Begin by making a list …

Get into the readers mind. Ask around, Brainstorm. Develop a list of things — cool things — the reader will want to know about and need. Use the five ‘P’s as a guide. Don’t be satisfied with the list that you come up with. Always try to improve upon it, and always ask others about what they want. The resources that are available to you that allow you interact with and get feedback from your communities grows day by day. You’ll be surprised how much half of the list will stay the same, and how much the other half will change from year to year.

Once the list is complete and refined, start breaking items off and get started. Don’t stop until you have the list completed — if you’re doing your job correctly, the list will conceivably never be complete. Don’t worry, we’re talking job security here.

Hire the right people for the job

It’s all about the mindset. This type of new thinking/doing is not about working harder, it’s about working different. And smarter. This will be presumably the biggest challenge to the process. In my experience, changing mindsets — even in college media is an challenge. You will have to give yourself, and the staff, this ultimatum:

“We are going to change the people.” [philosophically speaking] or …
“We are going to change the people.” [new bodies for a new philosophy]

For this process to be successful you need BUY IN from your reporters. The writing and reporting is the most crucial element to this formula. Like it was said before, we deal with intelligent readers/users. If the information is sophomoric, inadequate or incomplete everything we’ve done up until this point is useless.

Let reporters be reporters

With this explained, it needs to be understood that reporters need to be left alone to be reporters. It’s the Upper management — more specifically — the Online editor that will be expected to embrace this new philosophy and be the curator of the website.

Bottom line: we need bullet-proof content. The best way to achieve this is by instilling the best fundamentals and giving ongoing and advanced training to our reporters from the get go. Fair reporting, accurate reporting and most of all complete reporting (thinking ‘Hyper-Deep’) will become the mantra of our content generators.

Remember, it’s all about the mindset of the people we involve in this process. We need the buy-in from these reporters from the beginning. The most common complaints from professional online departments hiring new j-school graduates is the attitude these graduates have toward new media solutions. This is no longer a ‘print-only’ world — and hasn’t been for quite awhile. We need to prepare our students for what’s to come, and to do so means “we are going to change the people.”

Let designers, photographers, etc. … be reporters

Anyone who will be participating in the editorial content gathering AND display of the online component needs to also have the fundamental ability to report. Not necessarily write, but it is always a bonus which increases your value. The ability to research (once again thinking ‘Hyper-Deep’) is going to be paramount in your getting a job later. Whether it comes to online captions, graphics or even maps, the details and reader value need to be there. Even though the primary focus of these new online strategies is to “work different” instead of “work harder” everyone will still, need to be willing to participate past his or her station (mindset, mindset, mindset).

Let the Online Editor be the planner for the website

Just as your Managing Editor is the planner for the print edition, working with all of the desk editors and coordinating story ideas, and graphics, and photos, So too does the Online Editor. What we’re talking about here is not a lot of time consuming brain storming sessions, but essentially telling the Online Editor what you want and he or she working with you to decide the best way to present it on the web (this should take two to three minutes tops). Once the decision has been made, the Online Editor will then make the assignments to facilitate the request (talk to the reporter, a designer, photographer, web developer, etc.).

Keeping things simple and organized will be the key to our initial online success. Besides, it’s also easier getting the buy-in and changing the attitudes of everyone participating if we do it in logical, simple — and above all — less stressful ways.

Look for planned breaking news stories.

It may sound like an oxymoron, but planned breaking news is one of the best (and easiest) ways to create return reader traffic in addition to just looking like we’re on top of things. The beauty of this philosophy is that almost all of the reporting is done on the before the news “breaks.”

Confused? Let’s break it down a little bit. There are a number of court verdicts, election results, expected deaths (popes, past presidents, etc.), event coverage and bills signed into law, just to name a few, that papers deal with on a daily basis. These are the types of stories a paper can get all of the background on wrapped up well before the actual breaking news occurs. Then to get the story is ready for print all you have to do is drop in the “nut” and new additional information.

[one_half_last]

Beyond the story itself, Bailey has a quality that media companies should note. He was loved by the community so much that the people came to his aid when his future was in doubt.

Why did they? Because he helped the community be better. Bailey had a vision for the community — and differed from Mr. Potter, who was about making himself richer by cheating and stifling competition and the people. Bailey’s vision was to make Bedford Falls better for the people and those who had ambition and ideas.

Making the community better must be the focus of the 21st century media organization. They had the opportunity to do this in the 20th but seemed to go for the cash cow business instead. The organization may not make much money, but that’s because the real reward is the aid and assistance it gives to the businesses. It makes them better; it will find ways to give them a unique and recognizable  brand and necessary products.

Bailey’s Savings and Loan never made much money on its investments and likely lost money on some. The local media companies should consider the same. If tough times arrive, there should be no doubt that the local businesses will rally to save the company because so many of the local businesses are a success from the services they received from the company.

When Michael Jackson died, it was the Hollywood gossip website TMZ. And the National Enquirer first reported John Edwards’ affair.

So should news organizations, in the permanent age of blogging and citizen journalism, cite these websites when news happens that they can’t confirm information?

Several professional journalists — including many at the “Reporting in a TMZ.com World” session at the 2009 National College Media Convention in Austin, Texas – would likely stand by the idea that these gossip websites because they don’t have strong fact checking and don’t have the strong journalism ethics that traditional news organizations hold to.

However, I believe news organizations should use these sites as a source of information, but not as an authoritative source.

These sites are a part of the community that relates to whatever niche a news site covers.

In today’s Internet culture, I would think people still believe traditional and ethically grounded news organizations are the more reliable, but obviously not perfect. News is more about gossip these days, and gossip is people. News is also people.

In the case of Michael Jackson, TMZ got it right, and it knew it was. Sure they didn’t follow the ethics of the Associated Press or the Los Angeles Times, but they reported it first. If you want to cite these places, contact and confirm they are certain of their information. Be confident in your belief they’re correct. You’re credibility is partially on the table for trusting them.

Link to these sites when news breaks but don’t repeat it if it is just a brief of information. Also saves some possible credibility. In the Jackson case, the L.A. Times should have linked to the TMZ information, but also told us more if they knew it – why repeat what TMZ already reported? Find something more. There are probably lots of biographies online about him so link to them – most notably Wikipedia.

When news breaks that relates to a sites niche, link out to the best content already out there – yes, even, TMZ if it’s the best. Then create unique, valuable content that cannot be reproduced by anyone else.

If you must cite a questionable source, leave an editor’s note or link to an editor’s note (that goes to the editor’s blog) briefly explaining what the linking means. Transparency is a key to everything a news organization does. But also state you are working to confirm information or for a more trustworthy news organization to confirm it.

For college media, there is surely a blogosphere in the community, so encourage the people to blog and/or go find those already out there. If there is gossip going on at an administrative level, report it. These people are paid through students’ tuition, so why hide what they are talking about. If no one wants to make a statement on the gossip – confirming or denying it – make sure that’s the key to the story. Yes, you are helping spreading this gossip, but it also shows you are willing to take what someone else reported and take it to a new level. There was attempt to end the talk as gossip and make it factual or false. You are adding to community journalism and adding real valuable.

Blogs and other places of major internet interaction – notably Facebook and Twitter – add to journalism, not demean it.

Some others involved in the Twitter discussion were Scott Casey, Duarte Da Silva, Nancy Baym, communications professor at University of Kansas, Jay Rosen, journalism professor at New York University, Doug Saunders, European bureau chief at the Globe and Mail, and Mark Hamilton, journalism instructor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

Owens made a good point that the “first rule of ethics is transparency,” and therefore, every news organization must be upfront with how it goes about its information gathering. However, as Ingram questions, should a news organization ever pay for a person’s story?

NOTE: The chronological order of some tweets have been changed and/or grouped to help the flow of the conversation. Some tweets have been removed to make the conversations more focused.

Mathew Ingram: I kind of admired the guy who jumped over a row of seats to tackle the airplane bomber, but not after this: http://bit.ly/5DN33W

Scott Casey: @mathewi if it was you who had the only pics and the interview everyone wanted tell me you wouldn’t be savvy enough to ask for massive $$$
Ingram: I don’t think it’s savvy, @scottjmcasey, I think it’s reprehensible — both the asking and the paying. Either talk or don’t

Nancy Baym: @mathewi Why is it obviously more moral to let TV networks get all the profits from your story than to take some for yourself?
Ingram: because to do so, @nancybaym, means that you are selling something, and therefore you are inherently untrustworthy as a source

Duarte Da Silva: @mathewi Media ask for users to provide free content to them in the name of citizen journalism yet advertisers still pay them
Ingram: no one has to provide anything in the form of citizen journalism if they don’t want to, @modernmod

Howard Owens: @mathewi I see no reason the guy shouldn’t get paid if he wants to get paid and can find people to pay him. Fault is with those who pay.
Ingram: .@howardowens: well, I’m assuming that if no one asked to be paid, then networks wouldn’t pay them :-)

Owens: @mathewi Can’t blame a guy for trying. That’s capitalism. If networks didn’t pay (or others), nobody would ask.
Owens: @mathewi Is a reporter inherently untrustworthy because he gets paid? I could make the case.
Ingram: but it’s a slippery slope, is it not @howardowens and @nancybaym? would we be okay with every interviewer charging for the privilege?
Owens: @mathewi @nancybaym not every source will want 2b paid. The economic value slips to zero for some information, or there is other recompense.
Owens: @mathewi Some times the ego stroke of being a source is a greater bias than cash could ever be.
Ingram: but reporters are performing a specific job for which they were hired, @howardowens - an interviewee just happened to be somewhere important
Owens: @mathewi Reporters are working to please a boss in order to get a paycheck.
Ingram: so should we have an open outcry system a la eBay for buying interview subjects, @howardowens? would that produce better journalism?
Owens: @mathewi This isn’t about better journalism. It’s about the economic self-determination RIGHT of a guy to sell story. If he can. That’s all.
Ingram: then why not charge the other passengers money for helping them avoid being blown up, @howardowens? couldn’t blame him for that either?
Owens: @mathewi Come, that’s arguing from the extreme. It’s not reality.
Ingram: I think the whole thing is reprehensible, @howardowens – both the buying and the selling. It cheapens both the journalism and the person

Baym: @mathewi @howardowens But this guy didn’t just happen to be somewhere important. He DID something important that made his story worth more.
Owens: @mathewi @nancybaym From an economic stand point, it’s a one-in-life opp for the guy. Can’t blame him for trying.
Ingram: in this case I can actually see a payment for licensing a photo, @nancybaym - but Gawker seems to feel that is a fiction

Ingram: that’s exactly where this kind of thing leads — RT @charlesarthur: on this paying-for-interview thing, see kiss-and-tells in UK tabloids
Owens: @mathewi @charlesarthur I think it’s apples and apricots comparing UK tabs to CNN paying for pictures and, oh, btw, I’ll talk, too.
Owens: @mathewi @charlesarthur I know, Matthew, you call it slippery slope, but that’s also term 4 a logical fallacy, and I think it applies here.
Owens: @mathewi FWIW: I view journalism 1st as business, and business is about capitalism. Win in the marketplace; enjoy fruits of your labor.

Owens: @mathewi That’s not that there are not ethical considerations, but the first rule of ethics is transparency. There’s nothing hidden here.
Ingram: to paraphrase Groucho Marx, once you pay for an interview then what you are has been firmly established and all that’s left is the price

Ingram: does that make it okay? RT @DougSaunders: It should be noted that nobody gets interviewed in-studio on TV without getting paid for it
Owens: For the record, my argument isn’t with the seller. I see a problem with paying for interview, but not 4 selling authenticated pictures.
Ingram: @howardowens: I could make an argument for the licensing of photos, video etc. — but not for an interview
Owens: @mathewi So we’re not really very far apart.

Owens: @mathewi I’d have more heartburn over news org. paying for talk if not disclosed. Disclose and let the audience decide is mild problem.

Baym: @mathewi So what’s your take on the fact that the news companies PAID?
Ingram: @nancybaym: I think the paying part is arguably worse than the asking

Jay Rosen: @mathewi I’ve been interviewed in studio on Scarborough, the Today show, CNN’s Reliable Sources and Aaron Brown, without being paid a cent.
Ingram: @jayrosen_nyu: I’ve been interviewed many times as well without pay — so are you and I just suckers or what?
Owens: @jayrosen_nyu @mathewi Ah, but won’t those appearances help you sell more books or potentially lead to other economic benefit (maybe)?
Owens: @mathewi @jayrosen_nyu I think you have been paid. Interviews enhanced your professional reputation. Why you have 11,000 followers, etc.
Rosen: @howardowens @mathewi In my case no, they led to nothing. Also, I sucked on all those shows, except Aaron Brown. Soundbitten, superficial.

Doug Saunders: @mathewi I believe in pay for work. If your work is short in supply or long in demand, the pay should be higher. Being interviewed is work!
Saunders: @mathewi Or to put it differently: I don’t believe elite employees of media corps are only ones who should be paid for journalistic work.
Saunders: @mathewi …and gaining first-hand access to a terrorist, with pics and verbal descriptions, is what I’d call journalistic work.
Ingram: @DougSaunders: don’t think journalists should be paid for interviews either

Mark Hamilton: @mathewi if I have something of value, why does the fact that it’s “newsworthy” mean I’m expected to give it away?
Ingram: @gmarkham: so then every interviewee should be paid?
Hamilton: @mathewi nope. but it raises the question of whether the value lies with the interviewee or with what the journo does with the data.
Ingram: @gmarkham: also raises the question of whether the only proper measure of value is monetary. what kind of behaviour does that encourage?

Owens: @gmarkham @mathewi I’ll rephrase something I said earlier: money isn’t the only thing that corrupts motives.

Worth noting: Owens noted Abraham Zapruder’s famous film of the Kennedy assassination. Zapruder sold the film and print rights to Life for $50,000 and then the TV and motion picture rights for $150,000. Ingram stated he disagreed with that decision of Time Inc., owner of Life magazine.

In this second of three posts, I’ve broken Rob Curley’s presentation down a bit further and added a few thoughts of my own. It will be focusing on how a news organization not only needs to change to build and maintain its brand but, more importantly, to build a more personal relationship with its community. In my last post on this topic we learned what people do online. Now let’s explore how to use that information to success.

HOW DO WE BECOME THE FUTURE?

News sites must OWN breaking news

If you don’t have the story — in today’s digital savvy world — you risk losing the reader forever. People want to know things when they want to know things. We are in the business of being in the know and building brand loyalties. To do so, here at Iowa State, we need to be the end all for the ISU and Ames communities. If it happens here, we need to be the place to go to find out about it. No exceptions. The Iowa State Daily brand is our livelihood, our greatest asset, or niche. It’s what places us above the tweeters, bloggers and local self-published news sites. If we don’t protect it and embrace it, how can we expect others to look to it with pride and respect?

Understanding ‘Hyperlocal’ and your publication’s reason for being

All the news we give precedence to needs to always be related to our publication’s niche. ‘Hyperlocal’ is the new buzzword for successful online news organizations and the Iowa State Daily, by definition, is about as local a news organization can get. So, once again, we need to be the end all for the ISU and Ames community. It’s truly what we’re here for, and we need to be the best at it.

This doesn’t mean excluding national and world news from our content. What it means is taking a fresh look and working harder to find the campus and local ties to these stories. Presenting our readers with a personal or emotional experience to a local angle that ties into a national or world event goes a long way in maintaining that relationship with your community.

With ‘Hyperlocal’ comes the philosophy of going ‘Hyperdeep’

This philosophy embraces the concepts of database driven content, multimedia overkill, evergreen content and platform-independent delivery such as mobile apps, eReaders, and tablet devices. The more detailed the coverage of a community that is offered, and the more delivery options that are available to its readers, the better chance a news organization has to create community loyalty. Loyalty not only to its digital presence, but also — and just as importantly — its print edition. The future is about creating a multi-faceted brand. One that has numerous entry points into the community and is used to engage readers and advertisers alike.

A news organization is a sum of its parts — all as important as the next. By using every resource available to it in its coverage and advertising, the organization ensures that brands are protected and enhanced, and all of the revenue generating potential a respected publication brings with it are maximized.

Build websites and model your work flow after the way the internet really works –
Not the way an old-school publisher or a dinosaur editor wishes, or thinks, it should work

To reach the audiences we want to capture, and sell to, and create loyalty with, we need to think as they do. Anticipate what they want, not what is easy to give to them or what we feel they need to know. Our readership is among the most intelligent minds the public has to offer — they know when they’re being talked down or pandered to. As technology evolves we are dealing with a very fickle community.

With that said, everything we do has to have value to the reader/community — no exceptions — or they will go and find what they’re looking for elsewhere. There are thousands of businesses, and news organizations online that compete for the same readers we target. If we don’t give added value to things they feel passionate about, or show them the value in practical solutions to everyday situations, or respect the value in a little playful escape, we have not done our jobs in generating and maintaining our relationship with the community which equates to readership.

Involve the community

Getting your audience involved in your process is a major concept I think journalism, as a whole, struggles with today. For years we have lived and worked in an industry as broadcasters. Not television or radio specifically, but in a more metaphorical sense. As news gatherers we collect the news, choose which stories to tell, create those stories and then distribute them. News organizations were the filters and funnels and infrastructure that channeled information information to the masses.

Time are changing — they have changed.

Inclusion of the community is one of the ‘new’ fundamentals of our craft. To grow, we need to understand and embrace it’s an expectation of any digital-savvy reader to be included in this process. The best way to maintain a healthy and vibrant relationship with our community is to listen. Listen and learn.

UP NEXT: part three — Giving readers what they want

I was recently going through some of my old files and reorganizing past notes to see if I could find anything worth posting here on Media In Touch to pass along to students. I eventually ended up stumbling across a sheaf of scribbles from the first time I had the opportunity to attend a Rob Curley lecture. For those of you who are not familiar with Mr. Curley, let me bring you up to speed.

Curley is the current President and Executive Editor of Greenspun Interactive, the new-media division of the Las Vegas Sun and Greenspun Media Group. His career has taken him from Kansas to Florida to D.C. and now Sin City. It’s been a very impressive journey for arguably a very impressive visionary. Curley has a resume a mile long and has used every opportunity to help break new ground in journalism and its current evolution along the way. He has been one of the strongest proponents of the hyperlocal philosophy I’ve had the fortune of meeting, and will extol, at length, the necessity of always being a reporter first in any media endeavor.

His passion is infectious, and his message is timeless. My notes are more than four years old, but are impressively relevant to the practice of journalism today. Yes, there have been a few tweaks and, more accurately, additions along the way (his Four ‘P’s list has since been bumped up to five), but I think that goes to show the level of commitment Curley has to the reimagining of the Fourth Estate.

So here you go. The first part of a three-part series on Rob Curley’s thoughts and ideas on where Journalism is and what it needs to accomplish to continue to move forward to a successful future.

Enjoy.

WHAT DO PEOPLE REALLY DO ONLINE? (Explaining the Five ‘P’s)

Passions
Personal interests, desires, wants, and needs — ultimately this is why people come to the internet. If you truly want to know about an individual or their personality, the quickest way to find this information is to look at his or her bookmarks and browser history.

Practical
The internet is an almost endless and immediate resource in fulfilling Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The internet gives you direct access to many of the basic things you need and want to live your life — food, banking, shopping, correspondence, etc.

Playful
It’s a great place to go to kill time. We’ve all been there I’m sure — ‘I’m just going to quick check out this video about some British kid biting his brother’s finger …’ and three hours later you find yourself watching videos about masochistic Japanese games shows. Let’s face it, there are thousands, if not millions, of websites like this on the internet that offer mindless entertainment for only the sake of entertainment purposes. And we demand to be entertained.

Personal Communication
This is the newest addition to Rob’s ‘P-List’ and rightfully so. When I first heard Rob speak, social media was still in its infancy — Facebook was still taking its first steps and Twitter wasn’t even a twinkle in its creators’ eyes. The realization of the opportunities these new platforms offered weren’t all that apparent to the journalism community. Blogs were talked about, but not in very flattering terms. The idea that untrained community journalists could just buy a domain, install a blogging CMS and start ‘reporting’ was considered a blasphemous aberration of the Fourth Estate.

Thankfully more and more news organizations are realizing the power of social media in reporting. And when used correctly, these new tools can substantially enhance almost every aspect of our operations. From gathering information and sources, to interacting with our readers on a more personal level, social media offers a more peer-to-peer approach to what we do on a daily basis. An approach that — if we as an industry include our audience in the process, and yes even delivery — will help cultivate reader loyalty.

Pornography
I think this particular ‘P’ speaks for itself. There are countless theories on advancement of technology through porn, but for the purposes of this series, we will only be dealing with the first 4 ‘P’s. Sorry.

UP NEXT: part two — How do we become the future?

On Jan. 20, a friend sent me an email titled “this will make you think..” The body was the URL to Jay Rosen’s “Audience Atomization Overcome.” It was interesting, but I didn’t understand all of what Rosen was stating. The day after that email, I signed up for Twitter — coincidence the two happened within hours of each other. I taught myself how to use it in my reporting and showed that I am a college student, too.

By the end of the semester, I wanted to go into web development and social media. The end of traditional print, I felt, was approaching and the internet had so many more possibilities. I planned on taking entertainment coverage online in the fall and was going to be a summer intern at the Fresno Bee in California.

Before leaving Iowa, I was still unsure exactly how much I knew about social media and web development, so I searched for some readings. Up popped Clay Shirky’s masterpiece “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable.” His words about the future of publishing were life altering — seriously.

That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place….

And so it is today. When someone demands to be told how we can replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.

There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.

I did some reading every now-and-then for a while, but soon discovered the words of Jeff Jarvis and more from Jay Rosen. I now understood atomization. The rest of the summer was consuming the latest news and trends. Every morning began with what the new journalism ideas were and regular checks to a handful of blogs.

My journalism theories and ideas changed everyday. Some early things I learned:

• power of the link
• create networks
• be open-source
• be transparent
• recognize bloggers
• people are smart
• its not an audience anymore
• be accurate
• link more
• AP style is faulted

Journalism was on a bubble. The Internet created an upheaval. Two manifestos set me straight on the “laws” and rules of the internet while another manifesto made the case on where the internet needs to go.

It’s been about a year since I read Jeff Jarvis’ “What Would Google Do?” It was the book that once I read it, I was done with my print journalism mentality. No turning back after that. Since then, I’ve read “Here Comes Everybody,” “Journalism Next,” “Blink,” “The Long Tail,” “Free,” and “The Digital Journalist’s Handbook.”

During the fall semester, I consumed just as much information and ideas. More ideas I learned

• admit omissions
• new ethics (more)
• objectivity has failed
• journalism’s being rebooted
• consumer is king
• lack of curating, not too much information
• beat system is flawed
• and more

And I’ve debated if it’s all about storytelling anymore. We must assist building communities. I was especially challenged when the conversation switched to how to prioritize mobile as web first is outdated.

So for a little on my journalism ideas:

• I believe in the freemium model. News/basic content must be free. However, a specialized database for a select group is the best way to make money.
• Linking is the currency of the web. It is a “web,” after all.
• News organization must be more than content farms. They must curate content and let the best community-produced content rise to the top.
• Traditional print will not survive, and I say news organization, not newspaper.
• Niches are the future. Dozens, hundreds, thousands. The mass market is dead.
• We are living in/entering a golden age of news and entertainment culture.
• Mistakes are natural, so news orgs need to correct errors and openly admit mistakes.
• Bias is a natural human state. Journalists are humans, so we shouldn’t think we can be objective.
• I live publicly. Once something enters the cloud, the cloud only gets better, it will never rain and lose information.
• Transparency = Trust
• Advertisers are the new customers, readers are now the community.

I am also looking foward to the next age of the media. The world use to be in molecules, but now its thousands/millions of atoms. So I’m eagerly awaiting the web 4.0. I think it will be a return – though altered — to a molecular age.

I was sent an interesting link to this video last week that outlines some innovative approaches London-based design firm, BERG and Popular Science magazine are experimenting with and have instituted in the last few months in relation to the possibilities the tablet computer and, more specifically, the iPad can offer in the form of an alternative delivery method for the publication.

The initial price point seemed a bit steep at $4.99 an issue, but The Bonnier Corporation, Popular Science’s parent company, announced on June 2 that 12-month and 6-month subscriptions will be available for $29.99 and $19.99 respectively. In the June 2 announcement, The Swedish media company also stated it will begin to distribute multiple brands over the course of the summer via the Mag+ platform.

If you have an iPad and would like to try the Popular Science+ app for yourself, you can download it here. According to the App Store’s user reviews, reception is very positive and the only consistent complaint had been the single issue price — which has since been addressed by the company.

I’ve spent my whole life — vacations aside — in Iowa, but after almost 15 years in Story County, five of which have been spent at Iowa State and the last two, summers included, in the Daily’s newsroom, I’m finally getting out of dodge and stepping into the exciting new world of a professional newsroom.

But even that took some prodding.

After an interview with my would-be supervisor at the Dubuque Telegraph Herald, Monty Gilles, the executive editor, Brian Cooper, and a friendly lady from the company’s HR department, I still wasn’t convinced moving on and leaving behind my friends and the excellent staff at the Daily was the right move. Particularly now, when we’re so poised to move to the online-first mentality we’ve been talking about for so long. Thankfully, a few of my fellow coworkers and Mark Witherspoon, our editorial advisor, were there to offer a gentle push.

So I’m on my way out.

This week, I’ll continue to work with the Daily’s new EiC, Anthony Capps, who holds the position for the summer term. We’ll wrap up any final transition work that’s left undone, and I’ll help him get his staff trained in the newsroom’s new online content management system, TownNews.com’s Blox, a project I’ve been working on with others at the Daily for months. I’ve yet to find a place to live in Dubuque, so that’s high on my to-do list, as well.

The goal is to start my orientation with Monty on May 24 so, hopefully, there’ll be more to report, soon.

Until then, I hope everyone else’s summer breaks get off to a great start, and I look forward to hearing from the Daily’s graduates and their first experiences in the big new world they’re headed into — bills, real paychecks and newsrooms across the country, for most of them, anyway.

The beginning of what I’d like to think is a fundamental change in the way the world of journalism thinks and acts. Starting with the world of college media.

Why college media? College media offers an expansive network in which journalism will have the best chance to make some major evolutionary leaps when it comes to reimagining the profession we live and work. The significant difference between the professional world of news media versus its collegiate counterpart is the fact that almost no college news organization is in direct competition with each other. By removing the competitive component from the equation, and replacing it with collaboration — something college media has a great potential for if given the right set circumstances and opportunities — will help change the face of what some consider a dying industry.

And let me clarify right now — I don’t think journalism is dying. If anything, it’s on the precipice of a golden age. Yes, it may seem sick, and at the moment is in need of regular care and attention, but by no means is the condition terminal. So make no mistake — the Fourth Estate will survive, and surviving in the ‘new media’ landscape is going to be accomplished through this collaboration not collusion.

Why the quotes on new media? Well, I actually hate labeling what we do. As our industry moves forward, trying to compartmentalize and package the different ways it has to deliver its news and information is, by far, one of the biggest mistakes the Fouth Estate is making. We — as an industry — need to transcend labels and get back to basics if we are ready to move forward. The concepts of print journalism and broadcast journalism and online journalism are blending together at an alarming rate — they are no longer hard disciplines, but more dialects that we all need to be fluent in.

I hope given time, and the right amount of passion, motivation and tenacity, Media In Touch will be able to be one of the many catalysts that will trigger this form of thinking — which ironically, is an old form of thinking.

In its base most purest form — It’s just media — and there’s nothing new about it. We, as the self-deputized agents of the Fourth Estate, exist to chronicle and capture the moments that we call history or life or community anyway we can. I could probably spend a few hundred words trying to capture and put into prose the philosophy that was so eloquently articulated 79 years ago by William Allen White, a visionary the journalism industry had the fortune of calling its own.

“Of course as long as man lives someone will have to fill the herald’s place. Someone will have to do the bellringer’s work. Someone will have to tell the story of the day’s news and the year’s happenings. A reporter is perennial under many names and will persist with humanity. But whether the reporter’s story will be printed in types upon a press, I don’t know. I seriously doubt it. I think most of the machinery now employed in printing the day’s, the week’s, or the month’s doings will be junked by the end of this century and will be as archaic as the bellringer’s bell, or the herald’s trumpet. New methods of communication I think will supersede the old.”

– William Allen White, Publisher Emporia Gazzette

Visionaries are needed now, more than ever, if news media is going to flourish and take its first steps into the future. The time has come to start rethinking and — more importantly — unthinking some of the philosophies and attitudes that seem to be holding our profession back. Embracing change will lead to a brighter future. As it states in the header you see at the top of this website — education, technology and community are the main tenants Media In Touch will strive to promote and embody.

If we are going to lead — we need to educate — not only others, but ourselves and be open to change if we are going to affect change. My hope is that Media In Touch will begin to serve as a self-learning opportunity for myself and its readers. And everything learned will be shared. Over time, Media In Touch will create and host an educational archive made up of a variety of topics populated through the collaboration of college media and others.

Where does one begin when it comes to deciding what technology is going to be important in how journalism is practiced? I’m not sure if anyone knows, but understanding that technology is neither good or evil, and only a tool to help us become better at what we do, will help us cultivate and maintain our credibility and respect. Media In Touch isn’t a medium and doesn’t have a crystal ball, but it will strive to stay abreast of the trends and inform its readers of the options available to them.

Realizing what community actually means today is the final part of the Media In Touch formula. None of what I want to accomplish with Media In Touch will happen without a strong community. A community of readers and a community of contributors. Both sharing and interacting with each other — encouraging change, offering support — working together to forge a prosperous future for the Fourth Estate.

I’ll agree the goals are lofty, but the mission is simple — we will work together and be better because of it.