, though, in which “news divisions of the major networks lost money but were nevertheless seen as the crown jewels for their prestige…” Will the bloggers bring back such an era? Is it up to the bloggers, the citizen journalists, and the oft-partisan voices unfettered by the economic and logistical constraints of big media to bring back the days when journalism was a means to inform, expose and provide a public service vital to the survival of American democracy? Will history remember Matt Drudge and Arianna Huffington as the Walter Cronkite of Generation X? And, if so, what are the consequences? These are questions Gillmor does an OK job of raising, but doesn’t attempt to answer. I’d be curious to read the rest of the book…