I’ll be at the annual New England Press Association convention this afternoon, leading a workshop on blogging and social media for journalists. Thanks for the help many of you gave me, and I hope to see some of you there.
Above is the slideshow I’ll be using. My goal is to move through it quickly and get into idea-sharing, since I expect many of the participants will have at least as much to offer as I do.
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Bravo Dan! Great presentation! (I hope some of my local journos were in the audience–they could use this info.)
That’s pretty good, Dan, although I think you need a stronger call to action at the end. Newspapers need a way to start. And I hope they begin to listen.I just finished a series on my blog, HighTalk, about ways to improve Boston.com. You might be interested: http://tinyurl.com/acj9oq
Dan, your presentation was interesting. The two most important things that you present are: * “…your participation is key”, and * “…there are no experts, only ideas.”While your presentation is geared towards on-line media, the same applies to the print media.The Letters to the Editors is traditionally one of the more widely read sections of any newspaper or magazine.Today’s journalists have styled themselves as “experts”, leaving out a lot of the who, where, where while they concentrate on the how and why without sufficient context. Print media ignore these realities at their own risk.
Dan, Very nice presentation. I do see that you mention reader submitted photos. What is your vision regarding (paid) photojournalists? I guess a better question would be: do you see a place for traditional documentary photojournalism in this model?
Can someone please explain to me the allure of Twitter?I like to think I’m generally pretty “with-it” but I just don’t get why this is so great.
Dan,Recently laid off, I’m both job searching and upgrading these social and networking technologies. The details and the volume are often overwhelming, but the strategies you offer will keep me moving forward.Yesterday I was compelled to comment online (first time) regarding an NPR interview with WSJ editorial opinion-maker, Stephen Moore, and his “Conservative View On Stimulus” because he simply did not know what he was talking about when it came to solar and wind energy.It cannot be good that newspapers are tending everyday to sound more and more like the most superficial talk radio.Yours truly,ross@rnn.com
Nice job Dan.As someone that’s been to the NEPA Convention many times, I can say that you did a good job tailoring it to the audience.
J.S.: Twitter is one of those things that is much more useful than it sounds. I can only suggest that you give it a try.
Dan,Yours was my favorite presentation of the day and it was a topic of long conversation at dinner last night!Thanks for posting your PP presentation on here. I forgot to ask you to send me a copy! Come back again to NEPA next year!!!
Dan, did anyone happen to mention the joke that passed for a story on the front of the Feb. 4 Globe Sports page? The BC women’s basketball coach doubles as a magazine publisher, and the Globe ran above the fold a large photo of her aside the first issue of the magazine (called Monarch ), which triumphantly announced “Premier Issue.”Hope she’s a better coach than grammarian.
Very nice presentation, Dan. Thanks for sharing it.I really have to venture into “twitter.” (The name puts me off somehow.)
BosPhotog: I’m not sure reader-submitted photos will turn out to be any more than a fun way of building community.I think the more likely scenario is that as management hands cheap digital cameras to reporters, there will be fewer jobs for real photojournalists, and they’ll be reserved for the truly important assignments. Unfortunate, but that seems to be the way it’s going.Back in the day, Mrs. Media Nation was given more than her share of assignments to shoot buildings and parking lots because the editors hadn’t planned. Pictures like that can easily be taken by reporters. Though they shouldn’t be taken at all.
Dan,Good overall presentation. Next year, however, I’d love to see you lead a round table discussion with bloggers (those of us folks who are already blogging, using podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) … what’s working, what isn’t, how can we do it better/more effectively? Some of the NEPA workshops this year were good for the journalists living in the land that time forgot. The rest of us are eager to sink our teeth into something deeper. I’d love to see you lead that kind of workshop. -Noahhttp://blogs.eagletribune.com/headlines
Dan, if I may, I agree with Noah, who also won a NEPA last night for his work at Worcester Magazine. And, I would even say, I’d love to be a part of that round table. That said, since I couldn’t stay for your presentation, can you tell us how you think it went?
Noah: Excellent idea, and you should suggest it to Brenda Reed and the powers that be. Still, a lot of people who were there on Friday are already blogging, and are looking for ways to do it more effectively. I didn’t get the impression that there were many total neophytes in the room.Tony: Thanks for the beer! I thought the workshop went quite well, mainly because when I stopped flapping my gums, the audience took over and filled the last half-hour with an interesting, substantive discussion.
Dan,To use some ugly jargon, I’m having trouble “monetizing” your suggestions, particularly the ones that urge us to do less in-house and use sites that don’t lead the reader back to our sites and our advertisers. Flickr and YouTube don’t push readers back to your page to view the content or find more, which Twitter (shudder) at least does. Will people buy subscriptions to a newspaper because the paper’s imprimatur is on a Flickr album of summer snapshots?
Sara: You have, of course, raised one of the most important issues. If I had the answer, I would be a high-priced consultant.I guess I would suggest that since the Internet has little negative effect on the circulation of local papers, simply getting your name out on Flickr and YouTube might help you attract readers who don’t currently buy the paper, and who might be induced to do so or at least to look at your website.
Sigh. Don’t I know it. It just translates into a lot of time on the reporters’ end for some pretty nebulous gain. We’re professional cynics, after all, and a cynic would say that if we have only a vague idea of how this will help us, taking reporters off their beats to tend to flickr pages is just hastening the destruction of the newspaper by making our coverage worth much less than the paper it’s printed on…
Sara: I think it depends on how you’re defining “gain.” In terms of a business model there may not be a large monetary return, but in terms of editorial gains your ability to reach people and reach them more effectively is huge — and that’s always been a priority for journalists. “Will people buy subscriptions to a newspaper because the paper’s imprimatur is on a Flicr album of summer snapshots?” No, but I guess you also have to ask “Will people buy subscriptions to a newspaper?” Increasingly, the answer is no (although I do believe there will continue to be exceptions). Also, I think ultimately, some of the most useful tools to those of us on the Internet side will be those applications that allow us to both tap into outside social networking AND bring people back to our sites. Twitter and Facebook have done this rather well — Flicr and YouTube not so well, but they do significantly expand our reach.