JPROF.com celebrates 5th anniversary

JPROF celebrates its fifth anniversary today.

In the past five years the site has grown in size (more than 400), expanded in purpose and reached around the globe to people I never would have touched or heard from.

JPROF was originally conceived (in my small study in Emory, VA, where we were living at the time) as a large, personal filing cabinet for material that I had accumulated during more than 25 years of teaching journalism. The amount of material on the web was expanding exponentially (as it still is), and I also wanted a place to store the things I had found that I might be able to use.

And, because I had several textbooks in print at the time, I wanted a web site that would give users more expanded and up-to-date material.

Since that time, JPROF has also become a forum (particularly through the companion blog http://jprof.blogspot.com for my impressions of what is happpening in the world of journalism and a site for all of the courses that I teach.

Because of JPROF, I have taken on some interesting and exciting projects, particularly this year for Edgenics.com -- something you will hear a great deal about during 2010.

Much has changed in my life during the last five years. I am now on the faculty of the University of Tennesse, having moved from Emory and Henry College in 2006. I am the faculty adviser for the Tennessee Journalist, the students news web site of the School of Journalism and Electronic Media, and through it, we have been able to launch a national organization of campus news web sites, the Intercollegiate Online News Network (ICONN). At UT, we have been able to change our curriculum in an interesting and innovative way, and I have the privilege of being in the midst of those changes.

The field of journalism offers many excellent opportunities for our students, and I am happy to still be a part of it.

Personally, 2009 brought Sally and me a move to the farm where she grew up and a new daughter-in-law. Our video review of the year is now on YouTube.

As ever, I am profoundly grateful for the friends I have made through JPROF and for all of the people who have contacted me over the years because what they have found here.

Now, as is my usual custom on this date and because it is New Year's Eve, I bid you: Party on!

Have a great New Year.

(In case you're interested, you can read what we said about JPROF on each of the previous anniversaries on JPROF's About page.)

TNJN Nutshell - a new form for getting information on the web site quickly

One of my big concerns is that our journalism students (at the University of Tennessee and elsewhere) do not understand the immediate nature of the web. As a news medium, the web has more immediacy than even broadcasting.

But the students don't seem to get that.

And, of course, that means we're not doing a good job of teaching it.

Too much of what is on the Tennessee Journalist, the student-operated news web site at UT, is old news -- sometimes several days old. And the students seem fine with that. They give themselves several days to write a story after an event has occurred when they shouldn't be giving themselves more than several minutes.

Consequently, I am planning on introducing a new form for the Tennessee Journalist tonight at the TNJN staff meeting. Below is the handout that I will be giving the staff and talking to them about.

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TNJN Nutshell
Jim Stovall
October 8, 2009

The TNJN Nutshell is the standardized form for getting news and information on the site quickly. It consists of the following:

• headline
• summary
• lead paragraph – who, what, when, where and the most important piece of information
• three bullet points about the story – preferably in complete sentences (Check out CNN news story pages for examples.)
• explanatory paragraph after the bullet points (optional)

Concepts governing TNJN Nutshell:

Gather accurate information. Accuracy is always the first priority.

Work BEFORE the story occurs by

-- setting up the page
-- writing the headline (you can/should/will change it later)
-- writing the summary (you can change that, too)
-- finding and putting in the links you want to use
-- finding the pictures/audio/video and any other sidebar material that’s relevant

Prepare to take pictures of the event

How do you quickly download, edit and upload your pictures. Figure that out before you cover the event.

Write as the event occurs.

Post as the event occurs, if possible.

Find ways to post your information in places other than TNJN.

-- post the bullet points on Twitter with the hashtag #TNJN
-- post the bullet points to Facebook (better: set your system up so that your tweets automatically show up on Facebook)
-- find other web venues to put your information. Many site accept reports from unpaid reporters. Begin with CNN’s iReport. But that’s just the beginning . . .

Return later to write a full story.

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I invite any and all comments.

Reforming the J-curriculum: beginning at the beginning

• To really reform a journalism curriculum, you have to begin at the beginning.

The faculty of the School of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee decided at its first faculty meeting of the semester in January to make some definite moves toward revising our curriculum to recognize the realities of the changing media environment and to prepare our students for those realities.

During the past few years, the UT faculty had done what other faculties have done -- lay on a couple of extra courses about web journalism. Some faculty members had made some moves within existing courses (including changing the names of the courses) to include more about the web.

We had even taken a step beyond that in starting a student-operated news web site, the Tennessee Journalist (tnjn.com), that is a central part of the curriculum. The site operates independently from any single course and thus is open to being used by all courses.

All of these were steps in the right direction, but they have not achieved the fundamental changes within the curriculum that we have sought. At our January meeting, we resolved to take a big step (bigger, I think, than even most of our faculty realized) and change JEM 200, the introductory news writing course that is required of all majors and taken by many other students as well.

Because I am the coordinator of all JEM 200 sections, the task of rethinking and re-envisioning the course has fallen to me. We offer 11 sections of the course and enroll about 200 students each semester. The sections are taught by lecturers and graduate teaching assistant and occasionally (though not this semester) by full time professors.

In our new plan for the course, the beginning six weeks of the course have not changed substantially. During those weeks we introduce students to the following topics. (The links here take you to the weekly lecture notes for each of these topics that are posted on JPROF.com.)

• Introduction to media writing
• Basic tools: Grammar and style
• Writing in the media environment
• The inverted pyramid
• Basics of reporting and journalistic writing: sources and interviewing

What came next in the old syllabus was two weeks of writing for the web. That has been expanded to four weeks. My draft proposal for how these four weeks will go follows:

Week 7, Feb. 16-20
Writing sections: continue writing in the inverted pyramid form; emphasize efficiency and conciseness. Have the students learn HTML tags with this tutorial and this exercise.
Lecture: Writing for the web I Introduction to the web | The web as a word medium | How readers use the web | Important concepts | Headlines and summaries.

Week 8: Feb. 22-26
Writing sections: Write short (no more than 200 words) but information-packed stories; introduce and practice with writing headlines and summaries using the tutorials and exercises. Assign the preview story reporting/writing assignment that will be due for next week.
Lecture: Writing for the Web II The Tennessee Journalist | Important concepts (continued) | Technology | Writing for the web - the basics | Headlines.

Week 9: March 2-6
Writing sections: Reporting assignment (preview story) due on the first section meeting; upload that assignment to the TNJN server. Practice uploading pictures and writing cutlines as well as sidebar material if possible. Look for live stories on the Tennessee Journalist to show as examples for sidebar material. Pay particular attention to the "related links" function of TNJN and have students find appropriate links for their stories.
Lecture: Writing for the Web III Inverted pyramid | Visual variety | Lists | Summaries | Microcontent | Links


Week 10: March 9-13
Writing sections: Writing assignments should include writing headlines and summaries, creating links and lists, and taking pictures and writing cutlines. A second reporting assignment -- another preview story if you don't think they're ready to do anything else -- would be good.
Lecture: Writing for the Web IV Twitter | Photojournalism | Audio | What you need to do to get ready to work in the web environment.

That will take us up to spring break. During the week after spring break, you should continue doing whatever your lab needs. One idea is to assign them to do a photo story over spring break.

After spring break, we will devote three weeks to "writing for broadcast," but that will change from the broadcast writing section that we once had.

This draft plan has been written for the lecturers and lab instructors of JEM 200, but I am posting it here on the JPROF blog so that anyone who reads it can weigh in and help us with our deliberations. I am especially interested in hearing from anyone who can suggest additional resources -- readings, tutorials, exercises, examples, etc.

Resources:

Writing headlines for the web

Basic HTML tags

Finding links

The art of linking

Writing summaries

Guidelines for the student photojournalist

Audio slide shows

What's right with J-education at Tennessee

The call has gone out from Innovation in College Media for journalism profs to come together on Sunday for a chat on journalism education. It begins with a blog post, and one of the suggested topics is "What's going right at your school."

Here's what's going right at Tennessee:

The Tennessee Journalist (TNJN.com)

TNJN.com is the student-operated news web site of the School of Journalism and Electronic Media at UT. It is operated by a student staff and is independent of any particular course. It is part of the curriculum of the School, and there are too many good things about it to list in the short amount of time I have to post this blog entry.

But here's one: We have a weekly staff meeting, and every week -- EVERY week -- at least 35 to 45 students show up. Their enthusiasm is palpable.

Check out the site. I am privileged to be the faculty adviser.

Intercollegiate Online News Network (ICONN)

We have formed an organization of campus news web sites, journalism students and educators, and professional affiliates. Any individual, program or professional organization can join. Our first meeting was in Knoxville in January, and there will be more soon.

The web site is http://intercollegiatenews.com.

And join the Facebook group.

I am looking forward to the chat.

TNJN wins regional SPJ awards

The Tennessee Journalist <TNJN.com>, the news web site of the School of Journalism and Electronic Media at UT, has been named as the best independent news web site for Region 12 of the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence awards. A number of the staffers have received individual awards. I am the faculty adviser for this site and proud as punch. Read more at the Tennessee Journalist and the SPJ site.

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

The Tennessee Journalist

The Tennessee Journalist is the news web site of the School of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee.

TNJN.com was created in the fall of 2006, soon after I joined the faculty at UT. This news site is part of the curriculum of the School and is operated by a student staff. They make the editorial decisions about what is posted on the site every day. You can find out a little more about the origins of TNJN.com at its About page. And if you want to be entertained, watch a promotional video about TNJN that was produced by one of our students.

The purpose of this news web site is to help the School teach a variety of aspects of web journalism and to give students the opportunity to practice and develop their skills and understanding of this new form of journalism.

TNJN.com, I think, serves as an excellent model for what a journalism/mass communication program can do to get itself into the convergence world. The site cost very little to establish and does not require much out-of-pocket cash for the School to maintain it. The students have taken to it with energy and enthusiasm.

Here are a few facts:

• The site was established in October 2006.
  
  
• The site is a part of the curriculum of the School.
  
  
• The site is run by a staff of students, and editorial decisions rest with that staff of editors. The staff operates independently from any class or course, and anyone may join the staff.
  
  
• The site is operated with a content management system developed specifically for TNJN.com. This system (which the students have named “Ochs”) is built on the Django open-source framework. It was developed by Johnny Dobbins and Staci Wolfe and is owned and can be licensed by the University of Tennessee.
  
  
• Students doing work in any of our courses can contribute their work to the site. Some courses give students the option of completing some course requirements by working with the site.
  
  
• Advertising space can be sold on the site. (We have not done this yet, but we are planning to begin this semester.)
  
  
• The site is equipped to handle almost anything our students produce: news and feature stories, pictures, audio, video, audio slide shows, etc.
  
  
• The site is updated on a daily basis and can be updated immediately when breaking news occurs.
  
  
• A unique and important aspect of the site is that every student who contributes to the site automatically gets a profile page. This page can contain a short biography and picture of the student. It also contains links to all of their work on the site. A good example of a student's profile page is this one.
  

The student staff holds a weekly staff meeting on Thursday evenings, and about 30 students regularly attend these meeting. Probably twice that number (or more) make regular contributions to the site.

TNJN.com is gathering an audience. Through the fall semester, the site attracted about 2,500 unique visitors every day. Since the beginning of the spring semester, the number of unique visitors has averaged more than 3,200 each day.



Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.