WEB REPORTING

review

What is news?

News is a reporting of recent events, of new

information.

Reporting the news is a public service.

News originate in three ways:

- naturally occurring events,

- planned activity,

- reporter enterprise.

9 elements of News

Timeliness Human Interest

Impact

Prominence

Proximity

Conflict

Novelty

Consequences

Currency

Timeliness

Recent events have higher news value than

happenings in the past.

Impact

How many people will be affected \ influenced by the subject of the story.

Prominence

Significant people or places are evolved.

Proximity

How close to home the news originate.

Conflict

“Bad news” - crime, war, public discontent, protest, disagreement.

Novelty

The unusual, strange, unique or odd.

Consequence

The effect, result or outcome of something occuring earlier.

Currency

More value is given to stories pertaining to

issue or topics that are in the spotlight of public

concern rather than topics that have little

prevalence ( more people care about the issue.)

Human interest

Stories about individual and groups of people

and their problems, concerns, achievements

can stir emphasis, and sometimes outrage in

the reader or viewer.

Human interest stories are often the story

behind the story.

Online Journalism Storytelling

Any story that is an issues that is expressed in

human events.

Take a common issue and come to it from a

new and meaningful way.

News is new information, people and details.

Journalism is storytelling with facts\true.

4 core elements of digital

journalism

Gathering – facts, anecdotes, facts etc.

Filtering – critical element, distinguishing

“signal from sound,” mindfully choose what

information to include.

Packaging and distributing – the information

across different platform and using different

networks.

Conversation –promoting and discussing your story with the audience.

Online headlines

Obvious

Keyword filled

Search engine optimized

Contain a verb

Online news story basics

Immediacy of the web beats everything for

breaking news.

Inverted pyramid.

Online news in ongoing and can be updated,

most stories don’t require a tight conclusion.

Include at least one image – visual center.

Hyperlinks for attribution, background.

Leave your opinion out of it.

Original reporting

“It’s a waste of time to rereport good

reporting.”

Aggregate – link to what’s already over there

while seeking original content that will set you

apart.

Attempt to interview\see people\events in

person.

Eyewitness accounts will provide the better

details and the most truth.

No one-source stories.

Hierarchy of source reliability

Face-to-face

Source (paper)

Voice-to-voice

Electronic documents

E-mail exchange

Official web-sites

Not-to-reliable sources

Personal web-sites

Social networking web-sites

Anonymous online comments.

How do I evaluate online sources?

Authority – who authorized the web-page?

Accuracy – are the facts documented?

Objectivity – what is the purpose of the site?

Currency – when was it written and was it

updated?

Coverage – does the site address the topic

Value- Grammatical errors.

Use critical thinking online

Determine credibility – plug author’s name in

the search engine.

Check WHOIS domain name registry.

Fair Use

Allows for limited use of other’s copyrighted

material for purposes condoned by law.

It allowes journalists to post SOME

images\content online without obtaining the

owner’s permission if we use the copyrighted work in ay that are fundamentally equitable.

Common examples of fair use

Legitimate criticism

Commentary

News reporting

Research

Scholarship

Who is my audience?

Always ask yourself – this will help to develop

the focus of the story.

All stories are topics, all topics have an

interested community.

Find out what topics your audience is talking

about, sharing and the information they are searching for with Google trends.

Visual functionality

On a web page successful communication is

influence by:

Text in the screen.

Page layout.

Images: pictures and graphics.

Color that make a psychological impact.

Readability on the WEB

Highlighted keywords

Sub-headings

Lists

One idea per paragraph

Short paragraph

White space

Sound in the online story

Downloadable podcasts ( like radio show)

Offered as sound bites

Raw recorded interview or live

Combined with moving picture on the video

Paired with photos in an audio photo slide

Augmented with text and graphics

Sound as an emotional carrier

To hear someone's voice and character

Capture ambiance of a situation

Convey intimacy of a situation

When subject of a story is about music\ noise

To create a mood

Mutimedia storyboarding

Requires to go to the field and think:

Which details should my audience hear?

What detail should my audience see?

Digital Journalism Ethics

To what extent existing media ethics is suitable

for today’s and tomorrow’s news media that is

immediate, interactive and “always on” – a journalism of amateurs and professionals.

Two level tension

between traditional journalism and online

journalism

between parochial and global journalism. If

journalism has global impact, what are its global responsibilities?

Anonymity

When is anonymity ethically permissible and is

it inconsistent for media to enforce different

rules on anonymity for different media

platforms?

What should be the ethical guidelines for anonymity offline and online?

SPEED, RUMOR AND

CORRECTIONS

Speed puts pressure on newsrooms to publish

stories before they are adequately checked

“Sharing” creates the potential for great harm

How to handle errors and corrections when

reports and commentary are constantly being updated

Should I comment my stories?

Yes, and you should identify yourself. You

should never comment anonymouslpseudo.

“Stock Puppetry” – unethical.

How to comment?

Provide additional information\tip

Ask questions

Share anecdotes

Say “Thank you for your comment”

Online reputation

How do you manage your online foot print?