NewsTrust on you on NewsTrust

This is getting a little post-post-modern, but you’ll be interested to see what the folks at NewsTrust have to say about what you said about them.

Jeff Jarvis and the future of journalism

I can’t recommend this profile of Jeff Jarvis highly enough. I urge all of you to read it. It’s as good an overview on the state of the news business — and especially the newspaper business — as you are likely to find.

NewsTrust and the global economy

During the past week we’ve all been participating in a “news hunt” to find quality journalism about the global economy, and to submit what we found to NewsTrust. I thought I would build in links to what all of you wrote about NewsTrust on your blogs, as well as to your pages on NewsTrust.

If you haven’t done so already, I hope you’ll take a look at what each of you has been up to.

• Adrianne Loggins: blog post; her NewsTrust page
• Amara Grautski: blog post; her NewsTrust page
• Ami Van Wygerden: blog post; her NewsTrust page
• Belen Bogado: blog post; her NewsTrust page
• Bobby Feingold: blog post; his NewsTrust page
• Candice Novak: blog post; her NewsTrust page
• Chaz Miller: blog post; his NewsTrust page
• Drew Bonifant: blog post; his NewsTrust page
• Erika Carrubba: blog post; her NewsTrust page
• Firuzeh Shokooh-Valle: blog post; her NewsTrust page
• Jared Molton: blog post; his NewsTrust page
• Jess Volpe: blog post; her NewsTrust page
• Julie Balise: blog post; her NewsTrust page
• Liz Stitt: blog post; her NewsTrust page
• Marc Larocque: blog post; his NewsTrust page
• Mark Rizzo: blog post; his NewsTrust page
• Matt Collette: blog post; his NewsTrust page
• Michaela Stanelun: blog post; her NewsTrust page

Finally, here’s what I wrote about NewsTrust, and here is my NewsTrust page.

At the time of this posting, you had submitted and/or reviewed 86 stories. Most of you seemed to find it an interesting and worthwhile experience, even if you’re dubious about NewsTrust’s value. I hope you will continue to use NewsTrust. If nothing else, it’s a place to find good journalism that you otherwise might have missed.

NewsTrust assignment

Mike LaBonte with Reinventing the News students.

Click on photo for Flickr slideshow

Today we heard from Mike LaBonte, an editor and reviewer for NewsTrust.net, which allows users to submit and rate news stories for journalistic importance and quality. As a learning exercise, we had four teams read and analyze this story in the Independent on a proposal by the United Nations for a “Green New Deal.”

For your next assignment, please take part in a NewsTrust “news hunt” for stories on the global economy. I would like each of you to find, submit and rate three stories (including writing a brief assessment under “Notes”) between now and the start of class on Monday related to that theme, and to write a 350-word post on your blog.

Among other things, you should link to each of your three reviews; reflect on the experience, and explain whether you think NewsTrust is a valuable tool; and make suggestions, if you have any, on how NewsTrust might become more useful.

Reminder about Wednesday’s class

I want to remind everyone that we’ll be meeting Wednesday in 442 Curry Student Center from 2:50 to 4:30 p.m. At least four of you said you were bringing wireless laptops, and so I’d like to remind you of that as well. We will be hearing from Mike LaBonte, an editor at NewsTrust.

Blogging about blogging

Video blogger Steve Garfield has posted a roundup of your blogs to his blog, Off on a Tangent. Enjoy.

More on your final project

I’m going to spend some time in class today going over your final projects. Based on this earlier post, you should know what is required. Today I will try to answer any questions and get a feel for what you’re thinking about doing.

Here are the deadlines and requirements:

• This Wednesday, Nov. 19, you will give me a one-page, single-spaced, printed-out memo explaining what example of Web journalism you plan to write about. There is great flexibility in this. It could be an expansion of what you did in your class presentation; it could be based on one of our speakers; or it could be anything else. Successful final projects in the past have included everything from the Web operations of the Nashua Telegraph, to a prominent local sports blog, to a profile of a blogger who specializes in African-American celebrity gossip.
• On Wednesday, Dec. 10, you will post your final project on your blog. I am looking for a 1,000-word post with at least five interviews and relevant background research — in other words, a medium-length news-feature story.
• This is Web journalism, and I’m looking for a significant online component. Your post should contain at least five links. I am also looking for one of the following: (1) a Flickr slideshow consisting of at least 10 photos taken by you, with titles and captions; (2) a three- to five-minute video shot and edited by you; or (3) a presentation built on a Google map. I realize that requirements #1 and #2 would make a local story virtually a necessity. But if you opt for #3, you’ll be able to write about anything in the world.
• I am willing to discuss with you, on an individual basis, the possibility of writing a shorter post and instead producing a more ambitious video.
• I am going to do everything I can to send you an e-mail with comments and a grade by the end of Sunday, Dec. 14. If you wish to rework your post for a higher grade, your deadline will be Tuesday, Dec. 16, at 10 a.m.
• I will expect a high standard of accuracy, including getting all proper names correct — people, places, companies and the like. Mistakes on such basic factual matters will have a significant effect on your grade.

If you have no idea of what to do for your final project, you’ll have a chance to talk about it in class today.

The caffeinated campus

View Larger Map
This week we’ve put together a Google Map of coffee houses on, near and in some cases not so near Northeastern University. Click on the coffee cups to see what we came up with.

Google Maps assignment

This week we are going to put together a news presentation using Google Maps. We’ll have a chance to experience first-hand several important aspects of Web journalism:

• Our presentation will be non-linear. Readers may enter from any point that they wish, view as much or as little as they want and then return to it at a later time. This is very different from the one-experience-fits-all storytelling style of a newspaper article or television report.
• The simple software tools we will use enable easy collaboration, not just among our newsroom, but among members of the public as well, assuming we want to invite them in. In that sense, our presentation will be kind of like a wiki (but not quite) in that anyone may come in and contribute.

Our goal is to put together a guide to coffee places on or near the Northeastern campus. (Some of these are not as near as I would have liked.) Please visit your assigned coffee shop and do the following:

1. Take a photo of the outside so that we know what we’re looking at. If the shop is inside a larger building, go inside and take a picture. You need to take a second photo as well — a feature photo of some sort showing what’s going on inside the coffee shop.
2. Take some notes. You need to be able to tell us the following information: (a) the exact address of the coffee shop; (b) hours of operation; and (c) the price of a medium-size cup of coffee to go. In addition, you need to gather enough material to write a short review about the quality of the experience, friendliness of the staff and the like. You will be writing that up for your blog.
3. When you come to class on Wednesday, make sure that both of your photos are available for you to work with. If you upload them to Flickr ahead of time, you should be all set.

We will do the assignment in class on Wednesday.

Videoblogging

Given the file-format incompatibilities, temperamental software (and hardware) and iMovie documentation problems we were dealing with, I had begun to wonder how our video experiment would turn out. I’m happy to say that all of you who were able to complete the assignment did a terrific job.

One of you simply could not produce video files that could be edited in iMovie, and one of you asked that your video not be distributed publicly. But I am posting links to the rest here. If you get a chance, I hope you’ll take a look at what your classmates have been doing.

• Erika Carrubba: Northeastern volleyball team
• Adrianne Loggins: “Because we love our pets”
• Amara Grautski: A tour of the Huntington News
• Ami VanWygerden: Boston Hill Farm
• Candice Novak: U.S. press freedom rank drops to 36th
• Belen Bogado: Snell Library’s “Meet the Author” series
• Chaz Miller: “Where are all the fans?”
• Drew Bonifant: Who will win the Super Bowl?
• Jared Molton: “Dog Day Afternoon”
• Jess Volpe: Enjoying fall in Boston
• Julie Balise: “Recession dining”
• Liz Stitt: “Negative campaigning”
• Marc Larocque: The election and the war
• Mark Rizzo: “Anime Boston 2009″
• Matt Collette: “Slackliners on Centennial Common”
• Michaela Stanelun: What students are wearing for Halloween