FINAL PROJECT!!

This is mine and Megan's final project, "The Obama Phenomenon." Enjoy! And don't forget to check the "reporters" button at the end.

good design, bad design

One news Web site with good design is the Boston Globe. It might not be the best-designed site, but I enjoy think it has several good features worth mentioning. The Page-One stories are front-and-center of the Web site, and right next to that is a scaled-down version of the front page. I think this is a great part of the design of the page because it lets viewers see the news in the same format that it was delivered to subscribers that morning. I think it’s helpful to readers of the Web site to see the photos and stories in that format even if they don’t have time to pick up the paper. It also has easy-to-navigate menus with “Special Reports” and weekly section inserts. It also has guides to regional editions for people living in the suburbs. The site is colorful without being overwhelming, and a useful link at the top to www.boston.com, a site with general information about the city, including weather updates, special exhibits, and more features on the city. The Globe’s site is not perfect, but I think it has a good layout and design and is easy to navigate for people looking for news updates and features.

I also like the Web site for Haaretz, the leading newspaper of Israel. This is the English-language Web site, which I read fairly regularly. I think it has a great design and layout. There is a scrolling newsbar at the top with updating headlines, and new stories at the top with timestamps next to them, so that readers know when the latest stories have come in. The rest of the site is well-organized with by section, i.e. “diplomacy,” “defense,” “opinion” and “national.” I also like the colors the Web site uses, and the use of photos and visuals is appealing. I enjoy reading the stories on the site because I find it interesting, something that is not always the case with news Web sites.

I have two Web sites with bad design. The first is on a national level, and it is the Miami Herald. I will be doing my TM there this spring, so I have been reading the Web site to catch up on news of the area. It is not well organized, and it is not too user-friendly. There is only one graphic, and all multimedia features are hidden at the bottom, listed as a series of videos – but they are small and difficult to find. The layout is uninteresting; nothing about the design or layout makes me want to stay on the site and keep reading. I normally read the New York Times, and Web sites like that one and MSNBC and CNN have colors, interesting Web content, and plenty of easily-navigable sidebars and menus. The Miami Herald’s Web site also features most of the paper’s stories under other menu titles on the left side; overall, it is not easy to find stories that one might be looking for. It is not an effective design for a Web site and needs a major overhaul. The main fault is that it’s boring and difficult to find things in, and I think it could entice more online readers if the Web site was improved.

On a more personal level is the Web site for Daily Northwestern. I have been working for this newspaper in some capacity ever since I started at Northwestern in Fall 2004. Since that time, the Web site has certainly improved, but it is still in need of some work. The Daily’s blog only updates for ASG elections and Dance Marathon, and is otherwise largely ignored. The Most E-mailed/Commented/Popular stories feature on the right is a good step in the right direction, as is the archive search available on the left. On the other hand, while the headlines are big, the lead-ins for the stories that appear under the headlines are tough to read. The Web site would benefit from being better-organized and having more updated content and web-only content.

flash with audio, take 2

I re-posted the flash movie with audio. Try it again here.

movies now with sound

This flash movie has audio!

It is of me interviewing my roommate, Communications junior Andi Braunstein, about a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert she just attended. She is pictured in the movie on the right, and I am on the left.

pew research part 2

According to the findings from section 3 of the Pew results, more educated people enjoy keeping up with the news more. This is not really a surprising series of statistics; people who put more time and effort into learning will be more interested in reading the news as a way of learning more. People who studied at a higher level of education are, in general, more interested in learning, and watching or reading the news represents a way of learning about the surrounding world. This might be not be the case with someone who stopped at a high school education – or lower. Many people also cited being busy, which I think is where the Internet comes in handy. People who are at work all day might want to come home and relax with a movie or tv show or something light-hearted instead of the news, but they would surely have time to spend 5 minutes checking the headlines in the office.

I thought the segment on diving TV news among party lines was very interesting. According to many articles I have read, a target demographic, the 18-28ish crowd, tends to get their TV news from shows like Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, two popular “fake news,” or news-satire shows on Comedy Central (Stewart’s Daily Show is mentioned in the poll). They might not always have the most information the fastest, but they present the news in an entertaining way that appeals to many people. Additionally, both shows are fairly liberal, and have appeal for those who might otherwise tune into Democratic shows. Personally, I know this is true for me. I still read newspapers and check news online, but if I am going to watch it on TV I would prefer Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert to some of the others on Pew’s list, like Larry King or even MSNBC, which is considered fairly liberal.

The information in section 6 about the prevalence of electronic devices, particularly electronic ones, could be either a pro or a con for the news industry. It’s true that someone could use a hi-tech Blackberry or cell phone to get headline updates e-mailed to themselves. But they could just as easily set their DVR to record the news, go home that night, watch the first five minutes to see the headlines, fast-forward to sports at the end, and completely skip everything else. Is this person more informed because they took advantage of technology? Not necessarily. But the study also shows that an overwhelming majority of people don’t get updates on their PDAs or cell phones, so just because it’s the technology is available does not mean everyone will want to make use of it.

As for the inability of the public to recognize the three facts (Condoleezza Rice, GOP, Vladimir Putin), that’s a statement about American interest in the news and not a failure of the news media. The journalists are reporting these things, but Americans are not retaining information; they skim the headlines with little curiosity and apparently come facts don’t stick. Or maybe they were never interested in the first place. In either case, it’s disturbing. On an unrelated note, I once read an article that said an alarming number of people could not identify Iraq on a map of the Middle East. Thousands of Americans are fighting there now, and I think that’s a bit of a disgrace as well (to say nothing of whether or not they should even be there in the first place). The cell-only survey seemed consistent with a younger, less-affluent audience, especially the higher numbers for online news and the Daily Show and lower numbers for print newspapers.

the medium matters: how people get their news

The Pew Research Center recently released a report, “Online Papers Modestly Boost Newspaper Readership.” Many of the statistics used are pretty much what I expected: for younger demographics, more people get their news online, while older demographics are more likely to get their news in print form. It has shows that older people are showing the biggest growth in percentage of people who get their news online. I can understand that older generations are more eager to learn about the internet, while younger ones take it for granted since they have always had it. The report states that 1 in 3 Americans regularly get their news online, which sounds pretty accurate to me. I don’t know if it’s true of my friends and myself as college students, but for society as a whole it does not seem like a stretch to see that many people turn to the Web as a primary source. In a previous reading, we read that many journalists used to view the Web as a supplementary zone and dumping ground for news from other venues, but now journalists are beginning to realize the value of reaching more people easily through the Web.

One of the statistics that surprised me was the one that said that 53% of Americans went online the day before. Maybe my perspective is skewed as a college student or someone from an urban area, but I would say that number should be MUCH higher, especially since they say the internet action can be from work or home. I would say that 80-90% of people I know are online at least once day, even if only for a few minutes. I also found interesting the amount of time people spent each day with different kinds of news coverage. I think part of the reason so much time is spent on TV news is that people tend to turn something on and then leave it in the background while they do other things. For example, turning on the 6:00 p.m. news while eating dinner means a person can have that information in the background while they take care of other things. In other words, a person might not actually be watching for the full 67 minutes cited in the report. Conversely, someone browsing through Web sites is probably actually paying attention the whole time, so they can spend less time with the news but absorb more of it. They can specifically look at the stories they want instead of letting all the news go in the background and waiting for the one story they might be interested in.

I liked what they said about the reputation newspapers have. The section describing how people like to “relax with the paper” I found particularly reassuring. As someone who looks forward to being a print journalist and who also finds something comforting about holding a newspaper and sitting down to read it, it is comforting to know that other people share those same people. Additionally, the section on newspapers points out the speed and convenience of getting news online, which I commented on in the above paragraph. In the breakdown of what people read in newspapers, I was surprised by the increase in interest in religion stories. I thought there would be a bigger increase in interest in international news, especially since 9/11 and the war on Iraq. Instead, more people are interested in local news and business and religion pieces. I think that also reflects the medium in which people get news, but as far as the newspaper sector goes I found those numbers a little surprising.

convergence: blessing or curse?

In his article “The Meanings and Implications of Convergence,” Rich Gordon writes about the different types of convergence in the media. Though he notes several ways to separate the different fields, the best way seems to be: online media, TV and newspaper/print journalism. Gordon talks about how in the beginning Web sites were “viewed as junior partners” (67), even though they were often a last resort for news and content. Now, many news outlets are developing a whole range of separate content appropriate for the Web. This content, such as multimedia galleries, interactive features and audio and photo extras, are aimed at a different audience than the print and TV media, a point that Gordon makes in his article.

Backpack journalists, as Gordon mentions several times, are examples of another fast-growing trend. Although, as he points out, “there will always be a need for specialists,” there is also going to be a demand for journalists who can go back and forth between the disciplines (72). This type of journalist represents the ideal for proponents of convergence, because instead of having a separate write for TV, newspaper and online for the same story with the same facts, one journalist will be able to record audio and take photos for online as well as write for broadcast and/or print. He points out that many journalists are “already being asked to gather information in multiple formats” (69). This means that journalists now in schools like Medill who are being prepared to do just that will find themselves in an advantageous position when they enter the job market.

Gordon also talked about the news environment is changing slowly, so slowly in fact that some journalists who are more resistant to change might not even notice that things are changing at all. I can see how this would be appealing; for a journalist pleased with his medium and unwilling to adapt to a new one, the changes that are occurring could seem overwhelming (71-72). But though these changes might be occurring slowly, they are still occurring, and journalists will need to adapt to that.