First,
here's a news flash: Whether you're planning to or not, you will work
in online communication -- probably sooner rather than later.
Among the
many reasons is something that goes by the industry buzzword of "convergence."
The term has many meanings. It applies to corporate strategies (such
as the AoL-Time Warner merger); to technological developments (the
spread of digital television,
for instance); and to several related trends with direct relevance
in the
newsroom. These include a variety of components -- all of them directly
involving editors:
* Partnerships between
newspapers and TV stations, mostly for promotional purposes
.
In
the most common version (the media in Tampa are
examples), TV newscasters urge viewers to read tomorrow’s
newspaper for more details about a story. Newspaper journalists
also
may appear on-air to talk about stories they are covering.
Elsewhere,
other kinds of collaboration are being tried, ranging from
sharing news tips to having a single reporter
cover news for more than one medium.
There
have been problems with such partnerships, many of them involving
incompatible
newsroom cultures. Still, they are becoming more common;
converged newsroom relationships now exist in about 100
markets around the United States. |
* Changes
in newsroom organizational structures, typically
among editors and managers.
Open
communication sometimes has been difficult. Some “converged” operations
have seen a need to create a new position to serve as a sort of high-level go-between.
Others have assigned one executive the decision-making authority over multiple
newsrooms. |
* A
growing expectation that journalists (and public relations
practitioners) will collect information in multiple
formats.
This
has been controversial – most
journalists, particularly print ones, are not exactly eager
to learn to be multimedia storytellers. But some outlets
are pursuing so-called “backpack journalism,” in which reporters
carry a range of tools with them to gather news. |
* The
emergence of new forms of storytelling.
Journalists
increasingly are expected to know how to tell stories in
different ways
depending on the attributes of the medium involved.
Journalists
are becoming both more innovative and more collaborative,
with stories increasingly produced by
teams whose members have complementary strengths. |
|
Two
general points about online journalism:
* Regardless
of the medium, it’s all journalism.
The
same rules apply, such as accuracy, fairness and a commitment
to truth.
And
the same skills are valuable, such as strong news judgment; the
ability to communicate clearly; and proficiency
in using
the language precisely, correctly and with style.
Good
journalism is every bit as valuable online as in traditional
media -- maybe
even more valuable in an environment in which
you're competing for readers' attention with so much junk. |
* Virtually
everything that journalists currently are doing in online newsrooms
involves some aspect of editing.
Relatively
little original writing or reporting is being done for the Web
by professional journalists today (although
this is changing). |
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When you’re on deadline -- and editors always are -- you need
to be able to find information fast and to quickly determine
how good the info you've found is. There are at least three reasons why you
might want to do this:
* To
find information to offer your readers (generally by linking to it).
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* To
find information that you can use for fact-checking.
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* To help with your editing.
For
instance, you might need to clarify some information a writer
provided, to add background to the
short report she filed or to localize a wire story.
Whatever
the immediate need, you have to be able to quickly locate
credible information online to use for such purposes. |
Become an expert
at using the "advanced search" functions
of tools such as google.com . The more clearly and narrowly you can define what you're
looking for, the better and faster your results.
The handout
titled "Be
Smart About Evaluating Web Sites" offers useful information about
determining the credibility of an online site.
One extra bit of advice: It's a bad sign if you can't immediately
tell what individual or organization is behind a site. Credible
sites make
it very clear who has produced them.
But
you can find out by going to the "whois"
service (as in "who is behind this site?") offered by networksolutions.com.
Enter the domain name (the part after http:// and before the
first single slash,
omitting
the "www") in the search field. This works for sites
hosted in the United States with a .com, a .org or a .net address.
You
will get various administrative information about the site, including
the name of the person and/or organization behind that
domain name.
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Here
are a few basic characteristics of the online medium (drawn
mostly from Online Journalism by Jim Foust) that distinguish
it from more traditional formats:
* Audience
control. People have more power to choose the information they
want.
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* Nonlinearity.
Stories do not have to have a predetermined linear order.
|
* Enormous
storage
and retrieval capabilities. A vast amount of information can
be stored and made readily retrievable.
|
| * Unlimited
space. The Internet overcomes spatial and temporal limitations
of earlier media. |
| * Immediacy.
Information can be published almost instantaneously. |
| * Multimedia
capability. Stories can include text, sound, video and other
content. |
| * Last
but certainly not least, interactivity.
The medium expands and facilitates audience participation. |
For a site
that consistently takes advantage of these attributes extremely well
online, check out the BBC in general and its "Struggle
for Iraq" section in particular. |
Online
storytelling takes advantage of these attributes. A few details:
* To
take advantage
of the medium's non-linearity, editors
think in terms of “layers” and “chunks.”
* Layers help
users see a little or a lot about a story as they progress
through presentation levels. Summary grafs are common devices
for effectively layering a story.
|
| * Chunks break
a story into easily digestible pieces, presented on one or
more pages. Chunks can be text elements, linked items, multimedia
components … whatever. |
|
* Users
have much more control over online stories than they do with
print or broadcast stories.
* Online
editors offer multiple narrative paths for
users to pursue, according to their interests.
They
provide depth and detail
for those who want it and "quick hits" for
those who don’t. |
| * Links,
to content both inside and outside your own site, are useful
here. |
| * Increasingly,
editors also may provide options for
interactivity and user contributions, from blogs
to online polls and more. |
|
* Because
the
Web accommodates multimedia -- audio, video,
animated graphics, slide shows and more -- editors combine tools,
such as offering
an audio narrative with a gallery of still photos.
But
they do not use multimedia (or any other device) just because
they can.
It must meaningfully enhance the story the writer
and editor are telling. |
* Online
readers are scanners -- they scan text looking for things that
might interest them. Editors help make the text more visually
appealing by using:
* Narrow
text columns, about as many characters or words
wide as a newspaper column.
Text
that goes across a whole screen is both daunting and
tiring on the eyes.
|
* Short
paragraphs, with a line of white space between them.
One
idea per paragraph is a good rule of thumb, as in most
journalistic writing. |
* Meaningful
subheads.
Use
a few clear, meaningful words. Avoid cutesy, verbose or
obscure phrasing. |
| * Highlighted
keywords. Use of bold-face text is effective if done
sparingly. :-) |
| * Lists,
particularly bulleted lists. |
| * Block
quotes or other pull-quotes to help break up text. |
|
| *
Editors also should consider alternative
styles for presenting information, such as an FAQ format for background info. |
| * Editors
help writers avoid overblown language,
which is especially annoying online. |
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One good way to develop a sense of what
constitutes good online journalism is to look at award-winning sites. A
number of organizations now give annual awards for outstanding online journalism,
including:
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