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: