Help is just a click away

If you haven’t explored the Resources page of this blog lately, you could be missing a bet.

For example, did you know you can download the pdf version of my PowerPoint presentation on broadcast writing? Could be a big help with this week’s broadcast writing assignments. For example, it will remind you that you’re supposed to use ALL CAPS when writing for broadcast.

You’ll find this link, along with a link to style rules for broadcast and a sample broadcast story, listed under “Broadcast” on the Resources page.

If you’re thinking of writing a review for your final magazine/multimedia project for this class, have you noticed that the Resources page includes a section on writing reviews?

You also might want to listen to one of America’s best storytellers, NPR’s Ira Glass, give his take on storytelling. You’ll find a link to that YouTube video listed under “Other Resources” … it’s just below the link to an excellent discussion of interviewing skills.

At the bottom of the Resources page you’ll find links to some interesting blogs. For example, if you check out Daniel Sato’s Photojournalism Blog (BTW, Sato is a JMC photojournalism grad), you’ll see that he’s just written a blog post that explains (and shows!) how to make your first map, using Mapnik or Google Maps.

Wouldn’t that make a fabulous “graphic extra” to accompany your final project for this class?

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It’s “website” now

Big news: The Associated Press has changed “Web site” to “website.” Even better, AP “tweeted” the change. How trendy is that!

It’ll become official in the next edition of the AP Stylebook, which is due out in about a month, but you can start using “website” now.

Now if they’d just change e-mail to email, I’d be content.

Pondering the future

With layoffs continuing in the newspaper business (and spreading to PR and advertising agencies), it’s hard to know what to tell students who want to pursue a career in the news media.

So I was glad to see Mindy McAdams’ blog post, Advice for Journalism Students Now. If you aspire to a career in journalism, this blog post tells you what skills newspaper editors and publishers are looking for.

McAdams teaches online journalism at the University of Florida and writes the Teaching Online Journalism blog.

Magazine project resource

I just ran across an online slide show that might be helpful to you as you work on your magazine project, particularly as you think about developing a short-form info box or graphic to accompany your magazine piece.

It’s a slide show on Data Visualization by Mindy McAdams, who teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in online journalism at the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida.

McAdams also writes the Teaching Online Journalism blog, where she recently posted a short history of breaking online news, which was subsequently turned into a timeline of milestones in online journalism. Check ’em out!

More bad news

The bad news for the newspaper industry just keeps coming:

• Gannett Blog: Bulletin: Gannett launches mass nationwide layoff

  tags: future of newspapers, newspapers, future of news, layoffs

  • The nation’s top newspaper publisher, Gannett, has begun what is expected to be the single-biggest layoff in the industry’s history — cutting as many as 3,000 jobs in an increasingly desperate bid to save the 102-year-old company.
  • The cuts come as papers nationwide comply with Corporate’s goal of reducing employment by an average 10% in the 30,000-worker newspaper division, through layoffs, attrition and other means.

A recent article in Advertising Age points to one big reason for these layoffs:

Newspaper ad revenue fell almost $2 billion in the third quarter for a record 18.1% decline, according to new statistics from the Newspaper Association of America. What’s worse, newspapers’ online ad revenue fell for the second quarter in a row.

The historic drop resulted from a worsening economy that sharply exacerbated long-term challenges already confronting the newspaper industry, and it affected all kinds of newspaper ads. National ad sales fell 18.4%, classifieds sank 30.9%, and the biggest category, retail, slid 11.7%. Newspapers’ online ad sales, where everyone is hoping some part of the future business model resides, accelerated their decline with a 3% drop. Online ad sales slipped 2.4% in the second quarter.

This fall’s financial collapse affected only some part of the latest results. However, the rest of the year is likely to look even worse.

The bad news for newspapers has been accompanied by bad news for broadcasters as well. A recent New York Times article, A Generation of Local TV Anchors Is Signing Off, noted:

Across the country, longtime local TV anchors are a dying breed. Facing an economic slump and a severe advertising downturn, many stations have cut costs drastically in the last year, and veteran anchors, with their expensive contracts, seem to be shouldering a disproportionate share of the cutbacks. When station managers are forced to make cuts, hefty anchor salaries are a tempting target.

A drop in advertising revenues is also behind these cuts. The NYT article also notes:

Advertising is falling sharply, partly because of cutbacks in spending by automakers and car dealerships, which represent the single largest category of advertiser for broadcasters.

Of course, someone has to replace those veteran news anchors who are being laid off. As second-tier anchors move up the chain and leave open slots behind them, this may create some openings for more recent grads.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

First, the bad news

As newspaper layoffs continue, and as some newspapers shut down or convert to web-only publication (like the Christian Science Monitor), lots of folks are scrambling to figure out a new business model for the news biz.

For example, the American Press Institute recently held a summit on saving the newspaper industry. They reached no conclusions, but decided to get back together again in six months.

Others are questioning whether newspapers even have six months, and some are saying it’s time for a “Manhattan project” for the newspaper industry.

In the meantime, some newspapers are exploring content sharing. Some journalists are forming non-profit news organizations to do investigative reporting in their communities, like voiceofsandiego.com.

The upshot is this: If you’re hoping for a career as a journalist, you need to start thinking outside the box.

In a recent post on the PBS MediaShift blog, media consultant Amy Gahran offers some suggestions on that out-of-the-box thinking in Swimming Lessons for Journalists. She writes:

So where will today’s journos find tomorrow’s jobs? Here’s my take: Not in news organizations. At least, not in news orgs as we’ve grown accustomed to them over the last century. That ship is quite obviously sinking. While traditional news orgs probably won’t disappear entirely as a species, they’re getting rarer and smaller by the minute. They’re a lousy career bet — especially for established professionals with higher salary requirements and increasingly commoditized skills.

In my opinion, journalists need to start leaping en masse from the sinking ship of the newsroom and start working for search engines, nonprofits, think tanks, collaboratives, and other kinds of businesses and organizations. In fact, it might even be a good idea to trade in the label “journalist” for the more inclusive “person with journalism skills”

You can find additional articles, blog posts and commentary on the future of journalism and the news media on my Diigo online bookmarking site at http://www.diigo.com/list/cynmccune/journalism. I’d call this bedtime reading for aspiring journalists…except it’s more likely to keep you awake at night.

It’s not all bad news, though. Journalist and media consultant Steve Yelvington recently suggested that “maybe these are the best days for journalism.”

Page 1 Obama

See how newspapers across the country conveyed Barak Obama’s election win on their front pages at http://newsdesigner.com/frontpages/obama.php

Obama on page 1