Print, Pixels & People 11

Print, Pixels & People
Ideas for today’s
student journalist
Logan Aimone, MJE, executive director
National Scholastic Press Association

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Let’s start
with a quiz!
Keep score at your seat,
or just keep track in your head.
If you’re really techy, you’ll add
your points on your iPhone.



1. Mobile
5 points: You have a Web-enabled
mobile device (BlackBerry, iPhone,
etc.)
3 points: You have a cellphone with
text message capability (that you use)
1 point: Cellphones can do that? Yours
is just for actual phone calls.
0 points: No cellphone.
+3 Bonus if you have a Web-enabled
phone and an iPad


2. E-mail
5 points: You check your e-mail
account(s) on your computer, iPad and
phone.
3 points: You use only a computer to
access e-mail.
1 point: You have to print your
e-mails to file them.
0 points: No e-mail.
+1 if you’re on Gmail.
-1 if you still use AOL.


3. Microblogging
5 points: You have a Twitter account
and regularly send tweets.
3 points: You set up a Twitter account
but never send tweets.
1 point: You have at least heard of
Twitter.
0 points: You think the only “tweets”
are from birds.
+1 Bonus: You Tweet from your phone,
or if you know and use TwitPic.


4. Curated Links
5 points: You have an account on
Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon,
Publish2 or another social
bookmarking site.
3 points: You’ve seen these sites.
1 point: You’ve forwarded a link.
0 points: You thought curating was for
museums.



5. Social Network
5 points: You’re a Facebook expert
(pages, groups, photos, links, apps).
3 points: You’ve seen these sites.
1 point: Your main Facebook activity is
Farmville or Mafia Wars.
0 points: No active Facebook.
+1 if you manage a fan page or a group.
-1 if you only have MySpace.



6. Websites
5 points: You own your own domain
name and manage the site.
3 points: You’ve dabbled online with
HTML or WordPress.
1 point: You are mainly a user, not a
creator online.
0 points: You think the Internet is a
“series of tubes.”
+1 if you access on your phone.



7. Flickr
5 points: You have a Flickr account and
post images regularly.
3 points: You’ve browsed Flickr.
1 point: You know Flickr exists.
0 points: You think this is about
candles and wonder why it’s
misspelled.
+5 if you know about Creative
Commons and have abided by a CC
license.


8. Video
5 points: You’ve created and uploaded
a video to YouTube or another site.
3 points: You’ve watched multiple
YouTube videos.
1 point: You’ve maybe seen a couple
videos online.
0 points: You didn’t know YouTube
was an online video source.
+1 if you have seen the Old Spice ads.
+5 if your question was in one.


9. Miscellaneous
Bonus Points:
+2 if you use RSS feeds
+2 if you read Mashable.com
+2 if you have apps for news
+2 if you have apps for lifestyle
+2 if you’re on LinkedIn
+2 if you’ve made a Google Map
+2 if you use Google Docs
+2 if you know about QR Codes Pixels & People
Print,


Scoring
35+: Impressive! You’re techy. You
probably already tweeted your score.
25-34: Not too shabby. You’ll probably
update your Facebook about this later.
11-24: You’re somewhat techy, but you
could to kick it up a notch. Ask your
friends how.
10 and under: Time to start living in
the 21st century.



Shifting Gears
What’s your platform?



Print
What’s working?



Print
• Although it has faced challenges from
broadcast media, it remains the most
common, widespread and portable form of
mass media.

• It’s relatively inexpensive, portable and
accessible.

• What is the impact on the school
community when printed media are
eliminated?

• What content should be printed?


Pixels
What’s new?



Pixels
• While the printed page has been the
dominant medium in scholastic
journalism, online publishing has started
to take off.

• More student newspapers — and even
magazines and yearbooks — are turning to
the Web for a variety of reasons.



Pixels
• The Internet allows for instant publishing
of content rather than the infrequent
publication of print.

• Compared to the expense of printing an
edition of the newspaper, a website is
dramatically less expensive — maybe even
free.

• However, websites can be hard to manage
and inaccessible to many.



People
What’s it all about?



People
• Ultimately, it’s the content that matters.
• You and your staff need to answer this
question:

• What is the most appropriate format to
use to tell this story?



Putting it
together
What does today’s
student journalist
need to think about?



Convergence
• The term convergence means a “coming
together” — and that’s what you have
available to you today.

• Members of Generation Y (that’s you!) are
comfortable with and operating in a
converged media environment.



Convergence
• Online tools allow a media staff to combine
multiple media to deliver content in the
most appropriate format: text, audio,
images or video.

• Online networks like MySpace, Facebook,
YouTube, Delicious, Flickr and Twitter
allow users to build a community and to
customize and share content.



Convergence
• Are you and your staff positioned to tell the
story in multiple formats?

• Why not?



Social Media
• Because teens are comfortable in this
environment, you need to shift your focus
to take advantage of where your readers/
viewers are.

• Engage your readers in a way that helps
them (they get news) and helps you (you
get tips for more news).



Social Media
• Do you have any idea how big of an impact
social media are having on every aspect of
our lives?

• Let’s watch a short video and see…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=sIFYPQjYhv8
(Social Media Revolution 2, May 5, 2010



Social Media
• A few highlights from the video:
• Nearly all of you (96%) are on a social
network.

• That’s the #1 Web activity.

• More than 500 million people are on
Facebook. (More on that in a minute.)

• Fastest-growing segment is women 55-65
(that’s your mom or grandma!).



Social Media
• More highlights from the video:
• 80% of Twitter use is by mobile device.

• That’s instant discussion, good or bad.

• Studies show Wikipedia is more accurate
than Encyclopedia Brittanica.

• But that’s not an excuse for using it as
your sole source.



Social Media
• More highlights from the video:
• 78% of people trust peer
recommendations. Only 14% trust ads.

• 25% of Americans watched a short video
in the last month on their phone.



Facebook
• In June 2009, the average United States
user spent an average of 4 hours, 39
minutes on the site per month (~9 minutes
per day), according to Nielsen Media.

• In January 2010, the average U.S. user
spent more than 7 hours per month (~14
minutes per day) on Facebook.

• That’s more time on Facebook than on
Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Microsoft,
Wikipedia and Amazon — combined.



15 Things to Think
About This Year
Improving your operation
in 2010-2011



1. Be excellent
• It probably goes without saying, but I’ll say
it anyway: Strive for excellence.

• Excellence isn’t settling for pretty good.
• Good enough is not good enough.
• Set goals to improve with each edition or
deadline.



2. Get out there
• You can’t really get a story unless you get
out and talk to people. In person.

• Yes, in person!
• You can always tell the difference when a
writer has observed and interviewed in
person.

• E-mail or chat interviews fill a need, but
they are not as effective as being there.



3. Find stories
• Establish a solid beat system in place to
gather the routine news.

• Expect that each beat will yield some briefs
and longer stories.

• Demand enterprise from reporters (editors,
too). That means digging around to find
something newsworthy and writing it in a
compelling, interesting and useful way.



4. Show us
• Probably the most widely read (and most
liked) stories are those that tell interesting
stories about people.

• Your school and community are full of
these stories.

• Localize national issues with the stories of
people around you.



5. Get a Website
• There’s really no excuse today for not
having at least a basic website.

• Basic: You could post a PDF version of the
printed paper.

• Advanced: You could update news
throughout the school day.

• An online presence opens up a new
universe of multimedia opportunities.



6. Get social
• MySpace and Facebook accounts are free.
Interact with readers by posting links to
stories and by getting tips from readers.

• With 60 million Facebook status updates
daily, you can monitor what’s happening
or ask them to let you know about events
occurring outside school (or at school but
not known).

• Let readers submit photos, letters, etc., to
you through these pages.


7. Start Tweeting
• Twitter is a free “microblogging” site that
works in 140-character messages.

• As you gather “followers” you will be able
to pass along messages to a wide group of
people. That means instantly informing
your followers when news happens (sports
scores, lockdown, free burritos at
Chipotle).

• Use hashtags (#word) to label and search.


8. Get Delicious
• Delicious.com is a social bookmarking site
that is, guess what, free.

• You can post links there that will be useful
to others.

• The links can be labeled and sorted in a
number of ways.

• This is a way to enhance content beyond
the printed page.

• You can also see what others bookmarked.


9. Use Flickr
• Flickr is an online image-sharing service.
Yep, it’s free for a basic account.

• You can make your images available for
people to browse.

• Through a Creative Commons license, you
can get images to use (free and legal!).



10. Use YouTube
• YouTube is a solution to upload videos.
• It might be blocked on your school’s
computers.

• However, it’s not blocked on mobile devices
or at home, which is where most people
will probably access the videos anyway.

• If you need a site to get by school filters, try
SchoolTube.com instead.



11. Do multimedia
• With a website, not only can you update
news and information as frequently as you
want, you can improve the content.

• The newspaper can showcase one or two
images from an event. Online, you can
have dozens — with audio and captions.

• Yearbook staffs can promote the book
through “sneak peeks” or extras that are
posted online.



11a. Try QR Codes
• The “QR” stands for quick read and is a type
of two-dimensional bar code

• Smart phones can scan the codes and
launch PDFs, videos or websites

• Create a QR code easily and for free online
• Even without a website, this is a way to
add content and value



12. Be the #1 source
• Be serious about being the top information
source for all things about your school.

• If someone wants to know a fact, score,
date, record, time or whatever — be the
place they turn for that information.

• Own sports stats, especially JV and lower
squads.

• Scoop the local paper. Doesn’t it feel good
when that happens?


13. Do fewer…
• Horoscopes and advice columns
• Superficial columns (carpe diem,
senioritis, slow drivers, etc.) that could be
in any year

• Double-truck stories on “hot topics” that
aren’t tied to a news event. Make sure you
have a news peg if you’re committing that
much space.



14. Follow the law
• Obey copyright.
• Only use “fair use” images or get
permission. Flickr lets you search for
Creative Commons images.
• Use copyright-free music unless you pay
a royalty.
• Saying it’s “for education” doesn’t let you
off the hook.
• Know privacy rules.
• Know your rights.


15. Remember…
• Your role on campus is to inform and
enlighten your audience.

• You have a responsibility — an obligation,
even — to take that seriously and to do it
well.

• Your audience needs you to tell them the
things no one else will tell them.



Summary
Time to wake up if you
have been sleeping!



Print
Keep doing it.
• It’s perfect for long stories.
• People can pick it up and take it with
them.

• It’s permanent. (You can’t tape a Web page
in your scrapbook.)



Pixels
Get more digital.
• It’s instant.
• You build a community.
• Readers expect you to be online.
• If you don’t someone else will.



People
It’s always about them.
• Whether in print or online, it’s the story
that matters most.

• Find the platform that is most appropriate.
• Converge multiple platforms to
experiment.

• Be excellent.


Thanks!
Twitter: @NSPA

Facebook:
National Scholastic
Press Association
Any questions?



Print, Pixels & People 11

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