Post Visit

Friday night my graduate class for multimedia journalism visited the Washington Post. In actuality it was only half of the newspaper. We visited the Internet side of the newspaper, which is located in Arlington, Va. I ended up taking the metro because there is a station located approximately two blocks from the company.

Overall, the visit was very informative and I enjoyed the tour of the Internet side. I expected the paper to have its own building or some type of sign indicating where they were located.

Chet Rhodes was kind enough to stay into the night and talk about what The Post.com is all about. He mentioned that his day on Friday started around five or six that morning. So he was very generous to us, plus he ordered pizza! He is the Assistant Managing Editor for news video at Washingtonpost.com. So, he is kind of a big deal. Actually, he is very much a big deal around the .com side of The Post.

He talked about the importance of story telling in news nowadays. He touched on in the next two years The Post will be converging the newspaper and .com sides into one building. Here is a video from Beet.tv, which has Rhodes talking about video training. The points he touched on during our visit are a lot of the same answers he provided to Beet.


During the visit, he talked about shooting video. It seemed that he just wants his reporters and videographers to implement the basics of shooting for their storytelling. He said he is more concerned with them building their video skills. He presented the process of shooting video:

1. The single most important part of the process is communication; he also said this is the hardest part for staff.


2. Shoot the video.

3. Watch the video and prepare a shot sheet.

4. My favorite part: send the tape and e-mail the shot sheet and names of people in the video.

The last part means letting someone else edit your video, which is what I wish I had right now for my final project. As I said before, I took a lot of valuable information from Rhodes. I think I might apply for an internship with The Post for the spring semester. I think working for them will be a valuable experience.

Journalism Ethics

Adam Reilly of The Boston Phoenix wrote an article about the recent conflicts of interest in journalism for the upcoming election. He raises the question, why some journalistic conflicts of interests gain more coverage than others?

The big news is about Gwen Ifill, she was the moderator for the recent vice presidential debate. Ifill has a book coming out about Barack Obama and his breakthrough into politics. The assumption by Republicans was Ifill would not be fair to Sarah Palin, vice presidential candidate.

Also, other big news during the financial crisis is about NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell. She reports on financial matters and is married to Alan Greenspan, who is the former head of the Federal Reserve. She made a statement on NBC programming that financial troubles started in some financial institutions in 2006 and 2007. This was after Greenspan stepped down as head of the Federal Reserve. Some media outlets believe she was trying to save her husband by pointing out that he was not apart of the financial troubles.

So the real question is how can journalist stand clear from being exposed to conflicts of interests and reporting bias?

A journalist needs to figure out...

1. What is their affiliation with a news event, story or person? (If the story involves a person.)
-If a journalist has a personal relationship with a person, there is going to be some type of bias.

2. Can I cover another news event?

3. Have I ever written anything in support of a person, outside of my profession?

4. Do I have a strong support or dislike of the subject matter?

5. Is it possible for me to stay objective on the topic?

6. Can I let the public know my affiliation with a subject matter before providing a report?

7. Will the public think any less of my credibility if I am in strong support or dislike of a certain subject matter?

8. Will I be able to answer questions from the media regarding my conflicts of interest on a subject matter?

The changing media

Jim Brady says he expects new hires to understand how people are consuming media. Brady is the executive editor at washingtonpost.com. He had an interview on the Mediashift Web site with Alfred Hermida, who is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at British Columbia. One of the topics they touched on was job interviewing. Brady says he first asks in a job interview: assess the changes in media in the last five years and where do you see it going?




In the past five years the media has changed drastically. People are used to receiving the news instantly. News organizations are in a race to report the news first. They are in competition with each other and also with other non-traditional outlets. The social media has played a big role in the past five years. Traditional news organizations are starting to fall behind. The You Tube's, Facebook's and Myspace's are taking over the attention of Internet users. Myspace.com has been taken over by the corporates. They provide links to news, sports, jobs and other options, just like traditional news.

Citizen journalists plays a key role in reporting news. They provide an alternative to the traditional news, who usually filters out stories that are not as important. Even on the Internet there is still gate keeping by traditional news organizations. News organizations are beginning to decrease their staffs, which means there will be even less news coverage. Citizens doing their own reporting allows for more issues to be brought to life. Also, in some cases these stories can be brought to the attention of traditional news organizations as apart of their agenda. Usually citizen reporters are experts of their community. They bring a hyper local aspect to news, which is an advantage for small traditional newspapers. Small newspapers need to take advantage of citizen journalists in their community.

Blogs of course are the new alternative for newspaper coverage. Once an article is published the blog can be used for additional information and allow for reader comments on a story. The blog has provided a new way for people to get their voice heard. This is a good device to connect with small communities. Traditional media is consumed by the blog world right now, which has picked up over the past five years. Anyone can start their own blog.

The downside to these new forms of media is that they allow ordinary people to do their own reporting. They do not have to follow rules of concrete journalism. They are not held to the same standard as traditional news organization journalists. Bloggers do not have to worry about fact checking or providing sources. This will lead to inaccuracies of course.

The election coverage is beginning to pick up. I think there will be some inaccuracies in reporting, just as there was in the past couple of elections. People will turn back to the traditional journalists for their concrete reporting. News organizations have to continue keeping their audience involved in their work. Even if it is just providing a forum for people to discuss. Interactivity is the root to driving readership.

The web is in motion

Web 2.0 is taking over the Internet and most importantly the mainstream media. Cole Camplese wrote an article about Web 2.0 and used 'Charlie Bit My Finger' as a classic example of what the Internet is becoming. The article was posted on the Christian Science Monitor (CSM). CSM is an international newspaper published by The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Mass.

'Charlie...' is a simple home produced video about a baby biting his older brother's finger. Who would believe such a simple concept for a video would become a big hit on the Internet? There was no concept to begin with for this video. The parents were just trying to record home footage of a big brother playing with his little brother. The funny thing about this video is that the kid continues to let his little brother bite his finger. He even puts his finger to his mouth basically asking him to bite.




Camplese uses this to discuss how any person can become famous on the Web. Camplese is the director of Education Technology Services at Penn State. He brings up how this video had no marketing or significant cost to producing this and it turned into a Web sensation. This video has more views than some movies in current theatres in the United States.

I agree with his point that people are posting to the Web for attention. As Camplese states, many traditional news organizations will cite the social medias, such as Facebook, You Tube, Twitter, Myspace and others in their news reporting. Since we are so close to election time, he says the social media will play a big role in news reporting. I have to agree, especially when people with little knowledge about computers can post a video on You Tube and receive air time.

One phenomena that reminded me of 'Charlie...' was the craze around new teen rapper Soulja Boy. He had a song called 'Crank That'. You Tube will not allow me to embed the video in my blog, so just click on the link and it should take you to the video.

He self-produced the song and posted it on You Tube initially. He made millions of dollars off the song. By typing in the key words 'Crank That' on You Tube, viewers can find so much material relating to the song. Here is one example.



Viewers can find the official video for the song, home videos and mash ups from popular media. Someone on You Tube took the time out to do a mash up with the loveable purple dinosaur, Barney. I know I do not have that much time to create something like that. A creation like that still takes talent.



A major chunk of Camplese's article talked about teens and their heavy usage of social media. As from the Soulja Boy example, the social media is another alternative to becoming discovered.