Comments on: Hey newsies, make way for the websies http://wemedia.com/2009/02/26/hey-newsies-make-way-for-the-websies/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hey-newsies-make-way-for-the-websies The Power of Us Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:42:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Zita Arocha http://wemedia.com/2009/02/26/hey-newsies-make-way-for-the-websies/comment-page-1/#comment-5585 Zita Arocha Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:49:49 +0000 http://wemedia.com/?p=3585#comment-5585 Thanks for the clarification Mathilde. What I meant by saying you "make style changes" to stories is that you make sure the stylistic elements of a story – font/layout, etc _ conform to the website format. Bingo on on my misstating that you called yourself "highly specialized" when you were in fact referring to the role of journalists in traditional newsrooms. I love the instant feedback loop writers get with new media. I am definitely a convert to web journalism, actually have long been a critic of the top-down journalism practiced by the old-style journalists. Keep on pushing your bosses to let you do more of what you learned in J school. Thanks for the clarification Mathilde. What I meant by saying you "make style changes" to stories is that you make sure the stylistic elements of a story – font/layout, etc _ conform to the website format. Bingo on on my misstating that you called yourself "highly specialized" when you were in fact referring to the role of journalists in traditional newsrooms. I love the instant feedback loop writers get with new media. I am definitely a convert to web journalism, actually have long been a critic of the top-down journalism practiced by the old-style journalists. Keep on pushing your bosses to let you do more of what you learned in J school.

]]> By: Mathilde Piard http://wemedia.com/2009/02/26/hey-newsies-make-way-for-the-websies/comment-page-1/#comment-5541 Mathilde Piard Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:55:14 +0000 http://wemedia.com/?p=3585#comment-5541 Ok so I hate to be the person who turns around and says "I didn't say that" about a quote of mine in a story by a fellow journalist, but I feel that I have to correct some of the things that have been attributed to me in this blog post. “'I’ve been taught to multitask and I know how to do it all in a highly specialized format'” - As a journalism student at Columbia specializing in new media, I was taught how to do a little bit of everything (reporting & writing, shooting and editing video, building websites etc). Concerning the multimedia skills, we dabbled into many things, and essentially are not experts in any of the mediums. So yes, I am multiskilled, but no, I am not highly specialized, far from it. I probably did use the expression "highly specialized" in my chat with Zita - not to describe myself, but on the contrary to bemoan how roles in my newsroom are very narrow in focus: reporters solely report and write, photographers just take photos, videographers only shoot videos, and web producers, well, most of the time are just digital grunts. I don't think this is paving the way to a bright future for my paper, and I have made my views clear with my bosses and coworkers. "She works as a “web producer” for the Palm Beach Post and spends most of her workday updating stories and making style changes to news stories for posting on the website." No, I am not a copy editor and I made that very clear during our chat at WeMedia: I don't touch stories at all - we have another staff member who takes care of that. Up until January (when we hired someone new to take care of this), I did keep the homepage fresh by rotating stories, headlines, photos. In that sense, yes, all I did was "click buttons to paste news stories and photos on the site." Since then, I have had a lot more free time to work on more creative things. So I no longer spend as much of my workdays doing this type of work, which makes me very happy. "They are antsy to get on with what they were trained to do at good J schools – gather news and information and package that into multimedia stories" - Absolutely. Yes. I agree with everything in the first two graphs of this blog post. Ok so I hate to be the person who turns around and says "I didn't say that" about a quote of mine in a story by a fellow journalist, but I feel that I have to correct some of the things that have been attributed to me in this blog post.

“'I’ve been taught to multitask and I know how to do it all in a highly specialized format'” – As a journalism student at Columbia specializing in new media, I was taught how to do a little bit of everything (reporting & writing, shooting and editing video, building websites etc). Concerning the multimedia skills, we dabbled into many things, and essentially are not experts in any of the mediums. So yes, I am multiskilled, but no, I am not highly specialized, far from it. I probably did use the expression "highly specialized" in my chat with Zita – not to describe myself, but on the contrary to bemoan how roles in my newsroom are very narrow in focus: reporters solely report and write, photographers just take photos, videographers only shoot videos, and web producers, well, most of the time are just digital grunts. I don't think this is paving the way to a bright future for my paper, and I have made my views clear with my bosses and coworkers.

"She works as a “web producer” for the Palm Beach Post and spends most of her workday updating stories and making style changes to news stories for posting on the website." No, I am not a copy editor and I made that very clear during our chat at WeMedia: I don't touch stories at all – we have another staff member who takes care of that. Up until January (when we hired someone new to take care of this), I did keep the homepage fresh by rotating stories, headlines, photos. In that sense, yes, all I did was "click buttons to paste news stories and photos on the site." Since then, I have had a lot more free time to work on more creative things. So I no longer spend as much of my workdays doing this type of work, which makes me very happy.

"They are antsy to get on with what they were trained to do at good J schools – gather news and information and package that into multimedia stories" – Absolutely. Yes. I agree with everything in the first two graphs of this blog post.

]]> By: Hey newsies, make way for the websies | WeMedia.com | D@J http://wemedia.com/2009/02/26/hey-newsies-make-way-for-the-websies/comment-page-1/#comment-5540 Hey newsies, make way for the websies | WeMedia.com | D@J Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:03:17 +0000 http://wemedia.com/?p=3585#comment-5540 [...] three recent j-school grads talk about life at a newspaper site. It aint pretty. Share and Enjoy: [...] [...] three recent j-school grads talk about life at a newspaper site. It aint pretty. Share and Enjoy: [...]

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