And it will no longer be branded as “Interact Blog.” That was a weird experiement. From now on it’ll just be known as Lauren’s personal blog. So take a look, re-subscribe, and comment on my latest post.

Two words my reaction to the video above: shock and hopefulness.

This summer, middle school students from the Porterville Unified School District are learning about journalism at my high school, Granite Hills. And when I say “journalism” I don’t mean it in the traditional sense. They’re learning digital journalism with a cirriculum I have yet to see on a college level:

• Reporting: Interviewing, writing leads, taking notes, editing
• Multimedia: Video production (using Final Cut Pro!), audio editing, photo editing
• Beyond basics: Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D graphics, animated graphics, HTML
• Understanding news: reading the New York Times to understand news article structure and get a grasp for world events

All the mini-sessions are being taught by fresh high school graduates — the very kids who were little high school freshmen when I was editor in chief (including my little brother, the one teaching the HTML session).

My initial reaction was to compare skills being learned by these 12-year-olds to those skills of college reporters I work with. The 12-year-olds win. The video above, although not perfect, is more well-produced than what most Mustang Daily reporters achieve by the end of a quarter on staff. And the fact that recent high school grads can teach skills that colleges are struggling to teach only further mesmerizes me.

And think about it– these are just kids! Listen to the voice of the young girl who narrates the video. She sounds like she should be narrating Sesame Street. She still has six years until she graduates high school, ten years until she graduates college. If kids are learning these skills right now, imagine what they’ll be able to do with it by the time they get to the professional industry.

Back when I went there (2003-2007), I helped get the program on its feet, and I’m so proud to see where it’s come since then.

As I tweeted earlier, I am absolutely blown away. And, also, a little terrified. At this rate, these kids will put me out of a job.

1. Develop a better system for sending out the daily e-mail edition. We’re currently using feedburner, which we find to be inconsistent and ugly. We want something customizable that we can send out during times of breaking news. It will also include ad spots ($$$ = good!)
    
2. Lay the foundations for a community wiki. The wiki will allow users to contribute information they have about on-going issues on campus, clubs, etc. I have no idea how it will be organized or the scope of our topics, but we’ll start with topics we’re covering, then expand to have a page for all clubs, organizations, administrators, etc.�
    
3. Set up a community-generated calendar. Time and time again we get complaints from students about our lack of coverage on certain events. Everyone knows we can’t cover it all, though. But that doesn’t mean those events aren’t important.  A community-generated calendar would be a resource for all students and a way for community members to promote themselves. Because it will surely be a populare page, it also means much advertising potential. (e.g. This calendar is sponsored by _____.)
    
4. Create an easy system for submitting news tips. This could easily be done using a Google form (through Google docs) or a WordPress plugin. When setting this up, we could also do a form for submitting letters to the editor. �
    
5. Make prettier landing pages. Although our front page is bomb (I’m not going to be modest ;)), our news, sports, opinion, arts and multimedia pages are boring as ever. Those pages were a quick fix when the site launched, but I want to redesign them to have a main, featured story and maybe a secondary story, then the rest listed below. It needs structure.�
    
6. A page of aggregated tweets. Although it might be tough working with the Twitter API (thank goodness I’m hiring a web developer), it would be really cool to experiment with a page called “voices on the web” or “community tweets” (or probably something catchier) that agreggates tweets with the words “Cal Poly,” #calpoly, #poly, #slo, SLO, San Luis Obispo, etc. 

Greetings,

As chair of Cal Poly Journalism Department’s Media Board, I’m hoping to gather your input on a couple recent proposals submitted to the board that could affect the future of the Mustang Daily newspaper.
Both of these proposals are in response to reduced income from advertising and long-term budget concerns. We’re currently asking for input from students as well as members of our advisory board. The proposals are as follows:

1. Beginning next fall, drop the Friday edition of the Mustang Daily (meaning the paper will be published four days per week - M-Th).
2. Add the option of placing advertisements on the front page of the newspaper.

If you have an opinion on these proposals, please attend tomorrow’s meeting (5/5/09) in 26-223 at 11am.

After an initial discussion among Mustang Daily editors at last night’s weekly meeting, the staff seemed highly resistant against the notion of putting ads on the front page. 

I have a feeling I’m going to be the only dissenting voice tomorrow. I’m all for both proposals, and have been from the start. 

I am concerned that the so-called “media board” didn’t let our editors in on their initial meeting. As an advocate of transparency and inclusion, that seems backwards.

Another concern we have is that we can get thousands of dollars owed to us from advertisers who say they’ll “pay later.” Because San Luis Obispo is a small community and advertisers are sparse, my understanding is that we’ve let some payments slide to keep bridges from burning. I’m not sure on the exact details, but we hope to find out tomorrow.

A week ago today, the Mustang Daily launched its new WordPress site, hosted and supported by CoPress. The structural changes are a little shaky right now, but I’m confident it will get better.

Timeline

• December 2008: I first heard about CoPress via Twitter and instantly DMed them for details
• January 2009: E-mailed CoPress informing them that we were “very seriously” interested in joining
• Late February 2009: Acquired access to our College Publisher archive
• Late March 2009: College Publisher database transfer was complete; we started working on customizing our design
• April 2009: Official launch

Theory ≠ Reality (but we’re getting there)

In theory, structural changes to the way a newsroom functions seem simple and perfect. It doesn’t always work that way. Here are a few problems we’ve had in the first week of attempting to go web first with our content:

1. Figuring out the workflow: Who copy edits when? Does the section editor look at the article first or last? Can an article be posted to the Web without the section editor’s approval?  These are the questions we’ve asked ourselves these past few days. Section editors (news, arts, sports) have a huge problem with articles being posted to the Web without their approval. Gradually, we’re figuring it out. 

The solution: We maintain a very extensive Google doc on which each editor “signs off” after reading a WP draft. The article can’t be posted until the section editor has signed off.  It’s too early to tell how efficient it is, but we’re trying. 

The Google Doc we use to organize the workflow.

2. Copy editing stories that are already posted online: You won’t catch everything the first time around. Copy editors continually find errors when editing on the page (even though the articles are already published online). Although the simple fix would be to copy and paste from inDesign into Wordpress, doing so would require us to redo all the hyperlinks.

The solution: We’re not sure yet. Tonight we’ll try making the changes into WordPress (instead of inDesign) and then copying/pasting from WP to ID. Complicated process.

3. Photo attachment: Is it really the copy editor’s job to find good photos to attach to the article and subsequently write a caption? Or is that the photographer’s job? If the latter, that adds another step of communication to the process and it means one additional person editing the same article, which gets complicated. 

The solution: As for now, articles are being posted without photos until I get a chance to do it. 

4. Reducing redundancy: When a reporter is done with an article, it’s posted to WP and e-mailed to the section editor so that the original, unedited versioin can be printed and turned in for a letter grade. It’s also e-mailed so the section editor knows the article is ready to be copy edited. 

Solution: We tried a plugin recommended by Daniel Bachhuber that notifies the admin when a new draft is posted, but it sends me an e-mail every time a draft is auto-saved. We need someone to create a plugin that can allow certain people to be nofified depending on the category of the post, and only notified when the the post is “submitted for review.”

First week statistics

First week visits

Traffic was really high the day of our launch and has only continued to decrease.

• 6,802 visits
• 17,135 pageviews
• 2.52 pages/visit
• 61.54% bounce rate
• Avg. 2:09 minutes on site
• 68.94% new visitors

10 most popular pages:

1. Index
2. News
3. Sports
4. Virtual Mustang (page flip)
5. Article- Sex column: The best you’ll ever have
6. Arts
7. Index - page 2
8. Police log
9. Opinion
10. Article- Sex column: Are hand jobs going extinct? 

Overall, it’s going to be OK

So far, the process of going web first is slow. We’re posting only a few hours earlier than we normally would, which is a start. 

Reporters adapted very quickly to the concept of posting drafts to WordPress — hyperlinks and all. 

We’re saving columns and in-depth features for print first, though, to give readers “incentive” to still read print. Again– it’s just a start. We’re getting there. Any advice is appreciated. 

Right now Twitter is building value, the profit will come later.

What are your thoughts on this? Shouldn’t there be at least some plan for profit, no matter how valuable your product is?

That’s the issue with newspapers right now. The product is valuable, but online, you can’t make money off it. The value doesn’t necessarily guarantee profit. 

Does that mean news online isn’t valuable? Or maybe we’re just looking for profit in the wrong places. Thoughts?

The professor, Johnathan York, described the four stages of entrepreneurial growth using an airplane metaphor: 

Stage 1: Opportunity

Are the circumstances right? Do you have the fuel? Do you have the passengers to board the plane?

In terms of journalism, the circumstances are absolutely right because there is a need for a new model. The old model is failing and that is the fuel. The passengers (readers) are there and will always be there. In fact, there are more passengers now than ever. 

On a less theoretical level, you’ll need to get your hands on money and staff to put your non-profit into action.

Stage 2: Launch

You have the materials, now you need to get off the ground. This means coming up with a business model that will work. 

In journalism, this is the toughest aspect because current online models aren’t working. You’ll want to look toward new, innovative models like the Voice of San Diego (a non-profit, online-only organization) or Spot.Us (community-funded journalism).

You’ll have to launch a model that doesn’t fall into the same path as traditional newspapers.  Print advertisements will not transfer to online, so you’ll have to come up with revenue models beyond advertising.

For example, the San Diego Union-Tribune recently hosted a live chat in its Marketplace web site.  Three real estate professionals answered questions from first-time home buyers over the chat. This simple, interactive form of advertising let users connect directly with agencies, which says more about their brands than a banner advertisement ever could.

We need to think beyond static images and into truly innovative forms of advertising that consumers will actually pay attention to. 

Stage 3: Growth

You’re off the ground — how do you stay in the air?  If you try to stay in the air using the same techniques you used when lauching, you’ll crash. 

In other words, get your content out there and give it value. Gain readers. Use social networks to promote yourself and find ways to accumulate more revenue. 

Stage 4: Harvest

If you make it to stage four, you’ve done well — but it’s not over. How do you land safely?

In any other business model, “harvesting” would be selling and getting a return on the value of your business. For a news organization, you wouldn’t want to harvest by selling, but by ensuring that your business will continue to bring in long-term revenue. 

A news organization doesn’t want to just “land safely.” That’s what put the industry in a tough place to begin with. They got comfortable with what was working and didn’t move beyond it when they needed to. Harvesting the value of your news organization will mean continuing to stay ahead of the curve, and constantly thinking ahead.

Students at the 2009 Associated Collegiate Press Conference in San Diego, Calif. discuss ideas on modernizing journalism education in the 21st century.

I saw a video on a news site tonight that made me cry.

I’m pretty sure that’s never happened to me before.

On the technical end, the production was nothing special. The editing was good, yet nothing out of the ordinary.

But the video told a story– a touching story about a deaf student on a high school wrestling team.

This is how video is so relevant to us as journalists. Our industry isn’t becoming a trade. A videographer is not equal to a journalist. A journalist gets people and tells their stories. And that incredibly powerful asset can’t be replaced by a million great flash designers or web developers.

So I’m setting a new goal: To produce a video that makes people cry.

Video found via Kobre Guide.

I’m not going to say I’m surprised by this. The Grizzly Gazette — the online-only newspaper for Granite Hills High School in Porterville, Calif. — is produced and maintained 100 percent by students. The problem: they update by hand in Dreamweaver. That’s right, no content management system.

With multiple updates a day, there’s a huge focus on the technical end and not so much on the content. I’m not saying that the technical aspect isn’t important, but it’s not a web design class; it’s a journalism class. The flashy stuff is worthless when the content is no good.

By using a CMS, the students could focus on producing high-quality content, including (not limited to) video and slideshows and podcasts and — dare I say it — writing! A CMS won’t entirely forfeit the students’ ability to learn the dynamics of HTML and the web, it just takes away the redundancy of adding a new row to the top of the page and inserting a fresh thumbnail and hyperlink with each new article. Instead, students can focus their technical expertise on more advanced skills.

I hope with this year’s loss, the students (and adviser) realize it’s time to move on to a content management system like Wordpress or Drupal. 

Advice from a college j-student

Now to the real point of this blog post (now that I’m done preaching about their need for a CMS). Yes, Pacemaker awards make for good bragging rights, but the real value of being involved with the Grizzly Gazette is the freedom to innovate. 

Upon reflecting on my days with the Gazette, I realize that the environment I was so accustomed to in high school is exactly what college journalism education needs right now. Evan Hackett (the Gazette advisor) had the idea of starting an online-only newspaper, despite criticism from the school district’s IT administrators that it would be too hard. They literally laughed in his face. Because of his indestructive optimism (and stubborn persistence), I came into college ten steps ahead of the rest of my journalism peers. 

He took it upon himself to learn Dreamweaver and get students motivated. In Mr. Hackett’s classroom, the word “No” didn’t exist. We tried new things and broke the rules and went against every expectation that anyone ever had. 

In high school, I never realized that I was producing the future of journalism. I didn’t realize the industry was changing or struggling. I didn’t realize how groundbreaking it was that I was part of a leading student news site or that teaching myself HTML and Photoshop would have so much value. 

College journalism school is in desperate need for educators like Hackett. We need people who are willing to stay up with the times and force students to do the same. We need teachers who let their students take control and try to learn with them as they go. We need more Evan Hacketts in the college world.

So, Grizzly Gazetters, this post is for you. Let this be an opportunity for you to seriously assess the news site. Find out what works and what doesn’t. What are your weaknesses and how can you improve? Most of all, how can you innovate? Do things that the professional and college worlds haven’t thought of yet. 

Trust me, the rest of the journalism world is struggling. In high school, you have nothing to lose. There are no major advertisers at stake. You’re not pressured with the lingering fear of getting a job. You’re free to experiment and bring fresh ideas to the rest of us. You’re free to make mistakes without terrible repercussions. Take advantage of it while you still have a teacher who will let you get away with anything and support you along the way. 

Nothing is holding you back. So hold your heads high, restructure, re-prioritize and have a strong comeback next year.