Teaching digital journalism
What topics in digital journalism should students explore? Patrick Phillips, the founder of the media roundup site I Want Media, is teaching an undergraduate course in digital journalism at New York University this spring and wondering what he should teach. The course covers Internet culture, online magazines, blogging, and more. Scheduled guest speakers include writer/editor Kurt Andersen, Slate editor Jacob Weisberg, WSJ.com managing editor Bill Grueskin and bloggers.
Phillips is seeking suggestions and advice for teaching the class. Send them to feedback@iwantmedia.com or post them here and CyberJournalist.net will share them.
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10 comments about 'Teaching digital journalism'I am working on a "new publishing"-course.
I hope to post my topics next week.
Posted by Niels at February 7, 2005 3:08 AM
Please don't forget to talk to them about design and the future of web design. Web design now -- especially on news sites -- is generally downright awful and that is where the reader meets the information! Terrible. Fewer links, less scrolling, more variety in formats and better editing, creativity are all desperately needed.
And I'd also include something about the strengths of video images vs the strengths of still photos. Each is better at certain types of things and each have different requirements in terms of size. It's something few web journalists seem to understand.
Bill Ostendorf
President
Creative Circle Media Consulting
bill@creativecirclemedia.com
Posted by Bill Ostendorf at February 7, 2005 4:12 AM
As someone in the field who recently graduated, I would have loved to take a course on the best ways to present stories and news information online for the online audience. In the Internet Journalism class I took, we only learned how FTP a print or TV story to a Web site that our class created. It was a useless class because neither professor really understood the Internet culture. As a result, today I'm trying to discover for myself how to take the information I gather about an event or ongoing story and present it on the web. Definately teach the students the basics of video and audio editting, html and Macromedia Flash.
Tracy Simoneaux
2theadvocate.com
Baton Rouge, LA
tsimoneaux@theadvocate.com
Posted by Tracy Simoneaux at February 7, 2005 11:12 AM
Yes definitely design...too much information and too many ill-designed sites on the web. Also discuss the future of the Internet; as future journalists they will be participants in the evolution of the Internet, including the blogging revolution. They should already know how to check the validity of information on the web, but I'd stress that point and as well as the ethical use of information of the web.
I'd make the class project-based. Have them create projects- web projects that would include the use audio and video clips and images to tell their story. Hands-on use of the new technologies involved with authentic tasks makes sense. Go ahead try a moblogging project- I bet all of your students would have cell phones in NY.
Another important issue with web design and digital journalism is "how-to tell a story using the least amount of words possible". That takes lots of practice and creativity.
MaryAnne Campo
Instructional Designer
Northern Marianas College
Saipan, Mp 96950
Posted by MaryAnne Campo at February 8, 2005 3:24 PM
I am a veteran journalist with a long career in the wire services in the Caribbean (Associated Press) and I now teach Internet reporting at a private university in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is probably the only digital journalism course in the entire Caribbean region.
I have been at it during five years and through trial and error I have developed a solid curriculum which students in my class enjoy and comprehend. During 16 weeks I teach them the origins of the Internet, the concept of cyberspace, the Web, search engines for news research, documents types, navigational tools, principal news sites and styles, the architecture of a news site, legal, ethical and nettiquete issues, online communities, the nature of Blogs, domains and convergence. At the end of the semester the students must have done three multimedia packages for Internet and they also design their own web site. The best articles are published in local e-news sites. which serve as workshops for the class.
Rafael Matos
AP/Retired
Posted by Rafael Matos at February 22, 2005 12:14 PM
How about starting with short, sharp, no-nonsense stories -- 300 word max, no adjectives, no adverbs, leads that snap, short sentences, short paragraphs, cut everything that doesn't move the story forward.
There's so much repurposed junk out there.
Posted by John Mahoney at February 25, 2005 9:18 AM
Im teaching Digital Journalism in the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru (in South America) and there we have the same issues than Mr. Matos mentioned.
But in our Faculty our students use weblogs to prepare the first articles (to obtain reactions from the people and to practice with all kind of tools) and simultaneously we taught them everything about Dreamweaver and Flash.
So finally they have a weblog to write new articles or just to tell us how is going
their work. The web site that they prepare with Dreamweaver is to prepare an special about some issue related with the situation in our country. I would accept more suggestions and recomendations of books to have a better course.
You can check our works in http://www.pucp.edu.pe/fac/comunic/perdigital/PDPUCP2004_2.htm
Best Regards
http://www.juancarloslujan.blogspot.com
Posted by Juan Carlos Lujan at February 27, 2005 11:26 PM
I WANT YOU GUYS TO DESIGN COURSE CONTENTS THAT WILL TEACH THE BASICS IN DIGITAL JOURNALISM ESPECIALLY ON MEDIA BLOGGING TO US IN AFRICA AND WE WANT ALL THIS IN HARDCOPY SO THAT PEOPLE IN AFRICA WILL BENEFIT FROM THIS TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH GOING ON IN EUROPE AND AMERICA MAJORITY OF OUR MEDIA MEN DONT HAVE ACCESS TO INTERNET AND IF THEY HAVE ACCESS IT IS TOO EXPENSIVE TO BE ON NET FOR HOURS.
Posted by ABAYOMI IBRAHIM at February 28, 2005 1:07 AM
I used a group blog for my opinion writing class this semester and it's been a great tool. The students post their stories and comment on their classmates' stories. It was easy to set up and has really added to the course. My suggestion would be to tie a grade to their blog work.
www.carolynsopinionclass.blogspot.com
Moblogging, video and audio/blogging are all areas that I'd like to explore.
Posted by carolyn mason at March 1, 2005 6:23 AM
Respected, i am also interested in the digital journalism. i am working in website field for 5 years. in my view, the techniques that you reffered above are very good. you can design the course by including the programming also.
waiting response from you.
thank you
Posted by indra at November 14, 2007 5:45 AM
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