UCLA Extension New Media Reporting: Week 9 Summary

During our Week 9 session we debated some more whether pay walls in online journalism can work. This time we discussed our assignment: Analyzing this excerpt of Chris Anderson's Free and coming up with an argument for or against the future of pay-wall publications.

Surprisingly many of you argued for the viability of online subscriptions, stating that if the writing were compelling enough, the product focused enough and the content fresh enough, we should pay for it. I still held that the pay wall's possible heyday was at least 10 years ago, when the industry would have had to erect a universal wall and have each and every publication adhere to it. Today there would be too many leaks by aggregators.

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting: Week 8 Summary

During Week 8 we talked about using Twitter as a channel to spread news. I noted that some AP reporters were recently chastised for breaking news via Twitter before the wire service had spread the information.

I argued that AP's thinking on this might be a little behind the times. It's good for reporters to live tweet events on a few fronts: First it establishes them as a brand and makes followers want to go to them for news. This only benefits their organizations. Second it teases the news. As you know Twitter is a limited medium. If you want to dig deeper and find out details, you'll have to go to the news outlet in question for the bigger picture. Finally, live tweeting events (as many reporters did during coverage of the Occupy L.A. evictions this week) breaks down the wall between news product and process, letting readers in on the raw material of news and allowing them to make their own conclusions.

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting: Week 7 Summary

During our Week 7 session we were treated to a visit by LA Weekly web editor Keith Plocek, who is responsible for driving traffic to the Weekly's site by, among other means, getting the word out about unique and intriguing editorial content via Facebook and Twitter.

Using social networking -- Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube -- is an increasingly large part of an editorial operation's work online. You report it, produce it, and write it. Now you have to get people to read it in a crowded marketplace. (There are instances -- and the Weekly can be good at this -- in which an aggregated story can get more readers than the original as a result of snappy writing and deft use of social media).

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting: Week 6 Summary

During Week 6 we talked about your crime stories. Most of you did excellent jobs at finding crime stories in your communities to cover and blog about, with original reporting.

The idea here was to realize how a phone call, a visit to a crime scene, even an email to a cop can open a new window to the world and create a new dimension for your work. Aggregating can only get you so far. The next step is old-school reporting. Use both and you could really beat the competition.

Some of you even threw in original video and photos.

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting: Week 5 Summary

During Week 5 I had my LA Weekly news colleague Simone Wilson stop by. She's a master at using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to "background" subjects. Wilson can turn an otherwise ordinary story into the extraordinary -- and drive traffic -- by unearthing tidbits about people in the news.

One of her main examples was her coverage of Reggie Doucet Jr., a young man shot by cops in Playa Del Rey after a night of partying at Drai's in Hollywood, a fact she found out through social-network mining. She also found out he's a promising college football player and a sometime model.

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting: Week 6 Homework

The assignment from last night was to create your own video and post it to your blog.

Basically I'm looking for a soundbite, 30 seconds max, of original content to supplement a news item. You can introduce it with text, but you don't have to write too much, as it's more about the exercise of recording and posting a video.

In class I did a demonstration where I interviewed Frank while taking notes and asked him to repeat an interesting point while I recorded him with my iPhone briefly.

I sent that video directly to my YouTube account via an iPhone feature, then grabbed the embed code and put it in a post.

Check it out here: http://digijournalismucla.blogspot.com/2011/11/frank-alli-using-video-clips-in-blog.html.

Frank Alli: Using Video Clips in a Blog Post

We spoke to veteran TV news journalist Frank Alli about how to incorporate video in an online news story.

He gave us a few pointers:

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting: Week 4 Summary

During our week 4 session we talked a little about using Twitter and Facebook to background people as a prelude to week 5's visit by Simone Wilson.

We talked about my coverage of the so-called Hollywood Boulevard rave riot and how putting together different online accounts, using YouTube video and checking Twitter reports could help you cover an event without even being there.

Students showed off their own remixes of that night's coverage, including Creative Commons-allowed photos and fresh video and some of us had never seen.

The lesson here was that linking to multiple sources and pulling video and photo from available content can give you a stronger story than if you had just "aggregated" a post based on one outlet's own take.

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting: Week 3 Summary

LA OBSERVED

We started week three by discussing our homework, analyzing three days worth of LAObserved. Perhaps students' most-uniform observation was that they felt like outsiders -- that the blog was written for an specific audience to which they did not belong and that it had a narrative that they felt they were parachuting into.

That's okay. That's what a niche blog is -- a diary of a community that speaks mainly to that community. I suggested that students join that community and read LAO everyday, as it's the virtual water cooler of Los Angeles journalism that serves as a cheat sheet for assignment editors.

Others noted that its navigational features were weak or useless. I commented that that's the case for most publications. Search features at most outlets are almost useless, and I recommended using Google.

Finally some of you noted the vertical design of LAObserved -- classic blog. What's hot is on top.

I mentioned that this is a labor of love from a top-flight local journalist, yet it is almost wholly aggregated, respectfully so.

WHERE TO FIND NEWS?

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting: Week 2 Summary

THE NEW YORK TIMES vs. GAWKER

During our second week of class we read some of your papers comparing The New York Times online to Gawker. You noted that Gawker is more vertical looking and has a breezier attitude, often preferring snark and celebrity scandal to serious news.

The New York Times, many of you observed, looks a lot like a print newspaper on a web page, and maintains a serious tone with a three- to five-column layout familiar to newspaper readers.

SPEND TIME AT LA WEEKLY

I invited class members to come shadow me at LA Weekly for an hour if they wish. (I hope my bosses are okay with that).

THE INVERTED PYRAMID vs. BLOG STYLE

We looked at an AP story about a federal crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries in California and analyzed how it was written in the inverted pyramid style, which means that the most pressing, important facts are pacted at the top of the story and lighter details are at the bottom.

We then each rewrote the piece in a more bloggy, Gawker-like style, foregoing the inverted pyramid and using snark and our voices and viewpoints more.

STARTING A NICHE BLOG

Marijuana Dispensaries in L.A. on Edge After Feds Warn That Pot's Not Legal no Matter How Medical it is

Pot shop owners in L.A. have even more to be paranoid about these days. Not only is City Hall trying to shut down more than 8 out of 10 shops in L.A., but now feds are threatening to put the medical cannabis business in California out of business for good.

Associated Press reports today that at least 16 weed retailers in California have been ordered to close their doors because of that whole issue of marijuana being illegal on a federal level and all.

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting: Week 1 Summary

During our Week 1 session we covered the following topics:

HISTORY

We discussed the history of newspapers going digital, specifically the onslaught of newspaper-based websites in the mid-1990s. Timeline histories from the Poynter Institute were discussed, specifically 1991, 1994, 1995 and 1996, which can all be accessed here.

What stood out in the timeline was that the bulk of major newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times (1996), launched in their sites in the mid-1990s.

I made the point that newspapers at the time only saw websites as mirrors of their core product, the newspaper. They were seen as ways toward "alternate delivery" of the paper that could cut print costs.

We got some laughs watching a video, "The Tablet Newspaper," that demonstrated that point. In it an editor says that new technology will provide "a bridge of familiarity" for newspaper readers as they go digital.

NEWS ORGS TRY TO MAINTAIN

I argued that this mindset remains today: That newspapers and TV news operations have not fully embraced the inevitability of online migration. As an example, I mentioned the plans by the parent company of the Los Angeles Times to create a tablet computer that would then be sold at a discount to its app subscribers as a means to keep the print-style product alive.

In broadcasting the story's the same, but via a different tact: Local news stations see online as a way to drive viewers to the telecast, not vice-versa, which one of you pointed out was the way most people see a TV news site.

The reason? They want to capture younger eyeballs they're losing during newscasts, which are still cash cows, albeit diminishing ones.

An ad in a newspaper is worth about 10 times, often more, than what it's worth online. The contrast is even larger for television. The flipside?

The DIY revolution: It often takes far fewer people to put together a digital news operation, and thus the advertising scale can actually make it profitable for some.

BLOGGERS RISE