Sandra Ordonez

These articles are the work of their author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of nor an assignment by OJR.

Global voices detail a history of gender bias in journalism

June 29, 2010
For the past two years, the OurBlook team has been busy collecting opinions from diverse industry experts on the future of journalism. We had an unsettling realization – if journalists were having a hard time keeping up with the changing media landscape, journalism departments were having an even harder time. This instigated our team to launch the University Partnership Program [UPP], which provides professors with free and customized Web, technology and research help to make classrooms more interactive, and help students gain new media skills.

One of the most successful UPP stories of transformation has been with a gender and mass media class at the University of Iowa, taught by Pamela Creedon, former director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at both the University of Iowa and Kent State University. With some digital assistance from the OurBlook team, Creedon has created an interactive classroom setting that exposes students to critical journalism principles and the Web and connects students with industry leaders.

Each semester, the class conducts an interview series with successful women in online journalism. These interviews are published on OurBlook.com, under a CopyLeft license and in a "blook" format. Additionally, using available Web tools, Creedon hosts several virtual guests who provide the students with "real-time" industry insight. To complement the classroom learning, students also have access to a Future Journalist Resource Center, created specifically for UPP students by the OurBlook team. While the class project allows students to leave with a portfolio piece, it also provides them with an opportunity to give back to the journalism industry by increasing the amount of authoritative and journalism-focused information found on the Web.

This past semester, Creedon's class decided to focus internationally (view project). The class reached out to bloggers, reporters, editors and professors in 17 countries, including Uganda, Kenya, Chile and Zimbabwe. The goal of the interview series was to understand the experience of women communicators throughout the world, and to gather opinions on the future of the news media. The following are some of the responses given in regards to the interviewees' experience with gender bias. More...

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Ethnic media's four-step model for the news industry's future

December 18, 2009
Disclaimer: While the following post describes the many things ethnic media are doing "right," by no means am I implying that they don't face the same problems plaguing the mainstream media. In today's market, all media organizations must find viable models to stay in business.

Recently, I was asked to gather expert interviews on the future of advertising for a University of Georgia journalism class that is taking part in the OurBlook.com University Partnership Program.

Diverse types of industry experts were interviewed who ranged from techie gurus to journalists-turned-marketers. While opinions varied on what the future holds, the majority of experts agreed that newspapers needed to focus on both niche marketing and community building techniques to be successful. This automatically reminded me that ethnic media outlets, in many ways, have been doing these things for years. Obviously, while they still face the same challenges as their mainstream cousins, it seems as though they can provide valuable guidance and wisdom on certain philosophies that mainstream newspapers will have to adapt to be successful.

Forget the Numbers. Who is your Audience?

Historically, ethnic newspapers have been less concerned with numbers than thoroughly reaching a specific audience, whether it be a Colombian community in Queens, or a growing Asian population in Central Florida. They have been successful in becoming both liaisons and voices for their targeted population, so much so that they are regularly targeted by both national and international entities seeking to interact with their specific community.

Why should mainstream models follow suit? More...

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So... what is the future of citizen journalism and social media?

July 28, 2009
In 1996 I was a communications student at American University, and had just discovered the Internet. I became an addict overnight. At that time, the public communications students were required to take many of the same classes that journalism students did. However, there was an innate understanding among my classmates that the journalism students were different. And they were. In many ways the training was more rigorous, and journalism was the only communications track that focused heavily on ethics.

Fast forward 13 years. Today, as a Web professional working for OurBlook.com, I find myself researching the "decline" or, depending on whom you talk with, the "transformation" of the same industry my professors helped me cultivate an almost obsessive respect for. The culprit? The same computer phenomenon I fell in love with in all those years ago.

In December 2008, OurBlook.com launched a Future of Journalism project. The website is a collaborative, Web 2.0 platform created for the exchange of research, information and dialogue on national and global issues. For both this and other topics, research is conducted in two steps:
1) Interviews with industry leaders are collected and published online.
2) An online book is created using the the interviews as a research base.

Given that the editor of the site is a retired journalist himself, and the founder has a long history of philanthropy in the journalism world, we expanded our research to include subtopics such as citizen journalism and social media. More...

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Sandra Ordonez

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Global voices detail a history of gender bias in journalism

Ethnic media's four-step model for the news industry's future

So... what is the future of citizen journalism and social media?

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