Daily Princetonian Honors Harry Potter in Recent Joke Issue (#harrypotter)

January 26, 2012 by Dan

In its annual joke issue published earlier this month, The Daily Princetonian became The Daily Prophet.  The Princeton University student newspaper embraced Harry Potter in a spoof-tastic edition full of stories about muggles, magic, elves, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

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For example, in an Occupy Movement-inspired tale, the Prophet reported on student ire about allegedly unfair “magic distribution.”  As the lede noted, “In a surprising turn of events at the normally apathetic university, a small number of students have taken issue with the high concentration of magic on campus and have staged a protest just inside the front gates. ‘It’s completely unfair that 99 percent of the country’s magic is possessed by 1 percent of the population,’ protest organizer Dimitri Galleon said.”

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My favorite snippet is an editor’s note on the bottom left of the front page announcing the retirement of the Prophet‘s previous editor-in-chief due to a “traumatic incident with a fire-breathing hellcat in the Forbidden Forest.” :)

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Student Press Version of ‘Lazy Higher Ed Journalism’

January 26, 2012 by Dan

A write-up on “Lazy Higher Ed Journalism“ (spurred by a separate report on “Lazy Education Journalism” in general) recently achieved B-list viral status within the education and journalism communities.

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In her Inside Higher Ed essay, Melanie Fullick charges news media with inefficient, often superficial reporting on relevant issues such as school rankings, technology’s impact on education, the value and characteristics of international students and faculty, and the various “solutions” offered as panaceas to supposedly ailing higher learning institutions.

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My take: Among their many award-winning, innovative reports, student media are frequently guilty of this as well.  In my view, it’s not laziness.  It’s a disease. :)  I’ve dubbed it the SOS SASS– the Same Old Stories, Semester After Semester, Syndrome.

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There are simply some stories that on a scroll through the archives of any student media outlet pop up again and again and again, sometimes with a fresh spin (although many times, not so much), but always with the same core issue or topic intact.

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A few examples:

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Student Fees

(Being Raised, Some Concerns)

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New Staff Hire

(Smiley, Eager to Pitch In)

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Campus Parking

(Tough to Grab a Spot)

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Why are we covering the same stories over and over and over?  I understand student readers graduate and staff turnover at campus media is high and knowledge of past issues is not a priority and that some stories deserve repeated reporting and editorializing.  But something needs to be done to break out of writing yet again about the debate club’s regional tournament appearance or the annual sorority Easter egg hunt.

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What can we learn from our student press predecessors? What is the value of yellowed student newspaper issues or now-archived Web pages displaying past student media efforts?  A flip through these print-and-Web treasure troves can provide a history lesson about how and how much things have changed at your school and also, more importantly, in my opinion . . . what things have stayed the same.

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And so, along with ensuring all issues of a student press outlet are archived and available online or in the newsroom or campus library, I contend that all student staffs should consider mining those archives for story ideas, seeing what’s been covered and how it’s been covered.

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The potential for present content is tremendous.  Timelines of important issues, more direct compare-contrasts, This Day in School History siders, and strengthened arguments galore.  For example, it’s one thing to complain about the university shuttle service at present.  It’s quite another to quote a mid-nineties article in the same student publication making the same plea for better campus-area transport that has apparently continued to fall on deaf ears.

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Debate at Missouri’s School of Journalism: Should Students Be Allowed to Work for Multiple Media Outlets?

January 26, 2012 by Dan

A public debate is currently playing out among some profs, alums, and students within the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism centered on a campus press conflict of interest.

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The basic question at the debate’s core: Should students be allowed to work for multiple, possibly competing campus media at the same time?

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The reason behind the debate: The editor-in-chief of J-School Buzz, the hyperlocal news site covering Mizzou’s j-school, recently resigned due to a conflict of interest related to her work on The Columbia Missourian, a local daily staffed by professionals, profs, and Mizzou students.

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A Missourian policy, fairly recently updated, notes, “Work for other local media by Missourian paid staff or students in staff classes (reporting, copy editing, design, photography, photo editing, graphics, etc.) is prohibited. Local media include daily and weekly newspapers and related websites in our circulation area, campus newspapers and competing broadcast outlets.

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In a post about the resignation, J-School Buzz founder David Teeghman describes the policy as antiquated in a modern media environment boasting many, many outlets– especially ones that offer students the potential for picking up different skills.

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In his words, “[The EIC who resigned] would have learned a few things as JSB’s editor-in-chief that she will never learn at the Missourian. She won’t learn much there about analytics, what content generates traffic and buzz, the difference between stories an audience ‘wants’ and ‘needs,’ how to run a popular news blog, how to respond to critical commenters and tweeters you know personally, how to keep a site running when it gets a rush of unexpected traffic, and so on.”

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While his post makes the Missourian seem like the bad guy, the comments section clarifies and fights back on numerous points– arguing that Missourian staffers DO learn the skills Teeghman says they won’t and that STUDENTS were actually the group most in favor of enacting strict conflict of interest policies.

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My take: Conflicts of interest are often unavoidable in collegemediatopia.  Some of the classics: the student working in the school’s PR office while wanting to report for the newspaper; the student joining a frat while wanting to write about an event that involves Greek organizations; the history major who finds herself editing a story involving a dust-up between history profs and the administration; and the student keeping an indy Tumblr blog while writing for the school magazine on similar issues.

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Each potential conflict must be addressed on its merits.  And while most policies and idealists have their hearts in the right place, the truth is always murkier and in need of wiggle room.  Teeghman is correct in the overall implication that independent student media tend to get short shrift in conflict-of-interest fights when pitted against long-established, school-affiliated behemoths.  But in this instance, I don’t personally see any Orwellian plot to keep J-School Buzz down.  Let the debate continue!

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Posted in College Media, Journalism, Journalism Ethics, New Media, Student Newspaper, Teachable Moment | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Onward State Joe Paterno Death Error Saga: The Complete Storify

January 25, 2012 by Dan

In the wake of the Onward State Joe Paterno death error saga, I have put together a Storify providing a full listing of relevant links that collectively lay out the gist of what happened and the larger lessons we can all take away.  The hope is that it might be a helpful resource for j-students, student media staffers, and their advisers and profs.

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Since Storify is not yet synced with WordPress.com sites (yes, it says it is, but it is actually not), I’ve also included a screenshot rundown here.

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Last Saturday night, the managing editor of Onward State at Penn State University resigned suddenly.  The resignation came hours after the online student news outlet mistakenly reported that former PSU head football coach Joe Paterno had died from lung cancer.  While his death became sadly true roughly 12 hours later, it was not accurate when Onward State first confirmed it.  The erroneous scoop spread rapidly across the news media and social media landscapes and its subsequent retraction led to a lot of anger, cringing, head-scratching, and a quest to understand what went wrong and how we can learn from it.

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A USA TODAY College column I posted on Sunday provides a solid all-in-one-place basic breakdown of the mistaken scoop, its quick spread, its subsequent retraction, the consequences, and the public and press reaction.

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Jeff Sonderman’s excellent round-up of tweets and story links is a visual guide through the initial moments of the scoop, where it spread, and how it was debunked and then retracted.

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The resignation letter posted by Onward State managing editor Devon Edwards in many ways has become the seminal document of the saga– a symbol of the consequences brought on by faulty reporting and a confession of how overwhelmed the student media outlet was by the realization that its content was of interest to the general public and professional press.

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Interestingly, along with the expected anger, Edwards earned a lot of kudos for the upfront way in which he addressed the mistake, a testament to the power of candor and actual remorse and to the larger recognition that, hey, at some point all of us screw up.  I was personally really moved by the kindness many professional journalists extended to Edwards and OS.

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The two links above share the most candid, comprehensive explanations we are likely to get of what went wrong behind-the-scenes that night at Onward State.

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The two links above provide what I personally think are the most important lessons to take away from the incident.

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Meanwhile, these additional links above struck me personally as tone-deaf or just-plain wrong.  While the first piece makes some good points about the motivations behind the larger media’s rush to publish, it has nothing to do with what actually prompted Onward State to report on Paterno.  As staffers have stated publicly, the screw-up happened because of a hoax email and a bad reporter, not any desire for glory.  The second piece is odd.  Apparently a single mistake– even of great magnitude– negates the fact that Onward State is cutting edge within college media?  I might be biased (I’m quoted in one of the articles the piece cites from a few years back) but from my perspective media screw up all the time.  This post seems to imply that all the previous talk about its innovating is dumb because look how sucky it actually is.  It was one error!  One we will all learn from…

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Posted in College Media, Journalism, Journalism Ethics, New Media, Teachable Moment | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Weber State Professor Explores Role of Homesickness in American History

January 25, 2012 by Dan

As students recently returned to campuses for the start of spring semester, there is one especially nagging feeling many brought with them: homesickness.  Whether it’s missing family, pets, friends or the comfort of the familiar, the notion of homesickness is undoubtedly as embedded within higher education as Spring Break and Saturday football.

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In her new book, Homesickness: An American History, Weber State University distinguished history professor Susan Matt traces the evolution of this longing sentiment from America’s earliest days.

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In the Q&A below, Matt discusses some surprising truths about homesickness, its relation to college students and young adults and its status in the era of Skype, texts and tweets. 

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To start, what does your book specifically explore, and what inspired you to tackle the subject?

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The book examines how homesickness has changed over the last four centuries. Homesickness was once considered an illness that could affect people of all ages and could even kill them. Today, however, it is generally seen as a passing, temporary phase that children at camp and students at college experience and then get over. I wanted to understand why this change occurred and how earlier generations had dealt with the pain that comes from moving away from family and friends.

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What led me to tackle the subject was my own experience with mobility. I wasn’t homesick in college,  but when I moved away from the Midwest, first for grad school and then for jobs, I found it much more difficult than I expected.  I wondered if I was the only one to feel this way. Our culture always portrays moving on as easy — think of all the stories about pioneers and Western settlement — and we seem not to dwell on the sadness that often comes with leaving home.

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Since most of us have felt it at some point in our lives, we all probably think we fully understand the concept of homesickness. What is something about it that might surprise us or that we might not know?

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Until fairly recently, physicians used the word ‘nostalgia’ to describe acute cases of homesickness, and considered it a dangerous and often deadly disease. They were convinced it could cause fevers, heart palpitations, skin problems, diarrhea and sometimes even death. During the Civil War, the U.S. Surgeon General concluded that 74 Union soldiers had died of nostalgia and that over 5,000 more were so seriously ill with the condition that they came to a doctor’s attention. To prevent more men from dying of it, doctors and army officials often sent soldiers home, since this was the only known cure for homesickness.

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Has homesickness historically been linked mainly to young people going to school or starting out on their own?

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Until the 20th century, people of all ages admitted to suffering from homesickness. Young people heading off to work or to school often experienced it, but so did pioneers, gold miners and immigrants, and they talked about it quite openly. Gradually, however, psychological theories about the emotion shifted and many came to believe it was primarily a condition of youth. Psychologists often describe it as something kids and adolescents go through at summer camp and at college and then get over. In reality, I think many adults continue to struggle with the emotion long after college, but there is a code of silence about it and people keep the feeling to themselves.

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To read the rest of the piece, check out my USA TODAY College “Campus Beat” column.  Click here or on the screenshot below.

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Posted in Story Ideas, Teachable Moment | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

10 Early Observations About JimRomenesko.com, Journalism’s Newest Destination Site (@romenesko)

January 24, 2012 by Dan

In the wake of his expedited departure from Poynter late last year, Jim Romenesko has established an eponymous independent site that has been passionately embraced by many in the journalism community.  Even with his high-profile name recognition, the rapidity of the site’s rise in popularity and influence is startling.

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Below are 10 early observations about the roughly two-month-old JimRomenesko.com:

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1) Romenesko is blogging with a vibrancy and candor that was missing from his latter days at Poynter (when, frankly, he had all but disappeared).  He seems to be inserting more of his personal voice into posts, including periodic giggly headlines and other dollops of dry wit.  While occasionally veering too much toward informality, the writing overall is indicative of a man who is clearly enjoying what he is doing.  My guess: That enjoyment is being shared by readers like me.

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2) Reader interaction is up, up, UP.  He is basing numerous posts on interesting reader emails, inserting lots of site and Facebook comments in ‘reaction’ posts, and including lots of tweets and other web chatter from the newsy masses.  The result is a site seemingly more attuned to the news media sentiments of the moment.

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3) Romenesko is fast becoming a social media machine.  He tweets, posts and interacts on Facebook, and has made Vadim Lavrusik a happy man by utilizing Facebook comments on all posts along with regular site comments.  (His Google+ presence is barebones at best.)  One of my favorite regular posts is the daily links rundown of what he’s tweeted but not blogged about.

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4) He also appears to be morphing into a weekend blogger.  While not yet establishing a reliable rhythm to his Saturday and Sunday routine (some weekends it’s been very light or basically nonexistent while others it has been quite steady), he does seem to be slowly embracing the 24/7/365 blogging mentality.  If nothing else, it is one more way to gain an edge over his previous employer/current competition.

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5) The site is fun to look at!  Romenesko has begun featuring images in earnest– a mix of logos, screenshots, headshots, Creative Commons standbys, and primary docs.  It adds liveliness to the scroll-and-browse proceedings.  Only slightly disconcerting observation: unattributed headshots are popping up evermore as of late.

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6) His value is evermore as a primary source.  His email-for-a-reaction-MO was entrenched at Poynter, but he is definitely reaching out much more regularly to the individuals and outlets he blogs about– and receiving subsequent responses at a surprisingly high rate.  And it might simply be circumstantial, but the responses have been more interesting!

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7) Ads are beginning to appear.  Some scream bush-league, interspersed with a few biggies such as AT&T.  Bottom-line curiosity: Is he making any money at all, or anything close to what he was pulling in at Poynter?  Doubtful, but of course he’s still in the scrappy insurgency phase.

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8) Three things I personally don’t like: the headlines pushed to the side; the muted mellow blah gold/mauve headline and hyperlink color; and the lack of posts available for scrolling on each page (Poynter’s MediaWire doubles Romenesko’s posts-per-page count).  These are all minor complaints.

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9) There is still an inside-the-castle-walls feel to the whole shebang at times, based on what he writes about and who he sources.  (Apparently the “new Romenesko” will “cast a pretty wide net . . . [that includes] community media, ethnic media, overseas media, blogs and online publications.”)  But Romenesko is noticeably writing more about student media and journalism education issues.  I do recommend expanding the reach to more of the blogosphere and social media realm.

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10) The site’s tagline states boldly: “A Blog About Media and Other Things I’m Interested In.”  I have yet to determine what else he is interested in. :)  At this point, everything he’s blogged about is focused squarely on all-things media.

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Lingering Question) Prior to the Poynter plagiarism-charge craziness, Romenesko had stated he was planning to move on from daily journalism news aggregating.  Is that still the short-term or long-term plan???

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Related

A Strange, Sad Day in Journalism: Romenesko’s Resignation

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Posted in Journalism, New Media | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Student Press Story Headlines That Make Me Giggle #8 (@CornellSun #hooking up)

January 24, 2012 by Dan

Today’s sole winner of this recurring giggly headline feature is a doozy published recently atop a column in The Cornell Daily Sun.  The interesting piece by Cornell senior Cristina Stiller discusses what she feels are the downsides of the classic one-night stand.  As the column’s headline teases, “Bananas, Nose-Squashing and Heartbreak: The Hazards of Hooking Up.“

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Posted in College Media, Journalism, Student Newspaper | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Student Newspaper Publishes University of Alaska Salary Database

January 24, 2012 by Dan

The Sun Star student newspaper at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has published a faculty and staff salary database for the entire UA system.  Its launch is part of a larger look at UA’s finances, nicely summed up by the headline of a related feature: “How much money does it take to run the University of Alaska?“

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Amid a few technical bugs, administrative worries about “workplace friction,” and related concerns about the lack of context the numbers provide, Sun Star editor-in-chief Heather Bryant told The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner “she views the [database] effort as a success.  Although the data is a matter of public record, tracking down the information without such a tool would be tough without a significant amount of time and effort. The database, she said, helps bridge that gap.  ‘In this case, public doesn’t necessarily mean accessible,’ Bryant said.”

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Related

Salary Database Most Popular Part of Student Paper’s Site

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Posted in College Media, Journalism, Story Ideas, Student Newspaper | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Alabama’s Crimson White Offers Interesting Take on Paterno Legacy re: Bear Bryant (@TheCrimsonWhite)

January 23, 2012 by Dan

In a piece published earlier today, The Crimson White at the University of Alabama offers an interesting take on the death and legacy of longtime Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno.  CW staffer Rich Robinson reports from the perspective of UA and Tuscaloosa, where similarly beloved coach Bear Bryant died close to 30 years ago.

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As the article begins:

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The Jan. 27, 1983 edition of The Crimson White ran eight pages with a total of 13 stories. All of them were about one man and how important he was to Tuscaloosa. Paul “Bear” Bryant died the previous afternoon at 1:30 p.m. of a massive heart attack at Druid City Hospital. He was 29 days removed from coaching his final football game.  The death of college football legend Joe Paterno Sunday from lung cancer rocked the snowy town of State College, Penn. much the same way the death of Bryant impacted the people of Tuscaloosa in 1983. Paterno had been at Penn State in some capacity since 1950 and is treated in the same vein in Happy Valley as Bryant is at Alabama. He died only 84 days after coaching his final football game.

Posted in College Media, Journalism, Story Ideas, Student Newspaper | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Dorm Furniture Fun: What are Students Allowed to Trade, Move Out or Alter? (@princetonian #college)

January 23, 2012 by Dan

In a recent opinion piece I just came across in The Daily Princetonian at Princeton University, a pair of student writers tackle the issue of dorm room furniture.  In particular, they focus on school policy governing the relative freedom students have to lend, borrow, move out, and alter school-issued furniture in on-campus rooms. 

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The piece prompted an audio brainstorming session that you can you tune into by clicking on the play button below.  Its aim is helping student media staffers, their advisers, and j-profs possibly plan a related report of their own.

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Posted in College Media, Journalism, Story Ideas, Student Newspaper | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Penn State’s Daily Collegian Publishes Special Edition on Joe Paterno (@DailyCollegian #PSU)

January 23, 2012 by Dan

The Daily Collegian has published a special commemorative edition honoring longtime Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno.  Related pieces touch on Paterno’s upbringing and early coaching career, his devotion to family and charities, the reactions of his former players, and the scandal that overwhelmed his final days.

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Caught in the Web with Katelyn Sweigart #1

January 23, 2012 by Dan

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By Katelyn Sweigart

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Caught in the Web is a new CMM feature created and maintained by Katelyn Sweigart, web editor of The Mustang Daily and a senior journalism student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.  It lays out a range of web tools and platforms aimed at helping student journalists up their writing, reporting, and multimedia awesomeness.

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One Word

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This daily writing exercise is great for those who need to flex their mental muscles before writing. You are given a single word and then 60 seconds to write about it—whatever comes to your mind. It doesn’t require registration, but signing up gives you the ability to archive your writing as well as connect to Facebook and participate in the community. You can join groups within One Word, doing round robin-esque storytelling or just getting support from your fellow writers.

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750 Words

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It’s an online “journal” that keeps a daily track of your writing. The goal is to write 750 words a day. It gives you points for meeting that goal, as well as doing this consistently. You can “follow” other writers on the site. There are also challenges and other incentives, which scratches that human itch of achievement satisfaction. (Seriously, why do you think Xbox Achievements are so popular? It’s those little rewards that makes you feel accomplished.) There’s a bunch more features open to those who donate to the website. It’s definitely worth looking into. I recently found this site, so I don’t know its ins and outs completely. But what I’ve seen, I like!

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Q10

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This isn’t a site, but a program. It’s full-screen text editor that doesn’t allow you to look at your other windows or minimize it, or even let you use your cursor. You can change almost everything about the appearance: line spacing, font color, font type, first line indent, etc. There’s a word counter, spell checker, and it can give you alarms for sprint writing, or you can set up an alert so you know when you hit a specific word count. It doesn’t do really fancy formatting, but it gets the job done. And it makes typewriter sounds. How cool is that! Unfortunately, I type too quickly and it sounds like my computer is purring. It doesn’t require installation—it’s a self-contained .exe file.  Unfortunately, it’s only for Windows, and the programmer doesn’t plan on making one for Linux or Mac.

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Caught in the Web graphic by Steven Simily

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Onward State Founder Explains ‘What Happened Last Night’ with Paterno Death Mistake

January 22, 2012 by Dan

In a post shared this morning, Onward State founder and general manager Davis Shaver candidly explains how the Penn State student news outlet mistakenly reported Joe Paterno’s death prior to its actual occurrence.  According to Shaver, the error seems to have been caused by a pair of deceitful happenings in rapid succession: a hoax email from a supposedly high-ranking PSU official and a dishonest Onward State reporter.

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As he writes, “[A]t around 8:00 p.m., one of our writers posted that he had received word from a source that Joe Paterno had died. The source had been forwarded an email ostensibly sent from a high-ranking athletics official (later found to be a hoax) to Penn State athletes with information of Paterno’s passing. A second writer– whom we later found out had not been honest in his information– confirmed to us that the email had been sent to football players. With two independent confirmations of an email announcing his death, managing editor Devon Edwards was confident in the story and hit send on the tweet we had written, informing the world that Joe Paterno had died.”

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Penn State’s Daily Collegian: ‘Messages to Joe Paterno’

January 22, 2012 by Dan

In a video report completed last night and shared moments ago, Daily Collegian staffer Kelley King asks students gathered at the statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno a single question: “If you could say one thing to Joe Paterno right now, what would it be?”  The responses are especially touching amid word this morning that Paterno died overnight in the hospital.

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Posted in College Media, Journalism, New Media, Story Ideas, Student Newspaper | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

My Take on the Onward State Paterno Death Error Fiasco

January 22, 2012 by Dan

As I just reported, the managing editor of Onward State has suddenly resigned.  The resignation comes hours after the online student news outlet at Penn State University mistakenly reported that former PSU head football coach Joe Paterno had died from lung cancer.

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The site is already receiving a digital drubbing from Happy Valley faithful, the general public, and the press– and for good reason.  There has obviously been a grievous mistaken made, one that Onward State founder and general manager Davis Shaver has promised to investigate.

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My take: Onward State has been a worthy addition to collegemediatopia since its launch.  It has provided scoops, snark, and a welcome alternative voice within the Penn State student media landscape.  It has also been one of the more high-profile entrants within the online student news start-up realm.

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One of the biggest myths in student media at the moment is that many such outlets exist.  Read carefully:  They don’t.  There are few, very few, half-decent student news start-ups that have lasted more than a semester, report on actual news, and employ a team of writers and editors.  Along with The Quad News at Quinnipiac University and NYU Local at New York University, Onward State is in my top three.

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It is sadly ironic that Onward State’s biggest moment on the world’s stage– inimitable proof that professional news outlets and the public truly do pay attention to student media– is also its darkest.  As its now-former managing editor Devon Edwards admits in his resignation letter, “I never, in a million years, would have thought that Onward State would be cited by the national media, and today, I sincerely wish it never had been.”

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Devon, Onward State was cited because it is one in a million– a site that until tonight had gained our trust and shown itself to be of mostly high quality and embodying the best of student media.  This is a failure, an enormous failure.  But I personally hope it is not an apocalyptic one.  This error should not kill Onward State.

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On the contrary, I think this mistaken scoop saga will make OS much better.  Shaver and the rest of the Onward State team will learn from this and move forward.  They will embrace what will most likely be increased outside attention and criticism in the days, weeks, and months to come.  And they will put in place a stronger vetting system for sources and scoops.  Bottom line: The outlet still has a ton to offer PSU, student media, and the wider web.

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Lest we lose sight of the larger picture, the pro press also failed tonight.  CBS Sports and a number of other outlets trusted the Onward State report without outside confirmation.  And the rest of us failed.  We trusted the initial press statements, wide-eyed, prompting a social media explosion that made the news akin to fact.  As my mom texted me moments ago, “This whole thing reminds me of a bad whispering down the lane.”  Or as Knoxville-based journalist Rachel Wise tweeted, “Everyone wants so badly to be the first to report, but there’s good reason why we wait for confirmation.  Accuracy > timeliness.”

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And P.S. Read the resignation letter Edwards wrote.  If we all behaved with such integrity and admitted our flaws so openly, the world would be much better.  As a native Pennsylvanian and longtime Penn State fan, I wish JoePa all the best.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

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