New social media tool NewHive my latest obsession

My NewHive expression on my favorite digital tools.

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As part of my role as a member of Digital First Media’s ideaLab, I am encouraged to experiment with new digital tools. My latest obsession is NewHive, which is still in beta and is by invite-only.

NewHive allows you to create “expressions,” which start off as blank canvasses until you add headlines, subheads, text, video, audio, photographs and other graphic elements. You can change font, use color, use shapes and draw shapes. In the end, you can make the page look like a piece of art, a newspaper page, invitation or any kind of creative expression you can imagine.

So far, I have three expressions. My first one was about the Southeast Michigan Media Lab. It features photos and video of the lab to give people an idea of what the lab has to offer.

My second expression was about me, how to connect with me on social media and my favorite digital tools. I like to share this with people who are just as excited about visual storytelling as I am.

My latest expression is an invitation to The Oakland Press reader focus group on Wednesday. I thought it would be great to share the invite on Twitter, Facebook and via email through a link.

The only drawback I’ve found, so far, is that it doesn’t appear we can embed it in an article page using our online publishing system. I have a request in now seeking help, as the embed appears to show up before it’s published on the page, but an error message appears after it’s published using TownNews. Despite this setback, what’s great about NewHive is that it can be shared using numerous social media tools. So, while we won’t get the online traffic, anything we link to. including article pages, will.

NewHive is an up-and-coming creative social media tool that I hope catches on. I especially like it to showcase creativity in photography and video. I think it’s also a great tool for journalists to use to showcase their work. Let me know what you think.

ideaLab goal morphs into job at Journal Register Company Michigan Group

My cubicle at the Southeast Michigan Media Lab.

When I was named to the Journal Register Company’s ideaLab in summer 2010, I had no idea that the goal I chose would morph into a full-time job, but it has and I am really excited about the fun in store for me.

As managing editor of Heritage Media-West, my ideaLab goal was to “incentive coworkers to learn new technologies and understand the value of digital. Train coworkers to utilize new tools by showcasing the strength and potential of each offering.”

My new job title is director of community engagement and editorial training for Journal Register Company’s Michigan Group. And among my responsibilities is to head up training efforts in video, developing partnerships, pertinent online tools and SEO for all of Michigan.

This is in addition to leading the community engagement team across the state, running the Community Media Lab, which has been renamed the Southeast Michigan Media Lab, as well as directing blogger recruitment and training across the state, working with editors to recruit citizen journalists, developing a regular live chat schedule for all of our websites, and monitoring and training staff in social media usage.

Had this position, which is newly created, been available 2 1/2 years ago, I wouldn’t have even been considered for it. It’s only through my ideaLab training, networking, collaboration and individual efforts have I become versed in everything that is now expected of me in my new role.

In fact, I was so green to the digital world in the summer of 2010 that I didn’t even know how iTunes worked and what an app was for a smartphone. But still upper management saw that I had an enthusiasm, curiosity and passion for moving journalism forward in a digital world. And through regular conference calls with our leader, Jon Cooper, and his team, members of the ideaLab were encouraged to play, experiment and make use of digital tools — from Storify, Dipity and uStream to CoverItLive, GeoCommons and Many Eyes — in our storytelling. We were equipped with a Netbook, smartphone and iPad, and given 10 hours a week to do our own thing. This led to many discoveries for me and a passion for visual storytelling.

Last April, my ideaLab project — which had focused on podcasting and the phonecasting application ipadio.com and culminating with a virtual walking tour of Saline historic sites — changed direction as I launched the Community Media Lab in Ypsilanti, Mich. A month or so later, I put forth a proposal and my lab was among a dozen across the United States approved for funding by Digital First Media, the company that manages JRC and Media News Group, as part of an effort to open media labs throughout our footprint.

I initially set up the lab so that my staff of reporters would work four-hour shifts and I would put in a full day every week, working one-on-one with members of the community interested in becoming community contributors, blogging partners, or simply wanted to become more familiar with social media, digital photography, or wanted to create video or podcasts.

In the last 10 months, we have helped senior citizens and businesses set up Facebook pages, chambers of commerce, nonprofits and political organizations establish a presence on Twitter, and helped create a YouTube account for a local business to showcases its product demonstration videos. We have taught individuals associated with nonprofits and businesses how to write news releases using AP Style, and helped students and local writers set up blogs so they could partner with us at Heritage.com.

We also have hosted a slew of workshops on marketing, social media, editing audio, citizen journalism, the Freedom of Information Act, news writing, photography, video, column writing, Google Drive for collaboration and online safety, and these workshops have been livestreamed via video with a simultaneous live chat with our audience. Workshop leaders have included myself and staff from across our company, as well as professors from Eastern Michigan University, and marketing, public relations and social media experts.

In my new role, we are expanding the lab and hoping to attract participants from across Southeast Michigan. The goal is to provide a learning-based environment, as well as a vehicle for the community to document and chronicle the important events that will shape their history, using our newspapers and websites, if they choose. The lab is a community service and no one is charged for our help or for entrance to a workshop. It’s also open to anyone, with no obligation to contribute to our publications. Someone could walk in and sit down at our blogging station, check email and work on a personal photo slideshow or video, with or without our help, if he or she wanted.

I will be publicizing our efforts on all of our social media accounts, including The Oakland Press, The Macomb Daily, The Morning Sun, Heritage Media, Advisor Source and The Voice newspapers. Our workshops have attracted up to a dozen people at times and a small online audience, but I would like to double or even triple that number as the year progresses.

My hope is to encourage members of each community we cover to get involved in sharing the news, much like they do on social media. I also have a goal of recruiting 100 blogging partners across Michigan.

When I first started as a reporter in 1992 in Dexter, Mich., educators, parents, local business owners, church leaders and volunteers with nonprofits wrote news releases and shared photographs with The Dexter Leader about every facet of the community. This supplemented my local reporting of city government, the schools and police news, as I was the lone reporter for the newspaper. Dexter had an actively engaged community who took pride in their town and wanted to share news about it. We see this today in the communities we cover, but more so on Facebook and Twitter because of the immediacy and convenience factors. My goal is to re-establish these relationships and develop more news-sharing partnerships. Anyone can start a blog, Twitter account or launch a Facebook page, but they won’t have the same reach — online and in print — that we do in our communities.

So, why not take advantage of that? I think the key is letting people know that we want them to think of us when they hear of breaking news or a touching story in their neighborhood or school. We invite you to share your own story or guest column; take a photograph while cleaning up debris after a spring storm; share video of the winning shot in the varsity basketball game; create a Storify compilation of local chatter on Twitter about the mayor’s State of the City address; create a timeline of the community’s 150 years; create a map pinpointing all of the community’s landmarks; or hold a live chat on an issue impacting your community.

Contact me and I’ll walk you through the process, help you learn a digital tool to achieve your goal and connect you with the local editor who will share your contribution. Let’s work together and build community. Message me on Twitter.

Giving back to the Heritage Community Media Lab in Ypsilanti

As we end 2012 and I reflect on the successes of my ideaLab project, the Heritage Community Media Lab, what I am most proud of is the relationship we’ve had with a few regulars to our lab and their efforts to give back to us for helping them learn new media skills.

Michelle Rogers, managing editor of Heritage Media West, leads a workshop at the Community Media Lab.

Chris Wechner, director of marketing for The Ultimate Analyst, had this video created and posted on YouTube by someone on his team as a way of giving back to the lab. The video is an amazing promotional tool. Chris has come in for workshops on writing news releases and contributing content in visually interesting ways, and has received individual, one-on-one instruction from several Heritage Media-West staff members working shifts at the Community Media Lab.

I have found Chris to be a strong supporter of the lab who wants to give back just as much as he takes. He has helped promote our workshops with a couple of blog posts. Here’s one post on his partner’s blog, ActiveRain. Chris also wrote a post after attending my workshop on his Michigan Marketer blog.

Bob Cummings, a community blogging partner with Heritage.com, who writes the blog “A Look at Spirituality and Health,” is also a frequent visitor to the Community Media Lab who gives back regularly. Bob has written very supportive email messages about our efforts, and expresses his gratitude for the help he receives when he visits, as well as the value of our workshops.

Joe Baublis, who is an active commenter on our coverage at Heritage.com who has also written guest columns and letters to the editor, attended my workshop, “Contributing Community Content in Visually Interesting Ways,” and created this amazing video posted on YouTube.

I love that all three gentleman have so much enthusiasm for the Community Media Lab that they want to give back and support our efforts. It’s rare to find that, and to have three people with the motivation to do so is incredible to me. And I am so grateful.

While their efforts have been extraordinary to me, the time workshop volunteers have donated to the Community Media Lab has impressed me, as well. Sarah Rigg, a freelance journalist and editor, has taught two workshops and just signed on to teach a third; Eastern Michigan University professors Michael McVey, Carol Schlagheck and Toni S. Jones; Eastern Echo adviser Kevin Devine; social media maven Leslie McGraw; Oakland Press photographer and videographer Doug Bauman; Oakland Press Community Engagement Editor Monica Drake; Arborwiki Editor Edward Vielmetti; Adrian College journalism professor Renee Collins; public relations professional Char Luttrell; and Ypsilanti Courier Editor Krista Gjestland have all led workshops at the lab since our launch earlier this spring. Topics have ranged from editing audio in Audacity, writing news releases, AP Style and Google Docs to Citizen Journalists and FOIA, column and narrative writing, blogging and photography.

We have several workshops set for January and February, and our friend Chris Wechner is teaching a couple. Sign up on our Facebook events page, and come check out the Community Media Lab in Ypsilanti.

A discussion takes place at the Community Media Lab workshop, “Contributing Community Content in Visually Interesting Ways,” Dec. 12, 2012.

Practice Makes Perefect at the Community Media Lab

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Nov. 4 will mark a milestone for the Community Media Lab, which is my ideaLab project for 2012. It will be the seven-month anniversary of when I launched the Community Media Lab, its blog on WordPress, as well as a Facebook page and Twitter account, to document our work, share it with the public and start a conversation about it. Since then, we’ve had more than 100 posts written by myself and our news staff, who work four-hour shifts in the lab, and nearly 3,000 page views.

I was fortunate in that my project was chosen this year, along with a handful of others, for funding through our parent company, Digital First Media. We have two computers for web surfing, experimentation and blogging, and another for video editing at SPARK-East, a business incubator in Ypsilanti. We also recently purchased two MacBook Pros, an iPhone and Smart TV to facilitate our work.

While the main focus of the lab is to teach technology tools and reporting skills to members of the community so they can share their voices and document the important events, traditions and news in their communities in partnership with Heritage Media, we also want to reach out to nonprofits, businesses and individuals to help them feel more comfortable using technology.

The Community Media Lab is still a work in progress. I am pleased with everything we have accomplished so far. From hosting a couple dozen workshops on everything from writing press releases and working with local media to choosing the right blogging platform, using social media and editing audio for podcasts, we’ve had the pleasure of working with a number of local educators, professionals and experts in various fields. We have livestreamed their workshops using uStream and a webcam on our Netbook, and simultaneously hosted live, interactive chats using CoverItLive to engage our online audience. We have also posted our presenters’ PowerPoints using Scribd, and promoted their workshops on our website, Facebook pages and through Twitter.

While the efforts we make associated with hosting workshops in the lab are fun and professionally rewarding, as we use new technology to connect with our audience, working one-on-one with the public is personally rewarding for me. For example, I helped a business owner set up a YouTube account so she could share product demonstration videos. She had hired a professional videographer to create the the videos, but wasn’t sure how to get them in front of an audience. I walked her through the process of setting up an account for her business on YouTube and uploading the videos. I also worked with a senior citizen, who didn’t feel comfortable with technology, to set up a Facebook account to communicate with family and friends, and an account on Craig’s List to sell a car. Both were grateful to receive individual instruction and afterward felt more comfortable using technology.

At our workshops, we’ve seen merchants interested in setting up social media accounts to market their businesses, bloggers seeking to improve their writing skills and people associated with community groups, clubs and marketing firms wanting to learn how to write the perfect press release. Journalists and students have learned about the Freedom of Information Act, how to edit video and audio, and how to improve their photography and video editing techniques. Workshops set in December will include “Blogging 101″ and “Contributing community content to your hometown newspaper.”

Last week, a freelance journalist, who feels more comfortable putting pen to paper, attended one of our workshops on blogging and decided to take the plunge. It was rewarding to see her take baby steps into the digital world and begin her journey as multimedia journalists. We set up an account on WordPress and she plans to write about social injustices. Once she gets started, I’ve encouraged her to share her work on our blog roll at Heritage.com.

There is still so much more to do, though. Our Community Media Lab isn’t widely known. I’ve had business cards created so reporters could pass them out at meetings and events, I’ve created fliers promoting our workshops, and recently I was a local “celebrity” guest at a business opening in Ypsilanti, where I was given the opportunity to promote the lab. My plan is to do more community outreach and take our lab on the road. Community Engagement Editor Erica McClain and I would like to present the Community Media Lab Roadshow, visiting chambers of commerce, senior centers, teen centers and schools across Washtenaw County, educating people about the lab and how we can help them.

Beyond promotion, I’d like to recruit students interested in writing, photography, videography, podcasting, social media and animation. The Community Media Lab can serve as a training ground for them, with their work shared on our website and some repurposed for print. If you know of any students who may be interested, please put them in touch with us through our Facebook page or have them stop by our lab at 215 W. Michigan Ave. in Ypsilanti.

In the meantime, we will continue our daily efforts in the Community Media Lab, with a journalist or editor there between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday working with individuals, experimenting with technology or reporting and editing, and hosting regular workshops free and open to the public. After all, practice makes perfect.

A Community Media Lab takes off with much promise

Earlier this year, Journal Register Company, parent company of Heritage Media, managed by Digital First Media, solicited proposals from staffers interested in starting a Community Media Lab. I jumped on it right away, with input from my staff, and put together a proposal with a modest $4,100 start-up budget and monthly operating expenses of $290. In May, Steve Buttry, our community engagement and social media director, announced our newsroom, which covers eight communities and is based in Saline, Mich., was one of 12 approved this year for funding.

While it was an honor to be one of the chosen ones, which means we will get new equipment and technology to make it easier, I had actually decided in March that opening a Community Media Lab would be my latest ideaLab project, and the lab unofficially opened in April at 215 W. Michigan Ave. at the SPARK-East building in Ypsilanti. SPARK is a business incubator that agreed to allow us to host our lab in the lobby of the building, where we’ve set up a blogging station and dedicated Mac, donated by the Eastern Michigan University student-run newspaper, The Eastern Echo, for video editing. There is also classroom space for presentations, with a projector and screen.

I have been guilty of not writing more about this endeavor on my ideaLabHeritage blog because I’ve been quite overwhelmed managing the Community Media Lab, while also managing eight weekly newspapers and the website Heritage.com. Not only did I launch a blog on WordPress to write about our work in the lab, but also a Twitter account and Facebook page. Updating those social media accounts regularly, with help from my staff, while also hosting workshops and helping people in the lab, has kept me busy.

In the last several months, we have hosted five workshops, all led by professionals in the communities we serve and promoted using events pages on Facebook, as well as briefs in print. Freelance writer/copy editor Sarah Rigg led our first workshop May 23 with “What is AP style and why should I care about it;” Char Luttrell, who works in public relations at Girl Scouts Heart of Michigan, led “Working with the news media” May 31; Leslie McGraw, a local blogger, presented “Integrating social media into your professional development” June 8; Renee Collins, a journalism professor at Adrian College, led “Column and narrative writing” June 11; and Kristin Judge, a former county commissioner who speaks on Internet safety issues, moderated “Online Safety” June 27. We used CoverItLive to solicit audience feedback on their presentations and most were shared using the Heritage Community Media Lab channel on UStream for live video and then archived. Their presentations, whether Word documents or PowerPoints, were shared with our online audience using an embed code generated through Scribd.com.

We’ve had between two and 10 people attend in person and an online audience of a couple dozen. My goal is to increase participation and engagement.

Upcoming workshops will feature Eastern Michigan University professor Michael McVey, who will teach participants how to edit audio using the free download Audacity July 18; EMU professor Toni S. Jones will present “Creating docs in Goole Docs” Aug. 3; Arborwiki editor Edward Vielmetti will lead a workshop on creating a city wiki Aug. 16; and Carol Schlagheck, a journalism professor at EMU, will present “Citizen Journalists and FOIA” Aug. 30.

The Educational Media and Technology Department at EMU, as well as Schlagheck and her colleagues and Kevin Devine, adviser to The Eastern Echo, have thrown their support behind the Community Media Lab. They’ve all offered to lead workshops and help spread the word about our efforts.

My staff has also supported the effort. We have a journalist or editor at the Community Media Lab between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, with everyone on the news staff working three- to seven-hour shifts. While they are there, they either work with individuals who stop by for help in setting up a social media account, edit a video or learn how to write a press release, for example, or they explore new digital storytelling tools or work on their own content for our newspapers and website. Each is asked to post to the Community Media Lab blog after a shift. Some of our efforts have included helping students in Ypsilanti set up blogs, working with nonprofits to establish a presence on social media and helping a local business owner write a press release about an accomplishment. We’re also available to listen to story ideas from local residents or take suggestions on how we can do a better job covering the news in the community.

While I think we’ve accomplished a lot in the last few months, I feel there is so much work left to do. Beyond hosting workshops, training community contributors and offering our services to the public in general, my Community Media Lab proposal called for recruiting student contributors, community bloggers, photographers, podcasters and videographers. I’d like to establish social media teams, interactive media teams and BlogTalk Radio hosts and share the content on our website. My goal is to enrich our community content online and in print by bringing the outside in the newsroom, so to speak.

I’d love to see more community contributions. While I was a reporter and later editor of The Chelsea Standard and The Dexter Leader, from 1992 to 2006, I enjoyed a close relationship with community members who were actively involved in the newspapers. Teachers sent photographs of students with information about school activities, local service clubs and churches submitted press releases about their upcoming events and community dinners, and readers wrote letters to the editor and guest columns sharing their voices with their neighbors.

I think back to before my time as a journalist and editor, when community newspapers would publish a paragraph on who in town had spotted the first robin of spring or which neighbor was visiting family out of state, and I’d like to see our audience share more of themselves like earlier generations did. Understanding our society has changed and is much more tech savvy, I imagine instead of the first robin of spring, we could view a video of a school classroom’s visit to the Detroit Zoo. Instead of reading about someone’s trip to visit family out of town, we could read a blog about a local resident working in a Third World country as part of the Peace Corps. Someone who attended the Memorial Day or Fourth of July parade could upload all of their photos from the parade into Flickr and generate a photo slideshow, or produce a video to share with our readers by just sending us the embed code.

There are so many possibilities for our readers to get involved and contribute, and I am excited to offer the Community Media Lab as a training facility for those who want to contribute, but may not know how or need to learn new skills.

And while sharing your passions with us — whether it’s photography, video, podcasting, creating digital cartoons or writing — may not be your thing, we’re still interested in helping you in the Community Media Lab. It’s a learning environment and we are there to teach and assist you. Heck, maybe you can teach us something or we can explore a new digital tool together. We can all learn something in the Community Media Lab. Stop by and see us or check out one of our workshops online. If you have any ideas of how we can help the community further, whether it’s bringing in specific speakers or sponsoring a photography club, we want to hear from you. Email communitymedialab@heritage.com.

Covering a tornado while thinking digital first

My staff has been tested over the last week and passed with flying colors.

When a tornado struck Dexter, a small town west of Ann Arbor, Mich., March 15, my reporters’ and editors’ digital storytelling skills, community engagement efforts and digital first mindset, which they’ve been building on for the last couple of years, were tested as they covered the devastation, emergency response, community reaction, cleanup and healing as the community pulled together to overcome.

As a group of weekly publications in print, it has been an ongoing challenge to get our audience to realize we’re now a daily online. I think the tragedy of the tornado served as a reminder to readers that they don’t have to wait until Thursday to get their local news, and we were happy to oblige, providing breaking news coverage, from news stories, Storify compilations, photo galleries and videos to Tweets and Facebook posts, and SMS texts to email alerts.

Our coverage started at 5:16 p.m. March 15 as online coordinator David Veselenak sent a SMS text message to readers signed up for alerts that the National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning for Washtenaw County. This was followed by another text message at 5:42 p.m. that a funnel cloud had been spotted near Dexter. About a half-hour later, I received a phone call from David that he was en route to Dexter as a tornado had struck. I was on my way to the Dexter Area Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner to shoot video of the program and honorees, and my phone battery was just about to die. I asked David if he needed help, and he said he and Dexter Leader Editor Erica McClain were in contact and had it covered.

Still, while eating dinner and hearing from state Rep. Mark Ouimet that the car wash and Laundromat in Dexter were wiped out, I felt that I had to help with the coverage. So, I left and headed for downtown Dexter, filming uprooted trees, debris, traffic backups and police blockades while I found a place to park. I was able to speak to a Michigan State Police trooper directing traffic and then drove to Dexter High School, where a command center had been established, and interviewed the community engagement officer for the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department, schools superintendent and village president. Since I didn’t have a way to communicate with David and Erica, I decided to return to our office in Saline at about 9:30 p.m., put together my video and posted it on our website, confident my reporters were taking care of the news story and communicating with our audience via social media. My video loaded just before midnight, I shared it on Facebook and Twitter, and then drove home to charge my phone — and get some sleep. Little did I know at that time all of the efforts my staff had made.

Erica, who had turned on the Radio Reference scanner the night of the tornado for updates, grabbed the now-famous video from YouTube that an Ann Arbor resident shot of the tornado in Hudson Mills Metropark and she aggregated it to our website while staying in communication with David in the field. As David was en route to Dexter, Erica started making calls to dispatch and the fire department to verify information from over the scanner. She pieced together a story, adding information as she heard it and updating our audience on Facebook. With David’s eyewitness accounts, Erica added his byline to the story. Sheriff’s Community Engagement Officer Derrick Jackson released some information in a press release, which reporter Ben Baird added to the story. Erica updated Facebook and the story into the evening as more information was released and she answered readers’ questions on Facebook.

 

Also that night, reporter Amy Bell, who met David at McDonald’s in nearby Chelsea, aggregated content, posted on social media and searched for user-generated videos on YouTube. Reporter Sean Dalton was also in Dexter shooting video, conducting interviews and collecting information, funneling it to Erica over the phone. He checked out the temporary shelter at Mill Creek Middle School and the tornado-ravaged Huron Farms subdivision. Erica kept the scanner on until about midnight concerned about injury or fatality reports, routinely posting on Facebook and adding details. Before going to bed, she changed the headline online to reflect the additional damage Jackson had shared.

The next morning, Sean was up early shooting dozens of photos of the devastation and cleanup efforts for a Flikr photo suite set up by Eric and David to share photos with our sister publications and among staff. Sean covered an emergency council meeting on the tornado Friday and then returned to Joe and Rosie’s Café in downtown Dexter, where he filed his story, photos and two videos. Meanwhile, David filmed a few interviews on his Flip and both Erica and David wrote sidebar stories. They connected with residents who were returning home to survey the damage, and shot photos of the Laundromat and car wash before returning to their command post to start filing stories online. David attended a press conference, which Erica live Tweeted using the @HeritageNews account. David also wrote the story and produced a video from the press conference.

The Oakland Press, a sister publication, sent videographer Aftab Borka to help. Erica showed him and an intern the Huron Farms subdivision and the worst-damaged houses. More residents were in the subdivision at this time, so Aftab was able to shoot a video for the Michigan cluster of Journal Register Company newspapers and WADL-TV, one of our partners. Throughout the day, David shared our news coverage, as it was posted, with our sister publications to also post on their websites and for use in print.

 

On Friday, Amy went back to Dexter and wrote a story about volunteer efforts going on in the community. She also spent some time at Huron Farms subdivision, where she took a number of photos for our website. Sean’s coverage continued over the weekend, as I edited and posted his stories and shared links on social media. Also on Saturday, Ben contacted Dexter businesses and asked how they were helping the community. He first posted a story Saturday and updated it Sunday. In addition, both Ben and copy editor Tonya Wildt aggregated content shared by sister publications.

 

Reporter James Dickson, who wrote the story “Ann Arbor man who filmed Dexter tornado to appear on ‘Good Morning America,’” wrapped up the vast amount of our coverage by taking all of our raw video and some user-generated clips to produce a documentary-style video of the tornado, the aftermath, community response and cleanup.

 

In all, there were about two dozen stories, more than a dozen videos posted and scores of links shared on social media between Thursday night and Monday afternoon. Our text message subscriptions increased slightly and our @HeritageNews Twitter account saw followers increase by about 20 just over the weekend. The @ChelseaDexter account saw 14 new followers. Both accounts saw several dozen retweets over the weekend, as well.

 

By Monday morning, the metrics looked like this:

 

TOTAL PAGE VIEWS: 12,843

TOTAL VIDEO PLAYS: 2,605

TOTAL NEW ‘LIKES’ ON THE DEXTER/CHELSEA FACEBOOK PAGE: 40

All of this effort has paid off as we have heard from scores of readers, near and far, complimenting us on our coverage. The story about the tornado’s destruction in Dexter made the national news, and I think the community newspaper that was looked at for news every Thursday has become known as a source for up-to-the-minute news and information any time of the day.

Attorney speaks on ‘New Rules for the Digital Media Age’ at MPA convention

Note: These are live notes from a workshop at the Michigan Press Association convention. Follow the live Tweet stream at #mpa2012.

Michigan Press Association general counsel Robin Luce Herrmann led a discussion Jan. 28 with her team of attorneys at the 2012 Michigan Press Association convention about latest Michigan media law matters. Topics included “How to protect your Internet assets.”

Media in the digital age

Terms of use and privacy policies
Need rules for people accessing and using your digital products. How will you manage posts that you may allow, copyright issues, editing and removing posts.

Report Abuse buttons: Used to manage content. Allows people to alert us to potential problems on website.

Terms of Use posted on website. This is a contract between media and user. You tell them what they can and can’t do. You want to protect your intellectual property, copyright.

Using social media for newsgathering: Many reporters now look to social media to gather news. We use it to find out what’s going on in the communities and world around us. How can a reporter use that for a news story or can he/she use it and what are the risks. If a Facebook page is public, with no privacy settings, then, according to Facebook’s terms of use, you are allowing everyone to access and use that information and associate it with you. When using social media for newsgathering, keep these things in mind: What does that site say in its terms of use; you don’t want to violate the policy if take something from the site. Facebook’s terms of use are straight forward, but Twitter’s less so. Attorney suggested consult with MPA attorney when you want to use something from social media website. Make sure you’re not violating terms of use. Even so, the site won’t provide “absolute protection” to you if someone complains.

You should treat information collected on social media sites the same way you would if someone came in and handed it to you in person. You verify the person who gave it to you is a reliable source and has the right to give you the information, and whatever they give you, you independently verify.

You have to be careful of confidential sources as there are degrees of protection. Keep in mind that smartphones are good newsgathering tools, but they could harm your confidential source because they can track where you have been, and that info could be subpenaed. If trying to keep a source confidential, you may want to leave your smartphone back in the newsroom and just take notes.

A lot of law enforcement agencies have outdated policies and that can come into play if videoing at a scene of a crime and they see it as interfering with an investigation. Our most concern is to be able to get the story and then educate police on the issue if they overstep bounds and try to restrict us in doing our jobs.

Michigan is a one-party consent state, so we can record phone calls as long as the other party agrees.

Anonymous posters: Some publications are using Facebook to police posters because there are some protections. If you allow anonymous posters, you have to be upfront with your terms of use and whether you would out them if it came down to it or you thought it was newsworthy. Everyone has some degree of protection for its anonymous posters.

In a lot of jurisdictions across the country, there have been some tests developed. We have a First Amendment right to speak anonymously. In order to reveal an anonymous poster, you have to notify the poster, tell that poster. Court has to review the complaint first, before considering whether to reveal anonymous poster. Media’s terms of use may require you to post on the anonymous poster’s behalf.

Intellectual property
Intellectual property involves domain names like your website, Twitter and Facebook accounts, Twitter handle and copyright. Question of copyrights. Who owns the photo and can I use this? If it’s a work-for-hire and copyright is transferred. It’s a question of fair use. Fair use determines whether we can use it. Fair use is whether in advances discussion. A mechanical process involved, forces of nature and a machine can’t be copyrighted.

Stock photos and Google images: Images taken from the web can be risky to use. If you Google, sometimes you’ll pull up database images and you can’t necessarily use those images.

Can’t trump access to public records under copyright. Law enforcement, for instance, can’t copyright photos from crime scene if you get your hands on it and publish it.

Domains and social media handles: Domain names registered on first-come, first-served basis. If you have a trademark, you may be able to take your domain name from someone else if someone else got it first.

Facebook and Twitter have detailed terms of use policies and you can get your name back if someone else owns a social media account using your company’s name. If employee opens social media account, do you have an agreement with employee who created it to get it back if they leave your employment? Non-competition agreements protect newspapers when sales people with connections to customers placing advertising leave your employment. Urged protect property (social media) accounts. Need to specify whether you can use your social media accounts and blogs after the employee leaves employment. If want control, though, the paper could be held responsible for posts.

Posting gone wild: Defamation and Devaluing Your Image
Online comment section: In print, any third-party content can be vetted. However, online comment section, there’s no review and it’s automatically posted. This raises questions of liability, if it’s defamatory content. If you’re a web host, you are generally not responsible. But if you’re a content provider, then you’re responsible.

You have to be careful what you do with respect to what is posted under the Communications Decency Act. It’s OK to remove for relevance, you can edit, but can’t insert defamatory materials; if you remove content and change message and it becomes defamatory.

You can be held liable for republishing third-party content into your own larger posting. A website owner who incorporated a third-party email is an example.

If an employee uses social media to make favorable comments about a service or product of his employer and does not disclose his employee relationship. If you’re a reporter and retweet a story, are you endorsing that information and if doing it under a newspaper account, is the newspaper endorsing? You have to be careful.

Publishers may be liable if give employees tools and encouraged to Tweet. Social media is becoming inseparable with some job functions.

You should have a social media policy.

Workplace issues
Concerns: Employee productivity and blending of work and personal lives
Pluses of social media: Marketing and business development, recruiting tool, knowledge gathering tool and increases communication among employees

When looking to hire people, if you look at their social media you may find out things you aren’t supposed to learn in hiring process, such as health issues, political affiliations, religious background, etc. If you make those attempts and the potential employee finds out they may assume you discriminated against them. Google has a policy not to Google information about a potential employee, because you can’t use that information in making your decision.

Social media at work: Employers allowed to monitor employees’ Internet use at work; no expectation of privacy; company policy may give privacy rights. There are still potential issues an employer could be exposed to information regarding protected classes or the information gathered could be misused.

MPA conference presents ‘Behind the Microphone’

Kent County Sheriff Lawrence Stelma, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Director of Corporate Affairs Helen Stojic, Fennville High School basketball coach Ryan Klinger and Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell talked about what it’s like to “deal with the media” and the Jan. 27 Michigan Press Association conference in Grand Rapids. It was billed as a way to get “pointers from a perspective that can yield better stories for newspaper readers.” It was moderated by Ron Dzwonkowski of The Detroit Free Press.

The face and the voice of City Hall is interpreted for its citizens through print and electronic media, said Heartwell.

Stelma: Command staff or officers authorized to speak if media liaison is available. Primarily, though, media requests come to him. He attended FBI Academy and was trained in how to deal with the media. “We always tell people. ‘We work for you.’” “We use the media as much to assist us get the work done … as they need us to do the job you must do.”

Stojic: BCBS cares what’s reported about the business. “We want people to know we do care.”

“When I get calls … I direct them to the right person to help them out,” she said.

Klinger asked how many dealings with media he had before the tragic death of basketball player Wes Leonard thrust the school district in the media. The coach said he heard from people around the world about it. Stories were written from around the world. Klinger said he told players to be honest and show your emotion” when responding to press questions about death of teammate. Klinger: “For me it was about representing Wes Leonard and his family … To me it wasn’t the most comfortable thing to do, but something I felt we had to do.”

Stojic said she runs into people who say they wouldn’t want her job because she has to “deal with the media.” But she thinks it’s important to be proactive and keep reporters informed. She was asked if it’s her job to make BCBS look good. She said it’s her job to tell the company’s story and there’s a lot of misinformation out there, like on the Internet, that they have to counter.

Stelma asked if he always tells the truth. He said he does, but often media has a tip or information and they know he knows, but for some reason the sheriff can’t reveal the information at that time. “I just tell them I can’t devuldge the information at this time.

“I can tell them, but they know. … It’s the balancing of what information is important to the community for safety reasons.

“There’s a delicate balance.”

Mayor Heartwell asked if he always tells the truth. He was bound one time by a nondisclosure agreement to not talk about a project in the city and he said he would never do that again because he needs to work in public’s best interest as a public servant. He often says he can’t comment, and would not lie.

Heartwell said he often gets his first knowledge of an incident from the media, rather than from his own police force because they’re busy on the case. When asked for comment, he doesn’t like to admit or tell the media this is the first he is hearing about an incident in the city, but he understands why he’s placed in that position.

Stelma said he often gets caught up in the media’s frenzy to get the story out first. “I actually get involved in the tension of the media (battling for the story).” He has a media line and encourages reporters to call that line, which is answered regularly. He does not share his cell number, but he does share email address.

Stojic asked how much authority does she have to speak for BCBS or does she have to ask her boss at some point. She said she has a lot of leeway, but she doesn’t like “playing a doctor on television.” She’ll help the reporter get an expert source when needed, such as a doctor or nurse. “I don’t know everything off the top of my head.”

Stojic said an employees sometimes circle a story in print and tell her how the reporter got it wrong. She says she always tries to get it right and it’s rare her boss or an employee points to anything she got wrong.

Klinger asked about his dealings with reporters and were they all the same. Most, Klinger said, were respectful, even though he could sense they were competitive for the story. “For me, it was about if I could get the message across about the player we lost, the family, how great our community was, that was special for me, whether I had to do it five times or a hundred times. I never said no to them because I didn’t want to turn away that opportunity.”

Stelma doesn’t distinguish between media and citizens in covering story pr shooting video or photos.

Sheriff Stelma doesn’t go off the record with reporters because it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Stojic says she has gone off the record to give background on a topic to a reporter when doesn’t want to give official comment just yet. “We want to make sure the information is correct,” she said.

Live blogging from the Michigan Press Association conference

Note: This is a live blog post and notes from the Michigan Press Association convention. Follow live tweets at #mpa2012.
Heritage Media reporter James Dickson asks question of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder

It has been about six years, but I am finally back. And a lot has changed in the industry since I last attended the Michigan Press Association’s annual convention in Grand Rapids. I am ready to learn some new techniques to apply to my craft, and I’ve brought two colleagues along for the ride. Heritage Media-West reporter James Dickson and copy editor Tanya Wildt are with me after making the 138-mile trek from Ann Arbor at 5:30 this morning.

Our first session, hosted at the spectacular Amway Grand Hotel, is “The Shape of Things to Come,” and the presenters are current and former college newspaper editors, and the talks is being moderated by Joe Grimm, professor at Michigan State University, who was introduced by Ken Winter, North Central Michigan College and Michigan State University Journalism School instructor, consultant and Petoskey News-Review editor and publisher. Listen to the talk here.

Do you think of print or digital when you think of a job in journalism? This was the first question posed to the student panel. Kelsey Schnell says, “Yes, I will work online,” notes they’re talking about eventually ending print edition of student newspaper. “Ideally, I’d like to stay in print, but I guess I will go where the job takes me,” says Mike Martinez.

How and where do you get your news? The second questioned posed to the panel: Mostly online, phone, through news apps; Twitter and picking and choosing what’s interesting.

Poll: How did you find out Michael Jackson died. Many heard on television, from radio, Twitter, Facebook and print. Make sure to fact check Twitter reports.

Important to uphold standards of journalism. Example, how it was tweeted that former Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno died before he had.

Student editor suggests write a 200-word preview with a photo and put it online, and response from audience will tell you whether to write a followup and produce video, possibly write a column. Let the audience help steer your efforts. Don’t waste time on a story about something no one or very few care about.

It’s important to know your readers, market and demographics. Serve both print and online readers, and cross promote everything.

Question from the audience: When is the last time you used a phone (to do an interview)? “It’s still old-school journalism in this new realm,” Kate Jacobson says, stating she prefers phone or in-person interview over email. Don’t let people hide behind technology and craft carefully-considered answers. Journalists want authenticity.

Advice for smaller or private colleges: Work in social media if you have fewer resources. “It’s free, so it’s not hard, and just brand yourself,” said Jacobson. If it’s a commuter campus, report and Tweet on local road conditions. This will help drive traffic, bring in an audience that you can share other news with. “Don’t worry about the size (of your audience; it’s about the activity (and engagement).”

Jacobson: MSU State News seeing a shift to online advertising and it’s “pumping serious gas in our car.” Print is down to six pages because print advertising is down. Subscriptions help a little bit.

What alerts do you have out there to get the news, Grimm asked. “Hard news matters.” More students interested in writing features. News aggregators like Gawker, Google and Yahoo have good news alerts, pulling from a variety of websites. Gawker has clever writers who aggregate content.

Most news originates from websites. In the new world, students were asked, “What will people pay for?” Students “don’t like paying for stuff.” Students willing to pay for some news content if it’s exclusive content and just what they want. One student pays for ESPN sports. He pays for small-town news because it’s not as shared on social media and those subscriptions are reasonably priced. Long-format writing, one student pays for. Has had a subscription to Esquire since he was 15.

Some college newspapers hoping to monetize Twitter stream by putting ads in feeds.

Thoughts on local community journalism. How do we build community and conversation like our local newspapers have done. Students say great thing about social media is community can share content, comment on content on social media. This builds community and conversation.

One student’s parents didn’t renew subscription because the newspaper isn’t “fun” to read anymore because it got so whittled down as advertising support dropped off and pages were cut, limiting local news coverage.

The session concluded with: “We’ve got to write something good before we tell someone to read about it.”
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder answers question of Eastern Echo reporter at Michigan Press Association convention.

Reporters using technology for journalism

A few weeks ago, I introduced the Digital Draw, a box in the newsroom containing colorful strips of paper with various technology tools listed to produce journalism. Every Friday, my staff draws from the box and has a week to incorporate one of the suggestions in their work such as crowdsource a story from Twitter, create a Storify or timeline using Dipity, live Tweet a meeting or produce a photo slideshow using user-generated photos.

We’ve had success with this effort, and I wanted to share with readers some of our work and seek feedback on what else we could be doing or exploring.

Cops and courts reporter Ben Baird selected “create a Google map“ to incorporate in his reporting. He applied it to a story he wrote on a series of retail thefts in Saline. A week earlier, he picked “post to a blog,” and did so, writing about a ridealong with a sheriff’s deputy and incorporated a video.

Chelsea/Dexter copy editor Erica McClain chose “create a Storify,” and covered the arrival of University of Michigan football players in New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl, based on chatter on Twitter.

Online Coordinator David Veselenak also drew “create a Storify,” and did so on the topic “Washtenaw County preps for New Year’s Eve,” compiling Tweets from area residents talking about their plans. He also had “live Tweet a meeting.”

Manchester/Ypsilanti copy editor Tanya Wildt picked “find a story on social media and pursue it,” and found the perfect topic as our publication’s agriculture reporter and Washtenaw County Farm Bureau’s 2011 Ag Communicator of the Year, “Michigan places 10th in USDA’s winter farmers market list.”

General assignment reporter Krista Gjestland drew “create a podcast,” and interviewed a gap year student in Ghana using ipadio.com for a phonecast.

The first week, I drew “create a sound slideshow,” creating a photo slideshow and incorporating the voices of residents weighing in on cuts proposed to the Humane Society of Huron Valley and the second week I picked “create a photo slideshow using user-generated photos,” using photos submitted by the Milan Public Library depicting their holiday activities.

County government and entertainment reporter Sean Dalton selected “hold a live chat” and “crowdsource photos for a slideshow.” He’s still working on both, but says he has sent out Tweets asking for participation. In the meantime, he crowdsourced a story on Twitter.

Education reporter James David Dickson had “find a story lead on social media and pursue it” writing about a children’s author offering to design a new University of Michigan mascot. He also found a lead on Twitter about Lake Superior State University’s banished word list. Next up for him is “crowdsource photos for a slideshow.”

City government, health and environment reporter Amy Bell selected “create a Google map” to complement a story and “crowdsource a story using social media,” which she did after seeing The Bling Thing in Saline bragging on Facebook about its holiday sales.