Looking for Web journalism teaching tips

From Paul Bradshaw on January 27, 2007 at 9:28 AM

This is quite a broad question, so forgive me if I don't cover it all.

One mistake I think many online journalism teachers make is to teach students Dreamweaver and web design. This is irrelevant: online newsrooms generally use Content Management Systems, so much better to get students using those instead. I was fortunate enough to be able to get a CMS built for my students, but even services such as Blogger and Wordpress will give experience in using a CMS, and a little HTML for formatting.

Secondly, I think online journalism education is, unlike many journalism education areas, one place where we should be exploring concepts as much as skills. I spend half the time on my online journalism module (part of a degree which lasts 14 weeks and has 10 teaching sessions) getting the students to explore key concepts: how does being online and Web 2.0 change the nature of the way news is consumed? How can wikis be best used by a journalist? What about animation? Quizzes and polls? Blogs and podcasts? How can you tell a story in an interactive way that engages the reader/user? When is audio or video appropriate? How do we build a community of readers and what role do citizen journalists play?

Once the students have explored the genre, it's about beginning with the story, and then asking what technologies are most appropriate to tell that story, or how it might be told in different ways.

That's my thinking anyway.

From Megan Taylor on January 29, 2007 at 7:39 PM

The concepts behind the tools haven't really been addressed in my classes yet, and I'm taking some pretty advanced media courses. Turn me loose with the tools and the data and I can put something together - but it may not be the best way to tell the story. It's one of the things that worries me about being shoved out of the university and into the newsroom.

From Mac Slocum on January 31, 2007 at 1:46 PM

Paul: A story-centric focus is what I've been using for the last year, and I'm happy with the results. The students of today will be the newsroom decision makers of tomorrow, and chief among their decisions will be the best ways to tell stories. These future editors need to know how to tell the story, not now to build it. A cursory understanding of the technologies involved in the process can help editors relate to the producers and artists, but ultimately these folks need to be the audience advocate -- not a newsy technologist. It sounds like we've both come to the same conclusion.

From Robert Niles on February 1, 2007 at 4:53 PM

Ultimately, we need to come to grips with the fact that online is no longer a small part of journalism, but is now its primary medium. And that there are important journalism roles to be played by people putting together Flash presentations, coding content management systems and developing distributed reporting projects.

Which means that we can't do it all in one class anymore. Nor should we expect each student to learn it all. We need a variety of classes, for the variety of students who will fulfill a variety of roles in the online news publishing industry.

That would take some of the pressure off. Fortunately, technology also helps as it challenges. Two years ago, I spent a grueling couple of class sessions walking my students through Flash so that they could build a simple photo gallery. This week, I spent about 15 minutes walking them through Slide.com, which accomplished the same thing. The combo of Blogger, Slide and YouTube allows me to get students operating relatively slick websites with a fraction of the technical effort they needed two or three years ago. That leaves more time for talking about storytelling philosophy and techniques.

Now, we still spend some time with stylesheets, HTML and Photoshop, because I think that there is a value in confronting students with uncomfortable technology, as a way to help them lose their fear of other things complex and technical. As reporters, they will need to confront such things, no matter their beat, and I don't want any of my former students to say "that's too complex for me." I'd rather they say, "hey, that's pretty complex. But if I could figure out stylesheets in Prof. Niles' class, I can figure out this."

Hey, an instructor can dream, can't he? ;-)

From Kim Pearson on February 1, 2007 at 4:18 PM

Let me describe what I think is a unique approach that we've developed.

At the College of New Jersey, we have been building an online journalism focus organically over the last 10 years. It started when my magazine writing students and I collaborated with faculty and students in the Art department to create an online news magazine, unbound (http://www.tcnj.edu/~unbound) in 1996.

Using such experiences as the unbound collaboration as a foundation, in the last four years, we have built an Interactive Multimedia Major which has professional writing courses that are cross-listed with our journalism major. That program has developed an intense focus on videogame design that has led to an expanded research interest in specialized software and hardware for interactive storytelling.

This past summer, faculty and students in our IMM and Computer Science programs conducted summer research projects on technologies and techniques for innovative content manaagement systems, storytelling, and user-controlled content generation. All of this has helped to create student interest in multiple facets online journalism, not just content creation and production.

I'm teaching Interactive Journalism this semester, a class that is cross-listed in both our journalism and interactive multimedia (IMM) majors. Of the 28 students in the class, about half are journalism majors and the other half are IMM or computer science majors. Everyone will be expected to acquire a basic understanding of both the elements of newsgathering, and the core technologies of online journalism production. The students will produce individual and group reporting projects that will be published via a new content management system for unbound created by our computer science students this past summer. (You can't see it online just yet.)

What I've concluded from my experience teaching in this area is that while a base level of tech literacy is important, and immersion in good journalism principles and practice is essential, the most important skill for these students is the ability to work in self-managed teams. Project management and team building skills are critical.

From Mary Specht on February 2, 2007 at 7:24 PM

Let's not underestimate the importance of web design skill. Sure, you can learn multimedia journalism without actually being able to create the websites you envision. But how rewarding is that?

Dreamweaver and Flash are empowering. Students are going to get more excited about multimedia projects when they can make them themselves.

Not to mention the problem-solving challenge such exercises bring, and the ability to communicate more effectively with web designers when they head for the "real world."

The TV broadcast journalism majors spend a lot of time learning the technology of their trade, even if they're going to be reporters and not camera crew. We "print" majors should consider their model, now that our jobs involve tech, too.

From Major Highfield on February 4, 2007 at 10:36 AM

Ultimately, instructors must ask themselves the question if they are teaching Web journalism or Web development. Assuming that they're teaching the former, the focus shifts much more toward a content-centric approach rather than a programming one. Remember, you’re teaching reporters who need to have a good understanding of how to use Web technologies to deliver information – not how to code those technologies from scratch.

Markup:
HTML, XHTML, CSS ... Ideally, this could be accomplished through an introduction to Web design course offered through the Computer Science department. By making such an intro course required before taking a Web journalism course, instructors can allot more time to focus more on content.

Photo Editing:
Crop, lighten and sharpen. Make sure students understand pixels instead of picas.

Organizing Data:
Students should learn how to organize their data both relationally and hierarchically. This will help prepare them for environments where MySQL, Access and XML are present.

Presentation:
Writing for the Web, chunking content, etc. Require students to study the teachings of usability expert Jakob Nielsen.

Multimedia:
Video and audio skills still make employers' ears perk. A basic understanding of non-linear editing, combined with the knowledge of how to throw together a slideshow can go a long way. And no, neither requires a knowledge of Final Cut Pro nor Flash.

Content Management Systems/FTP:
It is essential that students be able to navigate a Web-based user interface for uploading content, managing data and attaching files. If a CMS is not available, use free services such as MySpace, Blogger, Flickr and YouTube.

Interactivity:
Web journalism doesn’t stop – and may not even start -- at posting a story online. Explain the benefits of the audience interacting with information and communicating with other customers, as well as the different types of interactive storytelling sites can offer.

Timeliness vs. Time Spent:
Bells and whistles may or may not be required for a story. A paragraph providing vital information to customers can often do more than any audio, video or Flash app. In addition, 10 to 20 hours of development time cannot be justified if a project does not generate traffic.

Business/Trends:
If you emphasize any item in this list over the others, let it be this one. In the academic world, professors often teach students that journalism is an honorable profession governed by ethics, morals and the inverted pyramid. In the real word, it is a business that survives on revenue – a business that generates less and less revenue through print annually. The next generation of journalists should understand that the landscape of the industry is changing and that within a few years, print advertising may or may not be a primary revenue-generator. Newspapers need fresh minds that have a good grasp of trends, Web technologies and are able to approach the industry with an open, “online” mindset.

From Mac Slocum on April 8, 2007 at 10:39 AM

Major Highfield: Wow, that was a heck of a post. Each of the concepts you touched upon is something I've encountered, but seeing it synthesized in a list really snaps it into place. Thanks!