“Wow. Just wow. I’m so encouraged to see all the excellent work being done at college papers across the country. I’m even more encouraged that it’s not just at the traditional ‘big name’ journalism schools.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Interactive Director and Journerdism blogger extraordinaire Will Sullivan wrote with impressed gusto about the recent slate of Associated Collegiate Press Online Pacemaker award-winners.
Screenshots from two of the 15 Pacemaker recipients (encompassing Web sites for college newspapers, magazines, broadcast outlets, and online-only news outlets) are included just for fun below:
The Daily Illini, University of Illinois
Connect Mason, George Mason University
As the judge for this portion of ACP’s larger Pacemaker competition, Sullivan wrote that he observed a few new media elements still needing improvement or more regular implementation at student-run news sites, including: social media usage, visual data, mapping, breaking news online, and blogs. I completely agree with the latter especially. On my periodic tours of college news sites, the lack of quality, in-your-face blogging always surprises me. Excellent op-eds and columns continue to run in student newspapers’ print editions. It’s interesting that they have not been adapted and blog-ified online en masse as of yet.
Better blogging, I’m sure, will come. In his closing inspirational call-to-arms, Sullivan expressed similar certainty that college journalists’ online betterment overall will be the bread-and-butter of Journalism 2.0′s survival:
College is one of the few times in your career that you can try something totally wacky, fail and it won’t really set you back or ruin your career. Try alternative story forms. Learn new technologies. Break the mold of traditional journalism. Your generation and its ability to innovate will save the craft.
I’m so jealous of that Mason website.
Little plug: I think my paper, the Georgetown Voice, does some quality college blogging.
Will — Both of those sites are cool, and for different reasons, right? The Illini site screengrab caught my eye chiefly because of its serious divergance from what I think of when I think of how news sites look. I want to spend some time surfing it, but at first glance it looks very user-friendly.
The mason screengrab isn’t as eye-catching to me right off the bat, but after a few minutes at the site I must say I dig the feel. It’s more like a news blog. Awesome variety. Cool. Cool. Cool.
Ok, now I have to go spend a few minutes at dailyillini.com. Verdict: It feels more like a typical news site. Hmm — unlike most news sites, I feel like I can see when I get to the end. It’s more linear than mason, which let’s you choose your own course through the site. It’s strange that we lose the cool orange bubble thing after clicking on the “news” navigation button. Still, dailyillini is a great site. There’s variety of content, but that variety is slightly harder to find than on mason’s. Not knocking it, just saying.
All right, I’ll go to the Georgetown Voice next.
Verdict: Way to play to the audience with the Big East Preview. Not sure what your staff is size-wise, but the site could use more interactive/multimedia. Oh, we all want more staff, don’t we?
Vox Populi looks v.cool. And I think this is the first I’ve seen a college news site linking to webmail, blackboard, etc. (though I admit I should check out more college news sites) Bravo.
Before I go, gotta plug my alma mater: http://www.idsnews.com
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