Notes

[Matt Neznanski]

Thanks to my wonderful wife, Kristi, here are notes from our sessions:
9:30 Introductions

9:45 Brainstorming- what topics do we want to address today?

• Business models (organizations and individuals
• How to convince people that journalism (information) is worth buying
(from commodity to saleable item)
• What is the role of the pro
• User interface- features
• New Platforms
• Integrity in news media market
• Who we are writing for?
• Transparency in the Newsroom- editorial staff
• Next best things- what works, what’s hype
• Building community from/for audience
• Role of consumer generated media
• Standards- are they changing
• Role of geographic journalists
• Community newspaper
• API’s, data-driven, wiki’s
• Tagging, link journalism
• Reporter buy-in

Refined to 4 major topics:
1. Business
2. Technology
3. Audience
4. Journalism Craft

Question of terminology- What do some of the terms mean?
API Applicator program interface- user interface that pulls
information together Google Maps, Twitter

QR codes- used in Japan, point your phone (that has the right
software) at the graphic and it transfers data.

Talked about splitting up into 4 different groups by category, but no
one wants to miss a topic, so instead we will discuss each topic in
small groups and then bring main points to the whole group. Some
proposed starting with business (it’s at the top of the list on the
white board) then it was proposed to start with the base and build up-
Craft, Audience, Technology, Business (that’s what’s wrong with
journalists- they put money last)

10:00 Split into small groups to discuss “craft” until 10:35


CRAFT

• QR Codes
• Pro journalists stick to the streets- “stick to the shoe leather”
More important than ever
• Use tech tools to pull in readers, but don’t forget that the
journalist is there to extract information from people. Don’t just
repeat information that is already online.
• Visualizing Data, making information visual
• Add tech experience to traditional journalism. Newspapers have no
training budget. Need to teach yourself. Give reporters greater
skills to manage data. Youngsters bring new skills (some grumbles
from around the room) Reporters need to have all the skills instead of
having a different person doing each job. Reporters become walking
paper producers.
• “The Programmer as Journalists”- programming has become part of the
job. Reporters get the story from humans as only they can;
dissemination of information shouldn’t be done by the technology
department.
• Objectivity, how important on the web. People still want objective
community news. Are there different standards in different media?
Bloggers for example.
• Twitter- should people be broadcasting on twitter. Use it as a
feedback outlet instead of a distribution outlet.
• Importance of news organization and not just flying solo. Fellow
reporters, editorial staff.
• Idea of relevance. Bloggers are bottom feeders of the legwork of
journalist. But how much leg work is in journalism if the headline is
merely the press release
• What can a professional bring- finding and synthesizing
information? Reading and digesting information.
• Transparency- the profession is transparent, there is it’s value
• Balance of research and the story
• Today’s market needs to be more specialized. Specialist in
objectivity and transparency and who’s providing the information.
• Craft in this new media. Shoe leather can’t compete with what
people are doing for free. Tell stories differently to reach changing
audience and media. Web allows for new things that couldn’t be done
in a print version. Collaborate with the audience to building on
reporting.

Discussion:

• Courtney mentioned the need for organization- she is enjoying
learning new technology (SQL) but doesn’t want to become a
programmer.
• There can’t be financial support to train everyone on everything;
the point of the organizational comment is to have people to bounce
ideas off.
• Can this be a group of journalists like this or does it have to be a
corporate organization?
• It’s about having other people looking at your information to ask
your questions. Freelancers become isolated
• A disagreement is posed- rather have feedback from a million readers
in Portland than from one editor. The wisdom of crowds. A crowd is
more intelligent than Einstein.
o Some have major problems with this
o Is this a reaction to “snark” in traditional newspapers?
o This is a use of twitter. Feedback from others. Newspapers should
open a coffee shop. (not sure if that is a metaphor or literal-
Checked with Matt, it’s literal, a coffee shop where the public can
give feedback)
o Newsroom- once you’re in, you’re in. However, on the web, it is
more difficult, you have to do it well to be accepted by the crowd.
o Disagree with the wisdom of crowds comment. We are gatekeepers, we
decided what the stories are.
o As media consumers, we are only given a small amount of information
BECAUSE of the gatekeepers.
o “Digg” allows readers to vote up or down on a story.
• How many people read the NYT, Google News Alerts? About the same
number of people in the room why? Because you choose to trust certain
news sources. He trusts Google News’s choices.
• Browsing leaves room for serendipity. Browsing allows for you to
read stories that you didn’t even know you gave a shit about.
• I love the stories, TAL. It is up to journalists to tell the story.
• Stories on your kitchen table are read, but you won’t look for them
online, and they won’t be shared globally, marked on Digg, or sent
around on Facebook. People are turning to visual and audio to keep
these stories going.
• Now journalists have cameras and recorders, and yet they don’t know
how to tell a story on video.
• Now teaching at U of O in the first year of classes that are moving
to multimedia. (Disagreement from across the room) The first year is
still focused on print journalism; there was a lot of debate about the
new curriculum.
• Journalists are hard-nosed bastards stuck in the mythical past.
Well, not the people in this room, but we are the only people in this
room. Doesn’t this show how fucked up our profession is? There
shouldn’t be a sacred cow even in a school of journalism.
•


And with that, we take our first break at 11:20! We are losing a
couple of people to another group across campus.

Okay we are working on rounding everyone up 11:45….

11:50 Introduction of the new people who have arrived in the last 20
minutes.

Mark- moving from journalist to entrepreneur. Product, Market, Team
behind it are the three things that are what investors are looking
for. They become the business plan. That can be used as a structure
today.
Craft= Team
Audience= Market
Product= Tech/Business

12:00 Moving on to next category: Audience

12:40 Bring the groups together

Bullet points:
AUDIENCE (MARKET)
• How to identify who we are serving?
o Existing audience
o Building an audience
• Difference between serving geographic area vs. interest area
• Segmentation (even w/in hyper local)
• How you deal with people outside the community/content- people who
don’t fit. How to bring them in.
• How to use audience to drive content, audience as producer.
• Why do they (the audience) need a newspaper as a middleman?
• Topical audience, Participating Audience, Geographic Audience,
Untapped Audience, Interactive Audience.
• Interactive Audience- use a program like Digg to help decide where
to put resources
• Use news websites to bring in new things newspapers would
traditionally do such as video tours of local landmarks, live video of
things for sale, live police radio feed connected to twitter so people
can comment on what is happening.
• Community can enhance work but guiding and responding to it. People
can suffer from social network burnout. Offer rewards for
participation.

Discussion:
• Geotarget advertisers with hyper local.
• Mobile apps moving to ubiquity- coupons to mobile devices.
GeoMonkey- information send based on location.
• If there was a website called joetheplumbersneighborhood.com that
said X building is going up next door, would you read it? But if an
article that said New building going up affects wetlands- then you
care.
• Broadcast journalism pushes out, working on pulling in.
• Social networks provide super-local information, why would we pay
for journalists to do what individuals are doing for free?
• Should news outlets be using their resources doing what others are
doing for free?
• Use the newspaper website to link to where it is already being used
to help bring people who wouldn’t know where to go for that
information.
• “Morgue” used to mean archive- half the room didn’t get it
• Go to the newspaper for the “story”, the micro-level of the woman
who’s lived in the neighborhood.
o As an audience member, I don’t care about the old lady, I just want
the info.
• Is this the fundamental difference between the traditional paper
audience and the new online audience?
• Still, why would someone wait 6 months for the newspaper to have
something about a restaurant I might like
• Request to hear from the youngest people in the room about print
news.
o Ken- my parents read the paper and he doesn’t see the physical paper
going anywhere. TV shows what’s happening now; Newspaper is the place
for researched stories. Ken will probably never subscribe to a print
paper. He has groups of friends who do read the physical paper and he
doesn’t see it as a dying medium. Ken’s 20. Subscribes to 45 rss
feeds. Reads 3 hours worth of news online a day. Does read
magazines.
o College students don’t read the local paper, but they do read the
school newspaper religiously. The content is more relevant.
o Daniel- would work to turn a daily paper into a weekly. He gets his
daily news online. Subscribes to the Economist. Has Google reader,
subscribes to rss feeds. Uses twitter to gain information. Micro-
local is failing for the most part. If he was trying to find what was
going on in Eugene he’s at a loss. Some from the school paper, some
from the newspaper and then from facebook.
• Have we identified the major problem? We know our audience, but we
don’t know or have what they want. Is this the shakeup that is
happening with newspapers?
o Newspapers need to move to investigative journalism and not try to
do what others are doing for free.
• The Economist and the New Yorker are the fastest growing mags in the
country. Young readers are looking for that smart in depth coverage.
• Ken disagrees and when he looks for in-depth journalism, he thinks
of the newspaper. It is the oldest most trusted medium. He looks to
newspapers for the real story on the war or corruption in the white
house. But where do you go? The NYT, not the local newspaper.
•
•
1:20pm Lunch aim to be back at 2pm

2:35pm Reconvene- the group has become smaller so we are working as
one group. Since technology has been discussed in the other
discussions we are going to do some brainstorming.

First of all, what are some of the things that we consider Core
competency for today’s journalists. The starred items are considered
the top three must-haves:

• Database management- computer assisted reporting, analysis of
information from the government and finding trends. Make the
information available online, not a story that a reporter tells, but
lets the consumer search for information themselves. Link together
different information into one database.
• Basic SQL- language used to give simple orders to a database. One
step easier that computer program, need to think logically. Slightly
harder than HTML Pretty easy once you know the language. Can be done
in Access.
• Basic HTML
• Online research
• Web Design and Usability
o Flash
• Sound slides
• Photography
• **Blogging / Micro-blogging
• Social Media
• Basic business skills
• Mapping/API
• Marketing
• **Search engine optimization/web analytics
o Writing headlines for the web
• **Media consumptions/RSS/MSS/Syndication Tools

What are the basics that you would want a beginning journalist to
have?
• Do they a website?
• Do they have a blog?
• Do you have the skills to learn?
• Can you input a link into your story?
• Students now are learning to be multimedia. They are learning to
use different medias- but do they know how to tell the story?
• It’s not necessarily about the specific program, but the ability to
learn- “self-starter”
• There are journalists who are tech-savvy and great bloggers, but
can’t write themselves out of a paper bag.
• Is adaptability more important that being a good storytelling?
• Do tech skills like database management have a place in journalism?


BUISNESS

Get a product and a market

• Need a niche product, need to know more about your audience, get
specific for your audience, thumb on their pulse. A news organization
can’t compete with the large websites that get $3 for 3k page views.
Has to be more specific.
o Be willing to ask your audience personal questions.
o Have an ongoing conversation with your readership- build that
relationship.
Proposed new products using journalism content to add value:
• Product is a travel service to a mobile device. Based on input from
other trips someone has taken, restaurants and hotels, it can help you
find those places to recommend when they are somewhere unfamiliar.
With one time application fee. Consumers are more prone to support a
one-time fee than with subscription fees.
• News and services organization
o Data infrastructure- building on a century of archives and combined
information from public offices to offer:
• News- generation of deeper ongoing investigative journalism, but
advertising isn’t enough to generate funding for it all.
• Information- what is happening in my community, archive
incorporations, free with some advertising for basic, fee for more
extensive or micro information.
• Business services- instead of an ad/sales team, an actual service
that looks at the business and helps them decide if print adds are
even what they need, market research, sales leads, dissemination of
the information that the paper already has. May not even result in
advertising revenue, but selling the database to the consumer.


What’s Next
• News Organization as value added local source
• News Organization as data analyst
• Value added, something


Tech based applications recommended for learning more:
• Twitter
• NWdocumentary.org
• www.journalism20.com
• Microsoft Access- used for database management
• PHP
• Python
• Caspio? Database management service
• WordPress.tv (blogging)
• Lynda.com
• Publish2
• Druple?
• Yelp
• Google Books
• CMS
• Kaplan/Washington Post
• too...@snd.org
• Qik
• PDXfcpeugene.com

[isaa...@gmail.com]

Thank you very much, Kristi for getting all of these together.

> •     tool...@snd.org
> •     Qik
> •     PDXfcpeugene.com

[Carlos Virgen]

Thanks Matt and especially Kristi.

One of the last tech sources at the end of the notes is actually:

toolkit.snd.org

A great resource to a bunch of online tools for journalism.