Chris Anderson's 'Free'

Here's a link to a free excerpt of Free.

Embedding a Document

Here's an example of embedding a document, using Scribd.


104329119 LAPD Terror Policy

On Gawker And Nick Denton

Another good read, this one about Nick Denton and Gawker.

The Transition to Online

I just wanted to note this great piece in the New York Times a few years back about the dot-com boom in digital journalism.

New Media Reporting Summer 2012 Week 7 Summary

During week 7 we finally demonstrated how to post a YouTube video on a blog (rocket science, this), and we went over creating and embedding a Google map again. (For examples scroll down through this blog).

Our students did a great job of creating and posting original video. I think the exercise supports why I believe that video is most often a supplementary part of modern digital journalism. If you're stealing time from work reading news, watching a lot of long and heavily produced video is a risk for your average viewer.

Also, uploading and editing video longer than 30 seconds can be a chore for both you and your bandwidth. Try breaking up videos into segments, posting multiple clips and narrating your way from asset to asset.

We looked at Google Analytics and broke down both traffic sources (incoming websites and referrals) and search engine keywords that were sending readers our way. We found out that Facebook and Twitter sharing, as well as sites such as Reddit and StumbleUpon, were taking up an increasing share of the referral pie.

Search and SEO is still king, but less so. (Also, Google has been discounting SEO keywords to give less weight to so-called "content farms" and those trying to game it with less-than optimal news content, which I think is a good thing for our business. You can read more about that here).

We talked about how Google+ might not be the best place to find your friends, but it is a good place to post your content. Google search gives news found on Google+ a little more weight. (Some news organizations are experimenting with Google+ Hangouts -- live video chats with reporters -- but we don't get it, yet).

Finally we talked about "live tweeting." If you're at a breaking news event, why should you give away the milk via Twitter when readers should be buying the cow by reading your whole story when you post it?

I think live tweeting is good for you. It establishes you as a news authority and source, even if you're giving up scoops, angles and details to the competition. In the long run it will reward you with both credibility and followers. And it helps you organize the roadside markers of a story, even photos that you've tweeted. You can use those to help you construct a final take. Finally, in most cases you'd never be able to write a complete story as fast as you'd be able to tweet developments. Give people some news. They'll come back for the narrative.

Our homework was to write a post, aggregated is okay, post it to Facebook and/or Twitter AND get someone to comment on it (either directly on your blog or on Facebook). Not as easy as it sounds!

Who to Follow on Twitter

Here's a selective list of Twitter users to follow, in no particular order, if you're looking for news.

JOURNALISTS AND OUTLETS

Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times police reporter.
Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times police reporter.
Robert Lopez, Los Angeles Times police reporter.
Kevin Roderick, publisher of LA Observed.
Claudia Peschiutta, reporter, KNX 1070 Newsradio.
KNX 1070 Newsradio.
California Watch.
LAist.
LA Now, Los Angeles Times' local news blog.
Kimi Yoshino, Los Angeles Times assignment editor.
David Begnaud, KTLA News reporter.
Rina911, KPCC crime reporter.
89.3 KPCC.
L.A. Daily News.
CBS 2 KCAL9 Breaking.
ABC7 Eyewitness News.
KTLA News Desk.
myFOX Los Angeles.
Bobby DeCastro, Fox 11 morning news.
TMZ.
Harvey Levin.
STRINGERinLA.
NBC Los Angeles.
tvtoni.
Los Angeles News.
Angie Crouch, NBC Los Angeles.
Simone Wilson, LA Weekly.
Jill Stewart, LA Weekly.
Gene Maddaus, LA Weekly.
Sarah Fenske, LA Weekly.
LA Weekly.
The Informer (LAWeeklyNews).

POLICE AND FIRE AND MORE

LAFD Conversation.
LASD Tony (sheriff's press info).
Mike Parker (sheriff's press info).
LAPD Communications.
LAPD HQ.
Cal Fire News.
USGS Earthquake CA.

SCANNERS

LA County Fire.com.
Venice 311.
Weho Daily.
LAScanner.
BHScanner.
Hollywood 311.
Koreatown311.
sgvscanner.
Culvercity311.

Food Blogging: The Elements of a Good Post

Last week we talked to Daina Solomon, a contributor to LA Weekly's food blog Squid Ink, about the elements that make a blog like that so appealing to readers.

Here's what she had to say:

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting Summer 2012: Week 6 Summary

During Week 6 we talked a little more about voice. We used an example of a story in the New York Times about how Mitt Romney said he never paid less than 13 percent of his annual income in taxes and wondered how it might have been written with more attitude. We looked at how Gawker treated the same story.

We moved on to crime reporting in the digital era. Being on the cop beat isn't for everyone who wants to get into digital journalism, but just as with print, it's a good basis for figuring out the elements of our profession.

As you figured out with your Week 5 assignment, dealing with cops isn't always fun, but it's good exercise for reporting. But in this new era we can also get crime information from Nixle, police Twitter accounts, eyewitness Twitter accounts (who sometimes post usable photos from the scene of an incident), and police Facebook pages.

Besides the LAPD's blog and YouTube page there's a lot of crime info out there. The L.A. Sheriff's Department uses Twitter and Nixle extensively.

We talked a little about the new rules of online reporting: Break news if you can. If you can "be there," at a press conference or at the scene of a crime, you've got a huge advantage. But your next chance at gaining eyeballs and a competitive edge is to forward already broken news by picking up the phone or mining social media for new information that will add a new chapter to the story. Finally, you can take the Gawker route and simply add your spin, your voice, and your ranting to an existing story. The every popular list (5 ways to beat a parking ticket) falls into that last category.

We attempted a live demo of recording a quick video, uploading it to YouTube and embedding it in a post. Slow upload times meant that we'll have to try again during Week 7.

Finally we did a demo on creating a custom Google Map and embedding it in a post.

The assignment was to create an original YouTube video and embed it in a post with a few grafs explaining what it's about.

Embedding a Customized Google Map

Here's a quick map we made of some of the gang turf on the Westside.

View Westside Gangs in a larger map

How Can Social Media Help You Cover Protests?

The Poynter Institute asks that question of Los Angeles Times' reporter Kate Linthicum, who talks about how she used Twitter to help her get a handle on the Occupy movement.

Here are the New Media Reporting news blogs for summer, 2012:

Russell Allyn
Ruth Boyle
Theresa Cheng
Maria Colias
Collette DeBenedetto
Claire Doran
Donald Hughes
Alice Marsh-Elmer
Marisa Mostek
Lyndsey Nolan
Renae Punzalan
Rebecca Robledo
Claudia Silva
Daina Solomon
Mikaela Wolf

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting Summer 2012: Week 5 Summary

During Week 5 we talked about digging into Facebook and Twitter to find out about subjects in the news.

In cases, for example, where someone dies, we can sometimes add the term "RIP" to their name and find pages dedicated to them, with photos, commentary and family history.

I used the case of a young man killed in a stabbing recently in Santa Monica. We used Facebook to discover a little about him, including that he and the suspect knew each other and went to high school together.

I got into aggregation more. I wanted to make the point that journalism has a history of aggregation. In Washington when the New York Times gets a huge scoop on the president, for example, often other outlets follow, crediting the paper. Contemporary aggregation is no less legitimate. In fact, with the ability to link, it's more so, as we're driving traffic to the source.

In local television news, outlets have long used a form of shadow aggregation: One station will jump on breaking news, City News Service, a pay-service wire, will pick it up, and the competition will break into programming to announce that "wire services are reporting" that a major event just happened. Yep.

But you can do better: One way is take a story that's already been developed and move it forward. Sometimes a phone call or two can "advance" the story, or give it an exclusive spin or scoop. Even though say, the Los Angeles Times discovered some news, you can be first to discover a new development. You still need to link to the originator, however.

In fact, if all you have is one source for your story, and it's another outlet and its well-done reporting, it's often the rule that you should just do a few grafs and then let readers find out more by jumping to the original via your embedded link.

Unless you have fresh info, expertise or a unique perspective on a story, a la Gawker, that's the way to go.

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting Summer 2012: Week 4 Summary

During Week 4 we talked about what an ideal, "aggregated" story looks like. We noted that even the New York Times does this, drawing from diverse sources and using links, to create a well-informed piece.

We took a look at how some outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, use Storify to compile tweets about a news event.

I expressed my opinion that I liked it better if the compilation of such tweets were choreographed and guided by the author's voice and not just stacked.

We compared two broadcast sites, KTLA News and KPCC 89.3 FM, and talked about what they did and didn't do well. One common concern was their inability to translate their broadcast reporting expertise on the web, though KPCC was doing an interesting job of posting audio clips. The identity of the two sites was in question too: KTLA used a lot of national stories, but it's a local news operation on-air. KPCC was dry and statewide. We weren't sure what it wants to be.

We talked about why voice, snark and opinion is so crucial today: We're fighting for your attention, and there's a lot of competition. This explains the rise of sites like buzzfeed and Gawker.

We talked a little about how to use audio. If I get something good on audio, I like to upload it to Soundcloud and embed it in a story.

But with audio and video, I feel that the journalist has to lead the story with print-style reporting. Rarely does video or audio lead the show. Even when it does it needs to be explained by the author.

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting Summer 2012: Week 3 Summary

During Week 3 we looked at how we can use Twitter to do reporting.

What is reporting? It's researching the facts of a story. While traditionally it involves interviews and digging for documents, the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Google can be used to source information.

ZabaSearch, Facebook, law enforcement inmate information sites and other databases can be used to background people as well.

Where do we get photos, video and audio? For photos, I search for Creative Commons images on Flickr and Wikipedia. For video, YouTube is king, but you can also find video (and photos, for that matter) that are perfectly okay to use on Twitter.

We talked about making sure to link to aggregated sources.

Using "block quotes" allows you to break up your copy so that it's not a boring block of words.

On deadline? Learn to type on your computer during phone interviews so you can quickly copy and paste info into your story.

Online interviewing is okay as a last result, but the biggest drawback is that it's hard to ask follow-up questions or pin someone down on a key point.

UCLA Extension New Media Reporting Summer 2012: Week 2 Summary

During Week 2 we talked about why chronological blogging works.

We compared the traditional dry, "pyramid" style of newspapering to the modern, more conversational style of blog writing.

The pyramid style has its roots in using the teletype machine to transmit information in a brief and compact manner. Additionally, newsprint space and being fair and balanced were paramount issues.

Today the unlimited space of blogs, along with the myriad of competition, mean that dry, compact, fair, balanced information is taking a backseat to attitude, opinion, voice and snark.

It doesn't mean that we should be unfair. But it does mean that one blog post can tell one side of a story, and another can tell another side of it.

We talked a little about why using keywords, including proper names and places, are so important to headlines. They attract Google.

Where do we find news these days? Everywhere, but especially on Twitter, Facebook and other sites.

We compared the New York Times to Gawker. Different, yes, but Gawker points to that voice-heavy, aggregated future.

Assignments for Summer of 2012

Assignments for New Media Reporting:

Week 1: Compare a day's front pages from Gawker and the New York Times. Write a few paragraphs about the differences in tone, subject matter and presentation. 50 points.

Week 2: Read and analyze three days worth of posts on the blog LA Observed and summarize your thoughts in three or more paragraphs. Also, set up your blogs and post your work there. 100 points.

Week 3: Use Twitter and Creative Commons photos to produce a story with photos based on information, at least in part, you reported via Twitter. 100 points.

Week 4: Write a post about the latest developments in a hot story. Use three sources, including an original interview, video/audio and links. 100 points.

Week 5: Write a true-crime story using original reporting (an interview or email Q&A). You can base it on an existing story or press release, using those to advance the tale, but make sure it's about something current. 150 points.

Week 6: Make a video and post it to your blog. It can be a soundbite of an interview or a shot of a news scene. It should be set up with text to provide context but you don't have to write a complete story. We just want to see your video. 100 points.

Week 7: Write a news story/post. You can aggregate it. But you need to promote it via Facebook and Twitter. And you need to get someone to comment on it. 50 points.

Week 8: Read a free excerpt of Chris Anderson's book Free and write a short essay arguing for or against pay walls for news websites. 50 points.

Embedding a Tweet

10 spots left on the discount list for @ruskoofficial at Avalon 8/3. RSVP to: TheBirdyList@gmail.com INFO: ow.ly/cHJr2
— Julie Rasmussen (@JulieRasmussen) August 3, 2012