IRE in Birmingham

The IRE workshop in Birmingham this past weekend was an extremely valuable assortment of useful information, tools to use and experiences shared from some of the best in the business. Overall, the conference was an amazing experience. The conference concluded with a wrap-up session given by the moderator of the conference from IRE, Mark Horvit, who is also IRE’s executive director.

The final session was restricted by the end time of the conference, and did not contain as much information as many of the other sessions. However, it did have some useful information pertaining to what IRE can do for journalists.

 Horvit began by asking all the participants at the conference to complete evaluation forms so that they could make future conferences better and to report back to those who have given grants that help underwrite the conferences. The grants keep the price of the conference at $50. IRE’s website offers a lot of useful things for members, and since all of us attended the conference we have membership covered for a year. Their website is IRE.org.

The first tool on their site is the “Extra, Extra” daily blog which showcases a news article that is considered a good example of investigative reporting. These stories are examples of great journalism. The blog takes submissions from anyone, all that is required is one paragraph about what was done and how it was done emailed to extraextra@ire.org. Horvit stressed that this was a great resource that is tagged by categories, has an RSS feed subscription service and the stories in the database go back for many years.

The next tool that was discussed was their resource center. The resource center includes every tip sheet from all of their conferences in either pdf or word format. All speakers at their conferences provide and combine tips that are given to IRE and shared with all of their members. These tip sheets are searchable by topic and many of the sheets also include the speakers email or phone number.

The next tool that was discussed is the stories database from their site, all of the stories ever submitted to their contests are searchable in their database, not just the ones that have won over the years. The authors are required to share how they did what they did. There is also information about computer assisted reporting. IRE is directly involved with the National Institution of CAR, which includes 40 databases that they clean up and make more usable. IRE also sells books and hosts job listings. There is a training blog, which posts lessons, upcoming events, training calendar and they are starting to do online training with monthly webinars planned.

IRE also offers a few fellowships each year, which helps participants pay to attend their conferences, like their conference this summer in Las Vegas. At their national conference they pair students and those new to the field with some of the best in the business. They have very few applicants, so anyone interested should apply for assistance.

 Horvit also discussed that IRE  has a listserv that will supply anyone who asks a question an answer from on average three people within minutes.

Horvit concluded that involvement with IRE changes careers and lives.

Youtube Link

The Voice of America

VOAnews.com- The Voice of America

This news source started out in the broadcast news format in 1942 and is funded by the United States government though the Broadcasting Board of Governors. According to their about us they broadcast “approximately 1500 hours of news, information, educational and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of 125 million people.” They have a yearly budget of 194.3 million a year, more than 1300 employees and boast of having the largest integrated digital audio system around the world. Their main goals are to be accurate, balanced, and comprehensive for an international audience.

VOA news has an online presence that is like other news sites, but also strikingly different. There is a lot on this site, but it doesn’t overwhelm the user. One striking difference is that there are NO ADS throughout the site, which is pretty amazing and makes the experience of viewing the information a lot easier. The site is not cluttered, everything on the main page has a point.

At the top of each page is a ticker that scrolls through the latest news headlines, but there are less than ten different stories in the ticker, and it isn’t distracting from the rest of the site. You can choose from different news categories to browse through the news, either by location or topic. The main page has a listing of the most popular stories. On the surface, these would just seem like normal news stories that could be found on CNN, but most stories give you the option of having it read to you in Mp3 format in up to 45 different languages. That makes this site truly international because almost anyone can get the information from this site. There are multiple different language options for the homepage as well. Each article allows you to shared it through digg, facebook, stumbleupon, and delicious, actually, they have m ore than 200 ways to share their content. Each article has a quote pulled out on the side that gives you the essence of what the story is about, and most stories are accompanied by pictures and/or video.

Also on the site are daily and weekly segments that are filmed and posted either in radio format or television format. These segments vary in duration, but some go up to 180  minutes. These segments are in various topics including: News Now Headlines, Issues in the News, Africa News Tonight, etc. There is also an extensive gallery of videos from around the world that were produced and filmed by some of their employees. Over the past week there are about 100 videos, and from the ones that I have watched they seem to be very good quality. The link to one that I found especially good is here:

They also have what they call special reports, which are in depth reports accompanied by video and images on things such as the H1NI and the Fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years later, both are very informative and make great use of new media.

Swine Flu:

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/special-reports/70364692.html

Fall of Berlin Wall:

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/special-reports/70368322.html

Another interesting aspect to this site is a multimedia reporter, Nico, who has his own special section of the site where he uses a mix of video, pictures and audio to tell unscripted stories from different perspectives. While the videos aren’t as polished as some of the others on the site, they still offer a unique perspective. The videos stand alone with no accompanying text, but they tell the story quite well.

One that I watched was about Civil War reenactments, and for the first 30 seconds you would think that you were watching the Civil War and not a reenactment. The link to his section of the site is http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/off-beaten-path/

They also welcome readers to send in links that they would like to share and they take them all together and put them in a video. This site makes use of podcasts, RSS feeds, Mobile applications, a newsletter, webcasts, youtube, twitter and facebook in depth as well.

Overall, I think that this site is amazing and now that I have stumbled across it I am going to bookmark it and go back to it.

Digg up something interesting

So, this isn’t really a news site but it is a tool that I see more and more news sites making available for their users to utilize. Digg.com is a site that does not actually generate a lot of content, instead they keep track of what the most recommended (or the links that get the most “diggs”) stories or links of the day are based upon how many visitors to the individual sites choose to dig it. Digg claims to “surface the best stuff as voted on by our users.” The interesting thing about this site is that there are no editors, instead the users pick all of the content that is featured on the site. What is featured is based strictly on how many recommendations it gets.
In the site’s about us section, they stress that they are all about sharing and discovery, so all of their topics or links have comment boxes and the possibility for users to discuss the content with others who found it useful or interesting.
On the site’s home page you have the option to choose a genre of topics you want to explore or simply explore the most popular links from the past 24 hours which is what is on the main page. All of the links are listed in descending rank order, so the first link you come to is the most popular story, as denoted by the number of times it has been dugg on the left side. The headline or title is a clickable link and sometimes there is a thumbnail image accompanying the link and a small summary of the link.
There really isn’t much to their site, but a user can get a lot out of it depending on what kinds of things they like to read about or watch. Instead of going to multiple sites to find things this site brings it all together for you and tells you what the rest of the world is talking about, reading and watching. In a way it takes all of the work out of getting the news. I like this better than Google reader because within the news feed on Digg, there are hardly ever any repeats of stories like I get from my subscriptions to multiple newspapers and sites like CNN. If the AP has covered it I will get the link sent to my reader about ten times.
On some news sites, like CNN, you are beginning to see them use Digg as a way to share their content and I think that more news sites should jump on the bandwagon. I think that this site would be particularly useful because they do not actually host the content from the sites like Google Reader does in some instances, all you get from Digg is the link that then takes you to the news site, so they would still be getting the traffic for their content. Overall, I think that Digg is a very useful tool for readers and news outlets alike to get information and receive information. It makes my life a little easier, and it certainly makes keeping up with the news a lot easier and a lot less repetitive.

Maybe Sometimes Everyone Shouldn’t Share

I have always had a small problem with the online content for my hometown newspaper, The Mobile Press Register. It used to be that it was almost impossible to find anything online, even if you had seen an article in yesterday’s paper. Maybe about 5% of the content in the paper ended up online because the Press Register didn’t (and still doesn’t) have their own site. All online content of the Mobile Press Register is hosted by a larger site, Al.com which is also responsible for hosting The Birmingham News and the Huntsville Times.
Another small issue that I have had with the Press Register lately, they have increased their subscription rates drastically and diminished their newspaper page count drastically at the same time, so you pay more for the news to get less of it. As a poor college kid, that means that I no longer wish to get the print edtion and instead subscribe to the various RSS feeds offered by al.com.
I would imagine Al.com saves the three newspapers included a lot of money each year on their online endeavors, but I am not too sure that their readers are being served like they should be. Personally, if I wanted to get an assortment of news from the whole state I wouldn’t specifically seek out the Mobile Press Register or the Birmingham News, then I would go to a site like al.com.
When you go to al.com, unless you specify a location you are just given an assortment of news from the entire state. Today, for example, without scrolling down the page all of the links and information that I can see pertains to college football. There are, of course the links at the top of the page that will take you to “home,” “News,” “Weather,” “Sports,” “Entertainment,” “Travel,” “Interact,” “Jobs,” “Autos,” “Real Estate,” “Classifieds,” “Shop,” and “Place an ad.”
When I click on the Mobile version of the site, I still see the same thing except the weather in the right hand corner has changed to Mobile from Birmingham, but I still see the sports coverage and going further down the coverage is still statewide until you get to the very bottom of the page. I also feel that the home page is very cluttered with a lot of blue links that are just the titles of stories, unless it is the cover story there are no pictures on the home page to draw reader’s attention and the stories are not separated very well into categories or sections. I have no idea what I am looking at so it would be almost impossible to find something in particular unless I use the search bar. Graphically, there is a lot that the site is lacking, because there are no photographs and there aren’t any videos either, you have to go to a separate section to see a photo gallery and a video gallery.
There are lots of things about this site that I dislike, mainly because it isn’t exactly functional. I do like the interactivity that you can get from this site though. At the very bottom of the page there is a meter that ranks the stories that have been commented on the most by users, which I think is interesting. I like how they don’t just rank them by how many times they have been seen but by how many times someone has taken the time to post feedback. Users are also allowed to post photographs and video onto the site. It may have to be approved before posting, but I think that adds a great way for readers to connect to the news. Readers can write blogs, comment on blogs and posts and post their own photos and video, in fact al.com asks them to so that they can cover events that they don’t have enough reporters to cover, like high school sports. I also like how there are not a ton of ads everywhere, and the ads that are there are smaller than the ones that are seen on most sites. You could ignore the ads if you wanted to.
Overall, I don’t like al.com from the perspective of localized news because it isn’t. If I wanted news from one of the three areas covered by al.com, I would be better off turning to broadcast news sites instead of newspaper sites, which I find myself doing to get news out of Mobile.

Soundslides presentation link

Soundslides presentation is linked here: http://bama.ua.edu/~sjzirlott/missinglinks/

Burn it down to build it up

I happened upon my topic for this week when I googled (is that even a word?) a phrase that came up on NCIS, so it is slightly random, but anyway.

 

There was a movie that came out in 1984 starring Farrah Fawcett called “The Burning Bed.” The link to the IMDB site is http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087010/. The movie follows the life and trial of Francine Hughes, a severely battered woman who finally snapped and doused her husband in gasoline while he was asleep in bed and, in essence, killed him before he even realized what happened.

 

The website that I chose to do this week was centered around the movie but ties in a lot of other things like domestic violence cases from the past 30 years or so, Hughe’s case, statistics surrounding domestic violence, the laws that have been put in place and Fawcett’s death among other things, but the interesting thing is that all of these stories are tied together very well.

The link to the interactive gallery at the Lansing State Journal is: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/section/news0101

 

What they did right:

 

-       They seem to have covered every aspect of this topic that they could have, I don’t see where they left anything out.

-       Put human faces on domestic violence

-       Gained interest through the fact that Farrah Fawcett had recently died and really reeled readers in with the movie tie in.

-       Includes at least ten news articles on various angles

-       They make sure to cover all sides that they could on the Hughes trial, her attorney, the movie, the advocate, the judge and the police.

-       Includes a Webcast called: Domestic Violence in your Community, which allows for interaction from the readers.

-       Contains links to the articles and materials within the multimedia presentation, but also below the articles are listed individually.

-       All articles allow for readers to post comments.

-       Includes audio when it was available.

-       Includes video when it was available.

-       Has very colorful and easy to read graphs with the statistics of homicide and injury, victim/offender, seeking shelter and filing for protection.

-       Includes short articles of all laws that have been enacted since Hughes killed her husband.

-       Another thing that I think is truly amazing is that they have loaded digital versions of all of the news articles that pertain to the original case so that the readers can go back and read what isn’t in the news articles that have been released recently. They also include pictures from her trial.

 

What they could have done better:

-       Once you click on an article from the multimedia platform, it took me too long to figure out how to scroll down to see the rest of the article. They need to work on that, because a lot of people would just go on to the next thing if they couldn’t figure out how to read more easily.

-       The extra material from the archives takes forever to load, which may be due to their attempts to maintain quality of images, but we are in an age where we want information now, so people probably won’t stick around and the pictures and articles are really worth seeing.

 

Overall, I would say that this presentation by the Lansing State Journal is pretty exemplary. It does an amazing job of tying a old story to the present and covering all sides of the story in a way that is relatively simple for reader’s to click through, it gives the option to learn more if you choose and it does so in a way that is pleasing to the eye and doesn’t confuse the readers.

I think I may have to add this movie to my Netflix cue now that I know more information about it!

How the New York Times lays out the Debt Trap

I must admit that I have become pretty much a slacker when it comes to reading the news online. The last time I actually went to a news site was probably more than three months ago because I wanted to see a video of something that happened back home. I get my news from Google Reader instead, which I admit is probably a bad thing because rarely do I ever read more than the short summary that shows up in the expanded view.

For this first blog assignment, I had no idea where to start so I started browsing the Interactive Narratives site (www.interactivenarratives.org). A multimedia project from the New York Times captivated me with the headline “The Debt Trap,”  which can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/07/20/business/20debt-trap.html. It is a series that consists of articles, videos, photographs and interactive tools that take the simple topic of debt in as many angles as you could imagine.

What makes this multimedia series so effective is that you can be as interactive as you want to be while still getting the gist of the story. There are seven slides that you flip through that have sentences, like “Many Americans, drowning in debt, now face a lifetime of repayment.” If you hover your mouse over drowning in debt, it leads you to a link of an article about how one woman lost control, if you hover your mouse over lifetime, it leads you to an interactive tool that lets you explore debt graphically from the past 100 years. Other slides let you choose your age, determine how heavy your debt load is, how debt is affecting the rest of the world, what has attributed to the current state and finally how college students are being affected.

This is one of the best media packages I have ever come across and there are many things that the New York Times has done right.

-       The slides themselves aren’t cluttered with links, they are simplistic and the images that accompany the slides are ghosted so as not to detract from the message that they are trying to put out.

-       Once you click on an article there are striking images that accompany it, graphs and interactive tools, and there are a ton of hyperlinks within the story that lead to other stories so that the reader can get more information if they choose to.

-       It gives you options. If you want to read more about a specific part of the series, it gives you those options. Whether you understand better through words, images, interactive tools, seeing how it applies to you or watching a video all of those options are just one click away.

-       The interactive tools are amazing. One shows you what the average savings and average debt were graphically from 1920 to 2008, and it is rather shocking how drastic the differences are.

-       Utilizing video. There are multiple videos that are scattered throughout, most focus on giving a face to the problem and are a mix of still photos and interviews.

-       Conveying Impact. By the time you finish this series you know where you stand with debt and where the rest of the world stands with debt, how we got here and where we are headed. There are no questions left unanswered.

Things that they could do better

-       Include more links directly in the multimedia package. There are a lot of links within this, but most of the links are available on the link from the original page. There is a bit too much clicking to get all of the information.

-       Allow for more reader feedback. All that readers seem to be able to do is log in to recommend this to someone else, but they don’t have the ability to comment or interact.

Overall, I think that they did a great job with this and they accomplished something here that they never could have done with just the newspaper. There is a level of interactivity that makes the readers feel that this was done for their benefit, not Joe down the street or the entire country/world, but it includes the impact and speaks to all of those categories.

Check it out to see where your debt level compares to everyone else, or see how debt in America has changed in the past 100 years.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/07/20/business/20debt-trap.html