Extra Credit Blog from Mass Comm Week

I attended the presentation by Mark Ethridge during Mass Communications Week. The week brought in many people in the communications industry for speeches, presentations and forums. The week gave students insight into the communications industry. The week was a good alternative for students to listen to someone other than their teachers. To be honest, I am sure students were happy to have class cancelled because of the week. This week also gave professors the excuse to not have class.

According to the Virginia Commonwealth University Mass Communications Web site, Ethridge is the current president of Carolina Parenting Inc. The company prints Charlotte Parent magazine and parent magazines in other major regions in North Carolina.

The presentation concluded with a book signing by Ethridge. His book is called Grievances and chronicles his reporting experiences.

In the podcast below, Ethridge talked about the advantages local newspapers hold over other news sources. The first point he made and stressed is the ability to cover local news. He stated there are many ways to get international, sports, stocks and movies. He also said there were usually more reporters with the newspaper than with the local television station.

The second point was that newspapers can report in depth, with detail and authority. He stressed authority because there are so many ways of getting news by way of traditional outlets and new age outlets. He used blogs and Twitter as examples and he said we are "overwhelmed" by news in this new age.





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Sportscenter.com

Sportscenter is probably the longest running program on ESPN and probably the longest running sports program on any network. This is the best sports show and it never seems to get old. Now they have finally caught on to the multimedia wave with the launching of their site.

The main page is simple and easy to navigate. The top half of the page begins with top headlines in sports. The site is heavy with video coverage. Nowadays, video is a good way to draw viewers on the Web.

Having a time stamp is a popular method with news organizations. The site has their update at the top of the page. Currently, the last update was at 3:05 a.m.

Everyday, there is a new Sportscenter anchor featured. The feature is at the bottom of the front page. For Sportscenter fanatics (like me), I am able to learn more information about the people I watch everyday. Today, the featured anchor is Scott Van Pelt.

Next to the feature sports anchor are the featured Sportcenter anchor blogs. I find this interesting because like normal anchors they are supposed to stay neutral when reporting on television. It is hard to get a feel for their personalities when they are reporting on the air. The blogs of course let readers know what they are really thinking on certain issues.

The main page has the ESPN television lineup. The best part of this site is the archives of ESPN commercials. They are all entertaining and having this up is smart to draw fan interest to the site. Also, there is a discussion forum for fans about these commercials.

Here is one of my favorite commercials. This includes current professional football players Peyton and Eli Manning. They are quarterbacks in the National Football League. They are taking a tour in the ESPN studios. The funny part is they are acting like two little kids by messing around with each other when their parents are not paying attention. Their father, retired professional football player, Archie Manning also appears in the commercial.

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.

The Death of Traditional Print?

A blog post by Bob Guccione, Jr. published in the Huffington Post talked about the future of media. He broke down the future of media into four major points.

His first point: "Within two years, a major city daily will transform itself into a free paper. Home delivery will still require a paid subscription. The Sunday paper will continue to be sold and will morph into a hybrid of the best of a pleasurable Sunday-paper reading experience and a week-long events resource."

A newspaper won't make a profit providing a free paper. If it was free I would take the time out to go to a store and pick up the the paper instead of paying a subscription to have it delivered to my home. Majority of people that work jobs do not have time to read the paper. Majority of workers look at the news online while they are at work. Workers do not have to wake up earlier to get their news because they can do so at work. Plus, the news they are reading in the paper is considered old.

His second point, "A cable channel will pass one or more of the Big Four broadcast networks in total viewership, chiefly because it makes better programs."

The Big Four of course is NBC, FOX, CBS and ABC.

I agree with this one. There are so many alternative programs on television. Many cable networks are appealing to niche groups. The traditional big four do not offer programming for alternative groups. For example, Music Television (MTV) appeals to a younger audience. They were once known for just playing music videos, but now they only have about one show dedicated to music on their main channel. They have expanded so much that they have other channels dedicated to music and different cultures. There main channel is dedicated to reality shows. Cable networks are able to compete with the big four networks because of the popularity of reality television.

His third point: "Google will lose significant market share, because viable competitors will create as good or better search engines and incentivize people to use them."

Google losing their significance, right now I find that hard to believe. Maybe we can talk about this in a couple of years. I know I have been using Google as my search engine forever. Even now, Google continues to reinvent itself. So like I said, when there is a true competitor then we can talk about this.

His last major point: "The Internet will not consume print, because it's not strong enough, it's not better, and it's too busy consuming itself."

The internet provides an easy alternative and cheaper alternative, especially for college students who have little money. Nowadays, a person can do anything on the Internet. Overall, I think print and Internet will continue to co-exist for a while. Internet will prevail in the end. Information is literally at a person's fingertips.

I do not understand how Guccione can say the Internet will never be stronger than print when the rest of his article bashes traditional print. He basically says that traditional print needs the Internet to survive:

"Offline media companies should use the Web to do a better job of competing with one another..."

"The Internet hit traditional publishing like the asteroid that struck the earth and killed the dinosaurs."

"I know the conventional wisdom: that readership is being lost to the speed and efficiency of the Web."

He also talks about traditional media outlets and how they ignored the Internet as a new wave of media. So I do not understand how he came to the conclusion that the Internet will never be stronger than print.

That is all I have to say.