Friday New Media News Roundup

There's a lot going on out there that I would just love to blog about, but the time constraints in my life preclude me from doing so. So here's the week's roundup of links on new/digital media trends I thought would be of interest. Have a great weekend, and enjoy!

• I am now addicted to the 10,000 Words blog, written by NABJ Region 6 Director (and multimedia God) Mark Luckie. I really enjoyed his recent post on 10 ugly truths about modern journalism. I'm especially struck by numbers 6, 8 and 10.
• First we have professional sports -- the National Football League and Major League Baseball -- starting their own television networks. Now we have the L.A. Kings hockey team hiring its own reporter -- Rich Hammond -- to cover the team, reports the Paul Oberjuerge sports blog. The emphasis is on reporting, just like Hammond did in his previous gig at the LA Daily News.
• The Media Shift blog makes the case for why we need a shield law for bloggers and citizen journalists.

What's In Your Mobile Multimedia Bag?

I am a regular reader of the Oyster Hotel Review blog. Oyster, which started in January, hires journalists to do extensive, independent hotel reviews, including hundreds of pictures. Check out this review of the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City (full disclosure-one of my best friends is a hotel consultant who works there).

A recent blog post caught my eye: An Oyster Reporter’s Mobile Workspace. Writer Paul B offers pictures and the 17 items he carries in his multimedia back pack. It includes the normal stuff, but it also has items including pen and paper, Advil and Zeiss wet lens wipes and cleaning cloths.

I'm in Austin, Texas, this week covering an industry show, and I get many comments about my own Swiss Army Multimedia back pack (bought at Sam's Club for $40), so I thought I'd share what I carry in my own bag.

• FujiFilm S800 FinePix camera with 2 sets of 4 Kodak rechargeable AA batteries;
• Allegiant Air mouse pad;
• 1 4-pack each of AA and AAA batteries
• Olympic digital audio recorder with hand mike, USB mike and lapel mike
• Bag of plug adapters that cover the world
• Ethernet cord
• Victorinox SwissCard with nail file, ruler, scissors, toothpick, tweezers and screwdriver (the size of a business card)
• 4 ink pens (1 with 1GB thumb drive) and 4 reporter notebooks
• 2 1GB thumb drives
• Hand sanitizer
• Hand lotion
• Business cards
• Umbrella
• Belkin 3-outlet, 2 USB port mini surge protector (cheaper on eBay)
  
• iPod Classic
• iPod Touch with iBend holder
• Sharper Image noise-canceling headphones (for flights and editing podcasts)
  
• Apple iPod recordable headphones
• Universal iGo charger for Blackberry and iPods
• Flip Video Camera
• Mini camera tripod
• Business cards
• Breath mints
• Sewing Kit

Some of my journalist friends laugh at my bag -- until they need something they've forgotten. Click here for my past post on multimedia bag choices.

I was a Girl Scout growing up, and you know their motto: Be Prepared! What's in your bag?

Friday New Media News Roundup

It's been awhile since I've done one of these things, and I had a lot I was saving. So let's get started.

I just discovered Mark Luckie's 10,000 Words blog on journalism and technology. Where has this blog been all my life, combining 2 of my current passions? In this post, he offers up 10 ugly truths about modern journalism.

I have a friend who recently graduated from college and is frustrated by the lack of journalism jobs available. I heard that a lot from young people at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in August. So here's a post from the Journalism 2010 blog on 5 reasons you should go to grad school.

Are you looking for ideas on what makes a great media site? B2B Online offers its thoughts are the 10 best, including the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and PoliceOne.

The DVAFOTO blog offers examples of the newspapers it thinks are still producing great journalism. "Ian Fisher: American Soldier" by the Denver Post was amazing! With all this bad news, it's nice to see that someone is acknowledging good work.

I've been blogging quite a bit lately about the debate on how to use social media in journalism. A new survey from Middleberg Communications finds that 70% of journalists use social media to help them with reporting, according to the Journalistics blog.

The Christian Science Monitor's New Economy blog posts the 10 biggest magazine closings of 2009 so far. I'm still in mourning the death of Gourmet magazine.

I'll end the week with this gem from the TechDirt web site on the Austin American-Statesman's pitch on why you need to buy a print newspaper. Enjoy!

To Credit or Not to Credit Blogs: That Is the Question

I am a reporter and a blogger. I get a nice salary to search out and write stories for subscribers who pay a healthy amount of money to read what I and my colleagues write.

One of my big pet peeves is when I see a blogger take stories that I have put in the time to write, write about it with their own spin and don't offer acknowledgment of my work or even a lousy link to my original story. As someone who writes about a very specific corner of the aviation industry, I can tell when a blogger has done original work or has taken what's already been written out there.

But now I learn that some bloggers have the same concerns. I have a friend who has been writing online about the aviation industry since the mid 1990s. She has developed some great sources (I'm sometimes jealous) that give her information leading to some major scoops. On more than one occasion, I've seen major media outlets take what she's written wholesale and written their own stories with not a whit of credit. These media outlets have good reporters too, but they don't cover aviation exclusively, making it hard to understand how they could have gotten the same story as my friend just 1 day later.

The Nieman Journalism Lab writes about the case of a blogger named Miss Heather, who uncovered a major zoning violation in her Brooklyn neighborhood and wrote about it on Aug. 19. The New York Post picked up the story and wrote about it on Sept. 2. Ok, I know what you're going to say--maybe the Post reporters learned about the story on their own.

But one of the reporters -- Alex Ginsburg -- actually credited Miss Heather for her scoop on the story in the comments section of her blog. “Post policy prevented me from crediting you in print,”he wrote. “Allow me to do so now. You did a fantastic reporting job. All I had to do was follow your steps (and make a few extra phone calls).”

And here's another example. New York University has two blogs dedicated to its community. NYULocal, which says it wants to offer information on what’s happening in the neighborhood, "the most recent J-Sex fumbles and the worst Lil Wayne videos." The other is NYUNews, which is the companion blog to Washington Square News, the independent student newspaper of New York University.

It turns out that NYULocal has a bone to pick with with NYUNews, accusing the latter of "leaving with things that we sought out, claiming them as your own and never acknowledging their source. I’m talking, of course, about our posts." You can see the entire open letter, here.

“`Link economy' means you shouldn’t be reporting on printing charges at NYU two days after NYU Local without a single reference to the fact that you found the story on our site. When we miss important stories that WSN reports on, we post them on Local with a link to the original. Aside from the fact that crediting with a link is common courtesy, we share a lot of readers these days, and realize it would look rather silly if we didn’t acknowledge your existence by linking to stories you’ve scooped us on.

NYU Local The Demise of Free Printing At NYU

Two Days Later…

WSN Changes Eliminate Free, 24-hr. Printing

My own policy is to link and credit any blogs I use in my own work. There are bloggers out there doing some great work, and to me, it seems foolish to act like they're not there.

What Are Newspapers' Social Media Policies

Late last month, the Washington Post came out with its guidelines on how its reporters and editors should handle the use of social media tools. Social media gurus came out en masse to blast the Post's policies, even blasting the fact that the policies were actually leaked by PaidContent.org.

The big issue was with this quote from the memo released by senior editor Milton Coleman: “Personal pages online are no place for the discussion of internal newsroom issues such as sourcing, reporting of stories, decisions to publish or not to publish, personnel matters and untoward personal or professional matters involving our colleagues. The same is true for opinions or information regarding any business activities of The Washington Post Company.”

SocialMedia.biz writer J.D. Lasica said: "Transparency, it appears, is a foreign idea at the Post. So is humanity — the opportunity to show readers that news is not a commodity produced by a faceless institution but a rich, collaborative process where a lot of fast-moving decisions affect how a story is written and played."

Here's what the Post said in answering a question during an online managing editor chat Sept. 28:

Alexandria, VA: Is the newspaper's new social media policy unnecessarily restrictive? Isn't this a case of management that doesn't understand social media overreacting after seeing Raju Narisetti's tweets?

My worry is that instead of the give-and-take that followers are used to having with Post reporters like Rick Maese, HowardKurtz, and Dan Steinberg, we'll just get bland links to articles without any of the interaction and commentary that is the real value of a service like Twitter.

Followers of ABC's Jake Tapper and the New York Times' David Carr on Twitter benefit from their employers' common-sense approach to social media. Why does the Washington Post feel there's a need for a restrictive written policy?

Liz Spayd and Raju Narisetti: We had been discussing coming up with guidelines for several months so that our staff is on the same page in terms of using social networks. These guidelines will continue to evolve as new technologies continue to emerge and become popular. The guidelines we have announced seem to make sense for now.

Many publishing companies either don't have policies or are in the process of developing them. For me, I use a common-sense approach to my social media activities, dividing my personal and professional lives. Click here for guidelines for the Associated Press. Click here for the New York Times guidelines. And here's the Wall Street Journal's guidelines.

Social Media's Place in the Craft of Journalism

Regular readers of this blog know I have fully embraced some of the social media tools out there enhance my journalistic efforts. I know that many of my brethren are still suspicious about using things like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, CoverItLive and YouTube, among dozens of applications.

The fall 2009 edition of Nieman Reports argues that social media is not a "tool" for journalists, but "the ocean we’re going to be swimming in—at least until the next chapter of the digital revolution comes along. What needs our attention is how we’re going to play roles that bring journalistic values into this vast social media territory," writes Geneva Overholser.

But another writer for Nieman Reports, Robert G. Picard, questions whether all these new technologies and platforms really a good idea for news organizations. "Is each one equally useful? What are the real costs in staff time and the operating costs to be on the various platforms? What is actually achieved for the news organization in being there? Does every news organization need to be active on all of the platforms? Finally, how can a news organization achieve optimal benefit across platforms?" he asks.

Picard does see a benefit of journalists using online tools to get "information, ideas and feedback." While social media and blogs allow the public and and journalists to interact and bring up topics that may have been overlooked, he feels it could become a double-edged sword.

"In many instances, the content that news organizations produce (at a cost) is distributed by others, thus removing the need or desire for many people to seek out the original sources of the information," Picard wrote. "This circumstance, of course, threatens the commercial model because of its deleterious effects on revenue and cost recovery."

Evidence is growing that news organizations’ Web sites are offering some benefits, said Picard. "Less evidence has been found to show that social media activities do likewise, especially for newspapers," he mused.

The thing about social media is there's really no handbook for journalists -- or anyone else for that matter -- on how to use it most effectively. It's all just trial and error. I try different things all the time; some things work, and some things don't. But as a journalist colleague recently told me: don't be afraid to fail. And you'll never know what works best for you if you don't at least try. You can click here to see a dizzying array of the Web 2.0 tools and applications out there. Have fun!

Journalists as a Brand

In the past two weeks, I have had lunch and coffee with my social media guru friends. Leah Jones (@leahjones) runs her own company, Nativ Media, where she teaches musicians and artists, among others, how to use social media to promote themselves. During lunch, we talked about how social media was also a way to brand yourself, and how journalists are reluctant to brand themselves.

And my coffee partner Ludo Van Vooren, an aerospace social media consultant told me that it was too late -- I was already a brand because of my efforts on my company blog, my Twitter account (@AvWeekBenet) and Facebook, among other things. You can see my video interview with Ludo on social media here.

So if you're a branded journalist and the worst happens, you can either start your own business based on that brand or sell your services -- complete with a blog, a Twitter account and your Facebook/LinkedIn accounts -- to the highest bidder.

Which is why I found several posts on this topic quite interesting. First is a post on the Personal Branding Blog specifically for journalists entitled "Creating an Online Presence to Develop Your Brand." Writer and journalist Vadim Lavrusik encourages us to take advantage of tools available to help build your online presence, "which results in further shaping and developing your brand."

First, journalists need to have a personal blog where potential employers and the public can get a sense of your professional credentials and you have a home "where all your online personalities meet," writes Lavrusik. It can also be a place for people to contact and connect with you, he adds. I've had this blog since August, and will continue to use to to highlight my work and discuss ongoing changes in journalism.

Lavrusik calls out those who are still afraid of Twitter. The microblogging service is ideal because it allows you to stay in contact 24/7 and connect with like-minded people. "No one cares about what you had for lunch or that you’re going to sleep now," he says. "Instead share your expertise, your professional ideas, articles you’re reading about the industry you’re in and of course the blog posts you write or are articles you are featured in."

I use my @AvWeekBenet handle to connect with aviation, social media and journalism professionals around the world. I also use it to post links to my work, retweet other articles and news of interest and offer my own thoughts on what's going on in my three worlds. I have gotten story tips, ideas and pitches that I think have enriched my work.

Then there's Facebook. "Remember that 45 percent of employers now screen applicants’ social media sites, " writes Lavrusik. "Be careful about your statuses and how they reflect your character and professionalism."

I have a friend who has waited to join, and has taken a very measured approach to how she uses it. I wish I had that guidance when I created mine. I would have made it strictly professional. Every day I'm deleting some people and putting people into separate categories and different feeds. But once that's done, it should be a great tool. I also am an administrator for our publication's fan page, and I've created several aviation-related groups.

Lavrusik ends with LinkedIn, what he calls "Facebook for professionals." "What I often find is that journalists and professionals don’t take advantage of using LinkedIn or maintain it. They simply create the profile and expect the magic to happen," he writes. "Building a strong network takes a lot of work and a real desire to stay in touch with people that could have a business proposition for you, a job, or simply some professional advice."

I attended a seminar with Sree Sreenivasan, dean of student affairs and a professor at Columbia Journalism School and noted guru on these issues. He covered Twitter and Facebook in his session, but he offered a great primer on the potential of LinkedIn for journalists. His best advice? Keep your profile updated and 90%+ completed. I've also joined aviation and aerospace-related groups that have helped me in my work.

For more reading on this topic, see the articles below.

• Journalists must build a personal brand: 10 tips
• Build a Marketing Platform Like a Celebrity
• What’s your strategy for your online work?

And there are some journalists out there who have done a great job creating their personal brand. Some of the ones I read are:

• Eric Deggins, The Feed;
• Natalie McNeil, The Frugalista Files;
• Brett Snyder, The Cranky Flier;
• Jon Fine, Fine On Media;
• Ben Mutzabaugh, Today in the Sky;

Good luck and have fun out there creating your own brand!