Summary
Wow. That was an amazing talk. I'm bummed that I wasn't able to attend in person and had to settle for the streaming video.
Rob is doing some amazing stuff with new media, and this is the first time I've heard someone talk about not just cool gadgets and gizmos and effects, but actually mobilizing communities and tapping into their passions. Fantastic. I'll have to link to all of these talks when they get archived.
Notes
Rob Curley, Lawrence Journal-World
appx 1 reporter per 1000 circ.
lots of database heavy backends...
game cancellations, information. text messaging for snow closings, basketball scores, tornado warnings.
put up rule sheets.
100s of photos a week. players of the week. (kids). created player cards for the little kids.
reverse published. game stories, photos, etc. in a print publication.
refill the racks every wednesday because of this print publication.
parents, kids, umpires; all blogging!
blogs were run as columns in the print edition.
"Game" now covers a bunch of sports. not just baseball.
Got the connection with the kids.
'Game' all staffed by two interns. Plus two people about 5 hours a week each doing proofreading, etc.
Sports webiste. to take on the 'official' site.
database of all scores. stats.
go to a player. beatwriter's notes on that reporter. stats. the bio looked very different.
- comparative scores.
reverse publish starting 5 stats into print for gameday.
basketball: stats -> last 3 games -> all games.
future-hawks: stats for high schoolers who had signed on.
call the mother of the player; get THEM to enter the stats.
Weather:
national weather service feed. But instead of just getting in the feed. pick 36 different landmarks. "wind blowing from 'blah'"
animated playbooks after each game.
fan said: you're giving away our playbook. (but they were reminding them fo the good plays)
live chats. cellphone alerts. 24,000 signing up for updates.
importance of mobile. sms.
bought an xbox. simulated a game. and pulled video from the XBOX game simulation.
every week, the stats of the players in the game were updated and accurate.
las vegas prediction vs. xbox prediction.
scanned in a bunch of old letters, old video footage.
regardless of the device, you should still go to the same place (newspaper) for information about KU sports.
naples, FL:
podcasting didn't really work in lawrence. how do we make the podcast sound 'real'?
copy desk put together the podcast.
only local news on the website. why bother trying to out-cnn cnn? in the print product, they're only getting a single product. but online, people browse a bunch of stuff.
so only focus on local news. forget the rest. (online).
the reporter that wrote the print story was interviewed for their story for the next day. as a podcast. became wildly popular.
"The internet is about people's passions" - if you have an uber basketball team in your backyard - you may want to cover that.
podcast was about 2 hours of total work if you added it all together.
high school game scores would come in via reporters calling in.
sms sent to people when scores changed, or at end of game, or whatever.
podcast had impersonations on it.
video podcast starting running on local cable. (really good quality)
some games shot with 5 cameras. most games shot with one camera.
videographer would interview the reporter at the end of it all.
suddenly a high school sports podcast turned into something that *everyone* was watching.
20:44
election coverage. the 'candidate selctor' - tool to help you pick the candidate!
per neighbourhood coverage : how did your neighborhood vote? (by voting precinct)
device independence. cellphones, ipods, psp.
naples wine festival. largest single day charity event. raised 13 mill in 2 hours. all to local charities.
'The story of record' - the longer story that didn't have to be on deadline, and made it into the archives.
- auction expensed by fancy dinners.
- dinners hosted by rich people.
- flash presentation about who hosted, who catered (which chef), which winemaker was flown in, what was being served for dinner, + video coverage.
reporters calling as things were being sold.
how to cover this event? start with how it's going to be covered in new media, and then work backwards - reverse publish to print.
looking for journalists that can do everything. audio/video/etc. fearless.
database of every home sale between 2003-2005. not enough zip codes though. Broke it into neighborhoods. Did each of the 100,000 home sales by HAND.
the database was built for the journalism but not for our readers.
readers want to know what the home next door sold for.
rebuilt the database so that it would updated weekly. serve the readers. not the journalists.
built by a single developer.
everyone contributed to this project. series that ran every 6 weeks.
Studio 55 - daily newscast.
all tv news from naples came from ft meyers.
but that wasn't enough coverage.
wanted to build a newscast that you could watch on the beach (while sunning yourself)
documentary is closer to what newspaper on video would look like.
training: one month of production before anyone saw it. don't fix your hair. just be a journalist. let the pretty boys be on tv. it was working. 1st segment ; trad tv.(it was going to run on tv)
2nd seg; longer interviews. 5-10 minutes with local conngressman. forget the weather. just say the his' and lows. and tides. a bad way of putting it., but almost like an infomercial for why the newspaper kicks butt.
washington post: on Being. videos every wednesday. blog.
has to be normal folks. 90 minute interview edited down to 2 minutes.
naples daily news; culture changed in one year. 5 people who would help us to start with. by the end of uit - 5 people who were holding out.
so what lead to the newsroom changing?
- first newspaper where the top editor really cared about online
- sports department bought in early, set an example, publisher rewarded them.
- lots of positive encouragement. treat them like rockstars. publisher would visit.
- debut of podcasts
- publisher ordered 50 ipods with custom engraved naples newsroom logo. 50 best online contributors got those. pretty cool.
- 20,000 bonuses.
- changed everyones title from writer to reporter. i would change it to journalist in hindsight.
- had to mention what new media stories would go with the story. photos? history? polls? you HAD to list that down.
- had to record all the interviews. just record. don't edit.
- read the reader comments.
- reporters would email the commenters. ask them for followups.
- reader comments turned into sources. happened every day.
- embrace the changing role of newspapers.
what does an online managing editor do?
- knew/coordinated when a story had to be posted early.
- live chats - it's harder to say 'no comment' to someone than to a reporter.
- know when a story needs additional content (poll, message forum)
- archives can help with current news. untapped asset.
- understand alternate delivery. tornado = send an SMS!
- need an awesome writer.
- just do it.
doh. couldn't make it there today so watched live stream. but i got cut off at the end :(
