Week 1 – Wednesday

Subtitle: Getting Past The Doom And Gloom

News and journalism are changing due to technology, economics and reader/producer role changes. What types of news forms are emerging in today’s social digital environment?

Agenda

• New forms of news
• Twitter as a news source, personal learning network (ppt, slideshare)
• #wjchat

Multimedia

TED Talks : Alisa Miller shares the news about TV news in the US (2008)

Lab

• Create Twitter Account; provide Twitter handle on this TypeWith.Me document
• Create a NewsU.org account
• Leave a comment on the blog of the student who follows you on this list: https://com466.wordpress.com/students-2011/
• Configure Blog -> Dashboard (login)
  • Change time to Pacific/GMT -8 : Settings -> General
  • Pick a new theme : Appearance -> Themes (best for readability is dark text on light background)
  • Remove requirement that comments be moderated : Settings -> Discussion -> deselect “Comment author must fill out name and e-mail” – select “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” – deselect “An administrator must always approve the comment”
  • Give the category “uncategorized” a new name such as Miscellaneous : Posts -> Categories

Assignments

• Blog post (one) due Monday at noon:
  Complete this NewsU tutorial (1-2 hours: News Sense: The Building Blocks of News
  Note: unlike most NewsU tutorials, this one does not have a “submit to your instructor” form at the end. Therefore, what I need from you are the following screenshots* and an answer to the following questions 
  1. SS: Test your news sense – Story 6 – the items you check in the “newsworthy” checklist
  2. SS: Verification match (your match)
  3. SS: Build your own story (your first round build – pre-submit – we will talk about this exercise on Monday)
  4. Q: (“Interviews” module): why is proper attribution so important?
  5. Q: What is a primary source and why is it important?
  6. Q: Which story building block makes the most sense to you as a reader and why?

  How to take a screenshot:

  • PC folks: “alt+print screen” will capture the active window; paste into Paint (tutorial). Consider installing Jing, a free utility.
  • Mac folks: download Skitch (free); the keyboard shortcut for fullscreen is shift+apple+6; for active window, shift+apple+5 and click inside the window. Click and drag the “drag me” tab at the bottom of the Skitch window to export as a jpg or png, which will be web-readable.
  • Firefox Users: consider adding the FF extension, Aviary.

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