OJR columns Archives - Page 2 of 8

Center for Digital Storytelling brings out the personal

Center for Digital Storytelling helps people hold up a lens to their own lives This column originally appeared in the Online Journalism Review on Oct. 8, 2002. Technology, which has already helped spawn a class of amateur journalists through text-based weblogs and niche news sites, is about to blast into oblivion another largely artificial distinction: the gap between professional and amateur visualists. In the past few years, the cost of creating personal documentary works has fallen so dramatically that the tools are no longer available only to a specialized class. People from all walks of life are now picking up the tools and telling their own stories, with the help of training facilities like the Center for Digital Storytelling. On

Kansas’ CJOnline: Innovation in the heartland

Kansas’ CJOnline wins awards — and audience — with its multimedia pizzazz By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review The pilgrims come from the world over, making the journey from far-flung media empires to learn the True Way of Online Publishing, the precise combination of innovation, grit and pluck that the folks at CJOnline have concocted to make it the liveliest little news site in the land. Last March, for instance, a delegation from London’s Daily Mail — including owner-publisher Lord Rothermure — trooped out to the mecca of Topeka, Kansas, to glean the secret of the site’s success. Others have journeyed from Gannett, Lee Newspapers and umpteen universities. “It blows me away to see all these people who want to

Convergence at the OK Corral

Newspaper, broadcast station join forces online in NewsOK.com By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review Convergence has received something of a black eye lately. Black eye? That might be understating things a bit. We’re talking broken ribs, multiple lacerations and third-degree burns, thanks to the spectacular flameout of AOL Time Warner, the poster child of media convergence. But not all converged news operations are created equal. Case in point: NewsOK.com, a joint operation of the Daily Oklahoman and KWTV News9 in Oklahoma City. Both news organizations bring considerable assets to NewsOK, which will mark its first birthday August 19. The Oklahoman, the largest news operation in the state, has a daily circulation of 209,000 and newsroom staff of 160. News9, the

The reinvention of city guides

Now that they’ve grown up, what have city guides turned out to be? By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review What ever happened to city guides? After staking claims during the mad online land grab of the mid-1990s, a few hardy survivors are still around, though much evolved. Others have morphed into “local networks” or city portals. And still others have given up the ghost, fleeing the space that just a few years ago was being hyped as a bonanza of local advertising riches. But let’s forgo the usual business stories about content-driven sites hemorrhaging money during the online advertising slump. How are today’s city guides serving their editorial mission? The answer, in short, is: pretty well, given today’s lowered expectations.

Requiring registration at online news sites

Online newspapers are requiring users to register — but at what cost? By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review Afriend, Jon Maples, e-mailed the other day with a question. “Is it my imagination, or are newspaper sites suddenly requiring registration to read the news?” he writes, citing the Web sites of the Chicago Tribune and Dallas Morning News. “I have to say that the Dallas registration was so intrusive and required so many fields that I gave up.” What’s going on? Mandatory registration is making the rounds at major online news sites, as media companies try to peel away the Internet’s cloak of anonymity and build closer relationships with their customers. But it’s a tricky dance, and one that risks alienating

Telematics for news while you’re driving

Dashboard computing offers new distribution option for news, but don’t look for a revolution By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review Telematics just may be the most interesting new distribution vehicle for news that you’ve never heard of. That’s because news makes up only a small slice of the cool, if pricey, features you’ll find in the telematics systems now showing up in dozens of car models. First, let’s define the gangly little term. Telematics is a computerized system in a vehicle that connects you to services or content based on your location — current traffic conditions on the stretch of highway up ahead, for example, or a list of restaurants within a square mile. Dashboard computing now comes in 2.5

AOL Time Warner merger: Time to grow up, fast

Sprawling media empire can’t afford to sacrifice journalism on altar of corporate profits By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review When I gaze upon the lumbering beast known as AOL Time Warner, I’m reminded of the parable of the elephant and the blind men who, inspecting only one part of the animal, alternately suggested that the elephant must be very much like a tree, a snake, a rope, a wall, a spear, a fan. When it comes to AOL Time Warner, point of view is all. And so we interviewed an AOL TW corporate executive; AOL’s news director; a rank-and-file reporter at one of its publications; three students who follow the news on AOL; and a veteran media critic. Each has

Animated cartoons: Time for news sites to get animated

It’s time to add some movement to cartoons on content sites By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review Nearly a decade since the birth of Web publishing, you’ve got to wonder: Why don’t more content sites carry animated cartoons? Three factors loom large: Holding down expenses in this cost-cutting era. The fact that fewer than one in six home users have high-speed broadband connections. And many of these newfangled moving cartoons are (shudder!) controversial. To which I reply: Bosh! In many cases, the cost is a pittance. Tens of millions of us check in to news and content sites from offices with fat broadband pipes. As for controversy, its absence is what makes most news sites dull as doornails. More important,

Why the Wired West still matters

Personal media, contrarian journalism provide counterweights to Eastern media’s groupthink By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review Less than three years ago, a case could be made that the West — particularly the greater San Francisco Bay Area — had become ground zero of the new media revolution. New York and its cadre of elite corporate media were latecomers to the Net party and, in the eyes of the digerati, worse than clueless. Irrelevant. Meanwhile, way out West, Wired magazine and its dazzling digital sibling, HotWired, became the instant bible of the fevered plugged-in crowd — those who got it, who understood that the Internet would change everything. Salon magazine, and then Slate, fashioned ambitious sites that were vibrant, smart and

The rise of digital news networks

Belo, Canada.com, Tribune, Knight Ridder reap the fruits of convergence By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review Quietly, with barely a glimmer of attention, the largest newspaper chains on the continent have spent the past few months rolling out Web publishing systems that herald important changes for both online staffs and news consumers. The new systems tie each media company’s Web sites closer together, lowering production costs, smoothing the way for network advertising buys, and enabling editorial staffs to share content much more easily than before.