I received submissions from three outlets for the College Media Snow Fall Challenge, and I’ll be highlighting some of the entries later this week, but I want to announce the winner first. Congratulations to The Daily Bruin for In the Shadows, which met all the requirements of the Challenge and was produced Oct. 21-23. The series was …
The Mustang Daily at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo has trimmed its publication schedule to twice a week in print as of this semester, and renamed itself Mustang News, although the changes aren’t apparent on the website, as that will change this week. Editor-in-Chief J.J. Jenkins announced the change thusly: The Back to School edition, …
I know there are some student journalists wracking their brains about potential stories to work on for the ICM College Media Snow Fall Challenge. To help with the process, here are some links to visit for education about some of the technical side of such “bespoke” web stories, and some sites for design inspiration. But …
The Orion at California State University, Chico, launched a web site redesign this week. Mark Plenke writes: The new site officially went live Monday but the editors are still tinkering with elements. They’re OK, though, with sharing what they have with the world. The old site was on TownNews, and the editors decided last spring to make …
Dan Reimold and I recently discussed special multimedia projects like the New York Times’ Snow Fall and the Guardian’s Firestorm, and why such projects can be a challenge for college media outlets. I’ve discussed this topic previously. During that discussion, I threw out the concept of a challenge: The College Media Snow Fall Challenge. And …
UPDATED 9/11/13 The Daily Gamecock redesigned earlier this year when the switched hosting to SNWorks. Here’s a screenshot of the new design: The previous Daily Gamecock site was struggling under the load of hosting a sizable college media presence, so the management sought a CMS partner. Along with the fresh coat of paint, the staff …
Shovelware is a practice that developed early in the evolution of the Web, when news outlets would copy the content they were using in print or broadcast and paste it into pages for the Web, with no links, no updated information, no recognition of what makes online … online. It’s also one of the laziest, …
The Kaleidoscope at University of Alabama-Birmingham has refreshed their design, along with some behind-the-scenes changes as well. Bill Neville, student media production manager, writes in an e-mail: UABkscope.com has been redesigned. We have adopted the mantra “Web First, Print Best.” All staffers are now being brought into our system as bloggers (I prefer “contributors”) under …
New school year means fresh paint for some college news websites. Each year, I ask for submissions and highlight some of the changes that have occurred. Past articles in the series are here. First out of the gate this year is The Daily Cougar of the University of Houston. The staff wrote about some of …
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by my colleague at Eastern Illinois University, Liz Viall. Note: Many of my comments refer to specifics of the Adobe InDesign DPS procedure to build an app. If you have questions, feel free to email me atekviall@eiu.edu Advanced publication design students at Eastern Illinois University devoted a good …
Last week, 3-D animation video site xtranormal announced that they were closing up shop after 5 years. Rich Cameron shared the news on Facebook, and mentioned that the Cerritos College Talon Marks had produced several xtranormal videos and exported them to YouTube. I wrote about xtranormal in 2009 and 2010, making a short video as …
This June, four young journalists — three college students and a recent graduate — set up camp in Valentine, Neb. to find and report stories that weren’t being told by the two big newspapers in the state. The project is Fly Over Me, which exists now on a WordPress-powered website, and there are plans for …
The Guardian released an interactive story this week that again shows how multimedia storytelling can be done with HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3 outside the traditional templated formula for most news stories. I’d encourage you to look at Firestorm, then read this behind-the-scenes story at journalism.co.uk: How the Guardian built multimedia interactive Firestorm. And then, some …
Following up on my post last week about CMS use among Associated Collegiate Press Online Pacemaker finalists, ACP Contest/Critique Coordinator Grace Christiansen was kind enough to send along a breakdown of CMS use by entrant. I understand that they cannot provide information about who entered, but thought this would be a better representation of the overall picture than …
The Daily Tar Heel launched a special page called Campus Coverage: Sexual Assault last week. It aggregates stories published by campus news outlets around the country. UNC has been at the center of a national story about sexual assaults on campus. What started as a handful of stories in The Daily Tar Heel is now …
The Daily Tar Heel at UNC-Chapel Hill launched an aggregation page today dedicated to the issue of sexual assault on college campuses around the country. Right now, the content is sparse, but the goal is to highlight and link to campus media reporting around this important topic. DTH Editorial Adviser Erica Beshears Perel wrote in …
In our College Media Podcast this week, I mentioned the noticeable absence of a discussion of college media in the annual Pew State of the News Media report released on Monday. This is the 10th year of the Pew report, and college media has never been a part. I just never really noticed it before. …
Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released their annual State of the News Media 2013 report today. An overview is here. The infographic screencapped above is available here. One area that isn’t addressed in all this: College media.
Time once again for one of my pet peeves. In fact, it’s not so much a pet peeve as something that summons my rage to levels no mere listicle can, and especially when an online-only outlet does it. I’m writing, of course, about the profound inability of some web sites to actually do a hyperlink …
I’m putting these things together because I see them all the time, and I just don’t have the energy to spend vast amounts of time crafting lengthy essays debating sloppy reporting, overly glowing predictions, and stupid social media strategies. 1. X is the most revolutionary thing since Y. Exhibit A: Why Vine will be as …
Topic 1: After I Praised a Student Columnist Last Week, He Suddenly Resigned. Wait, What? (CMM) Topic 2: New database reveals academic and athletic spending trends at public universities (Press Release) Athletic & Academic Spending Database for NCAA Division I (Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics) Listen or download this episode, subscribe via iTunes, or check out the archives on the CMP home … Continue reading
Topic 1: Student Editor Sued for Stories Published Two Years Before She Started (Sigh) (College Media Matters) Tool: Responsinator College Media Snow Fall Challenge Winner: The Daily Bruin (ICM blog story) Continue reading
Monday, I announced the winner of the College Media Snowfall Challenge: The Daily Bruin for In The Shadows. I am going to share the other two entrants, because the work they produced was worthy of recognition, and if I could, I’d award them all prizes. A reminder: This was a first-past-the-post contest. I did not … Continue reading
To enter the Snow Fall Challenge, e-mail me your links to scmurley -at- gmail.com. A reminder of the rules: It exists outside the media outlet’s CMS as a separate Web product. It does not “look like” the news website. It has responsive design. It features parallax scrolling. It is produced by students specifically for the … Continue reading
We’re less than a week away from accepting submissions for the College Media Snow Fall Challenge. I’m excited to see what comes into my inbox on Monday. Just by way of inspiration, here’s a new book/website that’s available for free from the Knight Foundation’s Eric Newton: Searchlights and Sunglasses. The book has been put together … Continue reading
This week, Dan and I discuss the messy situation at Grambling State and the role of a college media adviser, in a podcast taped live from New Orleans. Show notes: Censorship, Intimidation, Confusion: The REAL ‘Truth About The Gramblinite Chaos’ (College Media Matters) Listen or download this podcast, subscribe via iTunes, or check out the archives on the CMP home … Continue reading
Next Monday, Nov. 4, 2013, I will begin accepting entries for the College Media Snow Fall Challenge. It’s been 2 months since the contest was announced, and I’m excited to see what comes through the door after entries are accepted. Just as a reminder, this is not your standard journalism contest. It’s a first-past-the-post contest. … Continue reading
This week, I’m in New Orleans for the National College Media Convention. There are a number of sessions about digital media for those who are interested in working better online. Unfortunately, they aren’t organized with a multimedia tag. So here are some of the sessions related to online, from web site to social media reporting. … Continue reading
(update: added link to Asakawa’s article) Gil Asakawa in Quill Magazine highlights an incident that left me floored this morning: I was appalled recently to hear a city editor from one of the top daily newspapers in the country tell a roomful of journalism students that they shouldn’t worry about learning multimedia or any digital … Continue reading
Yesterday, Google launched a landing page that organizes many of their tools as a way to help journalists and media types use these tools. We’re very excited to announce the new Google Media Tools website, where journalists, outlets and publishers can learn more about using Google’s digital tools to enhance newsgathering and exposure across television, … Continue reading
Innovation in College Media 