When it comes to writing, what works on TV or in print doesn’t necessarily work on the Web. Stories that begin with an anecdotal lead may send online readers clicking away, if they can’t figure out quickly what the story is about.
Many broadcast journalists have taken to rewriting their stories for the Web by simply [...]
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Well, it’s not surprising, but it may be a bit depressing. The Annual Survey of Journalism and Mass Communications Graduates confirms what we all expected – it’s harder to find a job these days.
…only 60.4% of the 2008 bachelor degree recipients had landed full-time employment about a half year after graduation. That is not only [...]
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Poynter recently hosted an online chat with NYU professor Jay Rosen and PressThink blogger on the subject of teaching people to blog.
Advice: Break news, say something that hasn’t been said, collate what no one has collated, and then link to the biggies when you publish.
So, why link to the “biggies,” as in popular blogs? [...]
Filed under: 07. Writing for the Web, 08. Producing for the Web | 2 Comments »
Most television Web sites have left the age of shovelware behind, thank goodness. It took a while, but stations finally figured out that simply posting TV scripts online wouldn’t entice anyone to visit a site twice. That said, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. TV stories don’t just need to be rewritten for the [...]
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If you aren’t already reading any of Jakob Nielsen’s work about online writing, you should start. Just recently he published his pick for the news organization with the best Web headlines. And the winner is….the BBC.
According to Nielsen, good headlines should have these characteristics:
short (because people don’t read much online);
rich in information scent, clearly summarizing the target [...]
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Many local TV Web sites leave a lot to be desired. They’re better than they used to be, thank goodness, but they still have a long way to go. Too many sites remain hard to navigate, crammed with news, ads, promos, videos and all kinds of random content that leaves the user feeling overwhelmed and [...]
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So you’ve been laid off or can’t find a job in journalism. Think you can survive on blogging alone? Not so fast, says Scott Joseph.
After taking a buyout from the Orlando Sentinel, where he’d spent 20 years as a restaurant critic, Joseph figured he could still make a living as a writer by freelancing and [...]
Filed under: 07. Writing for the Web, 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | 2 Comments »
Journalists who don’t Twitter are “crippling [their] online publishing effort,” says OJR’s Robert Niles. In his view, Twitter is the ideal medium for breaking news and delivers information to readers more efficiently than RSS feeds. But how do you write for Twitter?
Start by consulting this primer for Twitter beginners from J-Prof’’s Jim Stovall. He says [...]
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National Public Radio is reinventing itself as a multimedia news organization, and is retraining its staff for this new mission. In the latest issue of American Journalism Review, Jennifer Doroh reports that NPR hopes to have 450 staffers up to speed in multimedia by this time next year. So what are they learning?
Arts and culture [...]
Filed under: 03. Multimedia Newsgathering, 07. Writing for the Web | 1 Comment »
Times are tough in newsrooms all across the country. Dragged down by a sagging economy, TV newsrooms and newspapers are laying off staff and cutting their coverage. If you’re a young journalist, it may be hard to keep your fears about the future at bay. Was it a mistake to get into this business? Not [...]
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