Last Post! -- Reputation Management on the Web and other OJ issues

So it is that with a tear in my eye, I deliver the last blog entry:

Reputation Management on the Web

Is this an issue or a non-issue?

Clearly reputation management on the Web is an issue for those whose reputations have been sullied by online materials. But, as Jack Shafer writes in his two-part Slate.com article (1, 2), there are a multitude of ways people can improve their online images, and lamenting to the offending publication is not one of them.

As editor Clark Hoyt discusses in his New York Times editorial, gripes about ruined reputations are a daily problem for online publications. But how, he muses, are online editors to deal with this issue? Does the news organization have an ethical obligation to "re-write history," as Clark says -- to change existing articles when new information has been discovered, or to drive more complete follow-ups to the top of the Google search rankings?

I tend to agree with Shafer, who says "certainly not."

I do think that the New York Times would do well to at least put an editor's amendment at the top of a story whose alleged facts have changed significantly over time (perhaps linking to the most recent developments), but to change the actual article would be an ethical dilemma in and of itself. As Hoyt says, extensive amendments would also take up huge amounts of time and resources that the Times doesn't have. Thus, apart from the aforementioned editor's note idea, it is up to the person in question to implement their own damage control.

Damage control -- or, positive PR -- is a very realistic and practical option for those who think their reputations have been unfairly degraded. As Shafer recommended, the individual who cries reputation foul would be better off spending his time remedying the situation himself -- by registering a domain name and promoting it to prominence on the Google search algorithm, and by generating positive press on the internet.

This proposed solution follows in the American trends of "adversarial systems" and individualism in general. In terms of reputation, the battle becomes "me vs. them" (the offending papers), and whichever side puts more resources into the battle should come out on top. That means if the tarnished party works harder on their own site, it could become #1 on the Google rankings and displace the story in question. Rather than whine to the newspaper, it's in the person's best interest to simply take some initiative and win the reputation battle himself.

What are other pressing ethical issues in online journalism?

As OJR says, The ethics of online journalism are, ultimately, no different than the ethics of journalism." There are, however, a few additional points to be made, as outlined extensively by Poynter's editable Online Ethics wiki.

The following are some online-specific ethical concerns from the aforementioned wiki:

• "Limited resources, the novelty of online publishing or a lack of protocols cannot become an excuse for shoddy work or causing harm."


• Writers should disclose ownership of personal blogs.


• Acknowledge the risks of unedited journalism.


• Differentiate news from advertisement content.


• Speed should not compromise accuracy or truth.

With those issues in mind, the online journalist can work toward becoming a more righteous documentarian.

Farewell, perhaps you'll see me again one day, in a different time and place.

I'ts been real.

Signing off.

Telling stories in multimedia

With journalism becoming ever more computer-oriented, it is no surprise that journalists are getting better and better at telling stories through mixed multimedia. This week's blog will analyze a few online multimedia journalism examples; although I don't have Ms. McAdams' set of standards to go by, I consider myself (as a journalism student, writer, copy editor and designer) a competent enough critic in the way of multimedia storytelling.

Journey to the Border -- The Washington Post
This interactive Flash slideshow with accompanying narrative was a pretty effective storytelling module. In an attractively-designed presentation, it offered four narrated slideshows to choose from -- each a different stage in an immigrant's journey from Guatemala to the United States. During each slideshow, the user could control the volume of the narration and view the slideshow's progress on a bar at the bottom of the page; however, the user is unable to use the bar to control the progress. While effective, the Washington Post presentation doesn't offer quite enough user control to be at the top echelon of multimedia journalism, although it is very well-done nonetheless. It does offer the ability to scroll through the pictures individually, but a glitch or design flaw renders them very dark -- too dark to be effective.


Nuclear Collision Course -- The New York Times
This New York Times presentation about the nuclear struggle between the United States and North Korea is, again, a flash module that consists of a picture slideshow that is narrated throughout. Unlike the Post's presentation, this one offers little user input, and does not feature multiple navigation choices from the start; it's a one-path journey. That said, the journalism that comprises the project is very good. There are excellent pictures and a thoughtful narrative by a Times op-ed writer. The design is very well-done and features captions for each photo and a progress bar at the bottom of the screen. This time, the bar is usable and the user can navigate through the presentation to his or her liking -- a big plus. The slideshow also contains some short video clips, which help to break up the all-photo barrage. At the end of the presentation, there is a screen that offers relevant links should the viewer choose to follow the subject further. Although this project isn't overly interactive, it is straightforward and interesting storytelling, which is at least part of the puzzle.

The Chicago Crime Database at Chicagocrime.org
This site, created by online journalist Adrian Holovaty, is not much like the two previous sites in terms of presentation. Instead of a straightforward, narrative presentation, Chicagocrime.org is a totally-interactive database of crimes that have taken place in the Chicago area since 2005. Despite the lack of photos, videos, or narrative, the site is extremely effective journalism. Holovaty tells stories through a navigable map of Chicago that shows all of the crimes that have taken place, fully sortable by place, type, severity, etc. Apart from being an interactive journalistic tool, Chicagocrime.org is also a very effective public service tool; Chicago citizens can use this journalism to keep current on crimes that have happened in the city and to make an effort to avoid dangerous parts of town. The site also features some traditional journalism in the form of police reporting. For every crime that has a police log entry, Holovaty has included the entry to accompany the corresponding dot on the map. In this sense, the user can read some traditional journalism to form a sense of "story" and setting behind each entry. While the site contains fewer sources of multimedia, it is extremely interactive and useful -- perhaps the best of all three sites critiqued.

Swap image, audio, jump menu

I'm going to make this blog entry short and sweet (hopefully) to make up for the hours and hours I spent trying to accomplish the aforementioned tasks.

I incorporated the swap image, embedded audio, and jump menu on my home page that can be accessed via the sidebar to the right. However, rather than do these functions in Dreamweaver, I hard-coded them by hand, which made it a little more difficult to get working properly.

Swap Image
The swap image I used on my page (the main picture) was accomplished a little differently than it would have been in Dreamweaver, but it works exactly the same way. When you choose swap image in Dreamweaver, the program incorporates a Javascript into your HTML code that does the trick. Instead of using Java, I accomplished the swap image with CSS. The main picture on my site is not an <img> tag in HTML, but a background image on a CSS div.

This is accomplished with the following code:

HTML: <div class="picture"></div>

CSS: .picture{ background: url(picture1.jpg) no-repeat;
width: x
height:y }

.picture:hover{ background: url(picture2.jpg) no-repeat;}

...so that the HTML refers to a class in CSS (.picture), which gets changed when the cursor touches it (.picture:hover). Thus, when a user hovers the cursor over the picture, the background property of that div changes -- to create a swap image effect.

Audio Clip
Embedding an audio file took just as long to figure out, but the solution seems much clearer. I'm still not sure that this is the best way to embed an audio file, but it looks clean enough, and -- most importantly -- gives the user a choice about whether or not to play the clip.

I embedded the sound clip with the following code:

HTML: <embed type="audio/wav" src="sound.wav" name="plugin" height="15" width="160">

...this way the sound clip is visible, sized to my specifications (15x30), and user-controlled.

Jump Menu
The jump menu was perhaps the easiest element to incorporate, because there was a relatively simple tutorial on EntheosWeb. I simply copied their Javascript into the head portion of my HTML code, and their HTML code into the body portion of the HTML. After I had incorporated the code, I just went in to change the links and titles to fit my page.



Phew... that was long, as usual, but now I'll know how to do all of those things next time I want to incorporate them in a site.

The Quest for Interactivity: Adobe Flash

Adobe (formerly Adobe Macromedia) Flash is a content-rich design program that allows designers to create interactive environments that include text, audio, video, contingent animations, and internet hyperlinks. At present, it seems that Flash can offer journalists some of the best opportunities to incorporate all the facets of modern media interactivity, and even push some boundaries.

Since I couldn't find a link to answer question 1 in the book (I think Adobe changed its site around), I'll go straight to #2: Does interacting with information lead to a greater understanding?

Certainly. As they say, practice makes perfect, and theory without application is meaningless and abstract. Using information -- as opposed to simply reading it -- always helps lead to greater understanding. This is true, as always, in terms of the Flash games described at the end of the chapter. By incorporating Flash games into news Web sites, journalists can give the users the interactivity they crave while making it fun for them to "take their medicine" -- or comprehend the day's news. The smart incorporations of such games could be pivotal for news Web sites in years to come, as users continue to demand the pinnacle of interactivity.

Next question: How might you have used video, audio, rich content or advanced interactivity in a project you previously completed with just text, and how might these features advance the story in ways text cannot?

Last year I wrote an in-depth story about U.S. ethanol production for my J201 class with Prof's. Wyss and MacDonald. The story explored many different facets of ethanol production (economic, social, environmental, political, etc) but was limited to traditional text format.

Had I been able to use all of the aforementioned media tools, my story could have become a much more complete picture of the ethanol situation in the U.S. today. I could have included audio clips of the interviews I conducted with leading ethanol scholars and high-ranking U.S. Dept. of Agriculture personnel. Perhaps I could have incorporated a video about how ethanol is produced. With Flash, I could have included interactive, liquid graphs about issue's economic implications, much like the New York Times' 2004 election campaign page. Certainly the issue is much greater than its summation in text, and readers could have benefited from the opportunities that additional media tools would have provided.

Trial, Failure, and an RSS Feed

After a class period of trying to create an RSS feed, I was no closer than when I started. The instructions I found online were confusing, the methods unclear, and the coding impossible.

However, from the comfort of my own couch, the lightbulb finally came on. Now, after reevaluating the situation, I think I have something resembling the coveted RSS Feed.

The process was confusing to understand at first, beginning with the assignment itself: "create an RSS feed." At first, I took this to mean we were supposed to "host" an RSS feed on one of our web pages. I scoured the web for ways to show other sites' RSS feeds on my own, but I couldn't fathom how. Every example entailed downloading an RSS reader, which didn't seem like something Kodi would have expected us to do. Distraught and astray, I went back to the drawing board.

Perhaps Kodi wanted us to publish and syndicate our own RSS feed with our own headlines. This seemed like a more difficult task, but we were eager for a new direction to try (it was, in fact, the correct assignment.) We searched the web for instructions about how to create our own RSS feeds, and found copious amounts of what looked like HTML code. We tried to copy some examples and save them to HTML files in Dreamweaver, but that didn't seem to yield the correct results. Class was over, and my brain was fried.

Now, from the couch, it's clear that we were almost there.

Copying some example code should have worked, had we understood what format the code was in. Although it looked like simple HTML tags, the markup was actually XML and -- the kicker -- had to be saved in .xml format! Once you've saved your RSS file as an XML extension -- say, "feed.xml" -- upload it to the web server where your site is located. Then all you need to do is put a link to your RSS feed (XML page) on your Web site (HTML page, presumably). The symbol for an RSS feed is an orange icon like the one shown on the previously-linked Wikipedia page.

When somebody clicks the link to your XML RSS feed on your HTML Web page, they will have the option to have your RSS feed added to their homepage -- likely Google, Yahoo, MySpace, or a separate RSS-reading program. Congratulations, you're syndicated!

To update your feed, simply edit the links in the XML file and they will appear on your reader's page as soon as it refreshes (the next time it requests the XML file from the server).

Phew.

Blog Reviews

Here are a few reviews of the journalistic blog sites that Kodi recommended. The sites are judged on (i) the content, (ii) how and whether the blog differs from traditional reporting, (iii) who the target audience is, and (iv) how effective it is.

1. Mindy McAdams Blog - Teaching Online Journalism
Content: Online journalism showcasing and critiquing
Difference: McAdams' blog is a collection of online journalism examples from across the web that is accompanied by her insightful journalistic criticism. Effectively, it is a journalist's take on online journalism.
Audience: University students, journalists, media enthusiasts.
Effectiveness: Very effective. McAdams scours the web for the most interesting examples of online journalism and offers educated opinions of them.

2. Paul Bradshaw's Online Journalism Blog
Content: Exploration and research of online journalism
Difference: The blog is a tour through current topics in online journalism with Paul Bradshaw as the guide. He doesn't do as much critiquing, per se, as McAdams, but keeps a knowledgeable and level-headed commentary of the journalism he highlights.
Audience: New online journalists, potential online journalists
Effectiveness: Somewhat. Bradshaw's blog doesn't contain (in my opinion) the caliber of interesting content that McAdams' does. However, it does provide clearer looks at some of the trends facing online journalism.

3. Adrian Holovaty's Blog
Content: Holovaty's online journalism creations and musings of a young journalist.
Difference: The blog has a much more personal touch than the previous two. Part of the blog is indeed journalism (Holotavy has written for the Washington Post, for example), while some posts are strictly personal content.
Audience: Aspiring journalists, amateur musicians, YouTube connoisseurs.
Effectiveness: Quite. Holovaty mixes his personal interests in with genuine journalism to create a personal mash that is interesting to navigate. Some bias may come from the fact that I am myself an aspiring journalist who shares his love for acoustic guitar.

4. Buzzmachine - Jeff Jarvis' Blog
Content: Journalistic information, news and criticism from an experienced journalist.
Difference: Jarvis' Blog is a collection of media news with a personal spin that maintains a somewhat-professional tone. Jarvis is a media man who writes about media, but does so from an accessible standpoint.
Audience: Journalists, media-savvy citizens
Effectiveness: Above average. Jarvis' blog is indeed journalism, and his enlightened perspective offers an interesting vantage point on the events he writes about.

5. Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Dish
Content: Sullivan's ("of no party or clique") take on the best of what happened in the world.
Difference: Sullivan certainly doesn't "create" journalism in the traditional sense; rather, he organizes it according to his personal preference. In the blogging spirit, the news he selects for his site is somewhat of a glimpse into his own psyche. But that's not to say he doesn't work hard - he posts dozens of times each day, from early in the morning to late each night.
Audience: Eclectic mix of like-minded scatterbrains and people searching for interesting news
Effectiveness: In a weird way, somewhat. Though Sullivan doesn't much comment on the sites he blogs, his dedication to the effort seems encouraging -- he spends all day scouring the news so you don't have to.

OJ Review: The BBC

For this week's blog entry I am reviewing the online content of an international news organization, the BBC.

The BBC home page is an attractive, link-heavy page that is offers a lot of customization to users. It is a "home base" of sorts for online news readers, where they can access news or set their local region or language preferences.

The BBC page uses a lot of links to access a lot of content. The page is packed with news from all over the world, and it's evident there's more here to choose from than your standard newspaper. Without space constraints, the BBC is able to put much more news on the web than they would be able to on paper.

The site has a good news mix and appears to cater to a wide range of viewers. Apart from traditional news stories, the BBC site has videos, images, discussion boards and RSS feed options to cater to its tech-savvy users. A consumer on the BBC Web site can view a wide variety of news on countless types of media.

As for the stories themselves, I give them mixed reviews. Namely, the story page layout is far less clean and attractive than the homepage. The story page template is much different than the home page, which felt inconsistent. The content also seems cramped, trapped on the leftmost 1/3 or so of the page. The story page also didn't make very good use of F-shaped design, and seems to make the user work hard while reading the news.

The actual writing of the story, on the other hand, was well-done. The writing itself differed from that of print journalism to appeal to the online audience. Namely, the story was shorter, and used block quotes and links throughout. The lead was also bolded to catch the user's attention.

Perhaps the most admirable aspect of the BBC's story page was the sidebar with dozens of related links that users can navigate to if they so desire. This function more than makes up for the subpar layout on the story page because it gives so much control to the user in the online environment.

Despite a few drawbacks in layout and presentation, it seems the BBC site is one of the most complete and well-linked news sites operating today.

Good Online Journalism Sites

Online journalism its certainly its own breed in terms of writing, style, layout, and overall production, and some sites understand this concept better than others. One of the best sites I found that incorporates all of the aspects of OJ was CNNPolitics.com, CNN's 2008 presidential election homepage.

Although this page itself doesn't contain full stories, it still exhibits many of the qualities that set exceptional online journalism sites apart.

First off, it makes great use of the F-shaped reading patterns. (Check out Neilsen's F-Shaped pattern research.) At the top-left, the most-read part of the page, a navigation bar resides atop the main story, whose link is paired with an attractive image. On top of the image is a short lead-in to the story with a link the user can click to read it in its entirety.

To the top-right, as the tendencies of the human eye dictate, are relevant "top story"-type links that users can click to access more content. Along the left side of the page (the vertical line, in the "F") users can find other boxes of content that each have a micro-version of the F-style design inside them.

Following in the style of F-design, the least important content is placed along the bottom and right sides of the page. On CNNPolitics, this is where ALL of the advertisements are placed. Coincidence?

CNNPolitics also uses an attractive, organized visual style to guide readers to their diverse selection of content. It uses similar styles for boxes, headers, links, and text throughout the page so it feels orderly, professional and navigable. Speaking of navigation, the site also features the same navbar on the top of each page, no matter the page's content, for continuity and familiarity.

On top of the smart, clean design, it's CNNPolitics online-specific content that sets it apart.

The site makes use of nearly every online resource possible. Should a user want more than a reporter-written story, they can read blogs, discuss topics on message boards, watch videos, participate in polls or listen to podcasts (More web tips from USC's Communication Dept. and Cyberjournalist.net.) There's also a high degree of "clickability" involved in navigating the homepage -- which, studies say, keeps users more interested for longer.

These features are what give CNNPolitics a definite advantage over traditional election news sources. Whereas a newspaper's election page might present yesterday's black-and-white stories in a definite layout, CNNPolitics allows the user to create his or her own informational experience, and to consume breaking news as they see fit.

By giving users a high degree of choice in their election news experience, well-designed and supported sites like CNNPolitics can maintain the upper hand over less flexible, traditional outlets.

2008 Election Coverage.

Although the 2008 election is still a long way away, political campaigning, advertising, blogging and reporting is already in full swing. And though 2008 won't be the first year the internet will be a valuable election platform, the Web promises to be more of a factor in '08 than ever before.

The big players deliver their coverage as expected from their established points in the political spectrum -- MSNBC from the left, CNN from around the center and FOX from the right. The political alignment of a particular news source is evident in the quantity of stories per candidate, slant of those stories, pictures and placement on the Web site. For example, democratic links outnumber republican links 2:1 on MSNBC while the ratio is more even at CNN. Fox has a dominant feature about a recent republican debate.

While each news source certainly has a political identity, they generally show an effort toward some objectivity. For example, news about the two opposing parties will be paired equally in the same page element, or the candidates will be listed in alphabetical order.

Important issues seem to be the middle-eastern conflict -- specifically, the Iraq war, Iranian situation and "War on Terror" -- as well as health care, global warming (environment), the economy (taxation) and the usual hot-button issues of abortion and gay marriage.

Other less-established sites were all over the political spectrum. Some were clearly party-affiliated, while others were following the major networks' attempts at objectivity. Of these sites, many were blogs. One in particular, LostRemote, covered a panel discussion that touched upon a couple noteworthy points: that mainstream journalism's election coverage is underappreciated, but also that much of their material is first broken by bloggers. It also said that journalists too often sacrifice truth for fairness in the election setting.

Regardless of where you get your election coverage online, there is no doubt that the material there is very Web-specific. The entire Fox election page, for example, was dominated by video profiles of Republican candidates. CNN features an applet that allows users to compare candidates according to their views on hot-button issues. All of the sites have live polls and other types of user-created statistics that are some of the most timely indicators available.

Using the Web is also more efficient for the consumer, because they only have to consume the news that they choose. In the past, TV and radio editors have had to choose an appropriate selection of election news found it difficult to be fair and objective at the same time with strict time constraints. On the contrary, the online experience is consumed according to the user's preferences and tastes and is much more versatile.

And as the voting public becomes increasingly computer-literate, don't be surprised to see the web wield more and more influence over the political landscape.

Starting a Web Site

Starting a web site from scratch is challenging, but there are countless resources on the web that can help you along your journey.

First, you have to decide how you'll build your site.

As for my style, I prefer table-less design (except for legitimate table use) with HTML and CSS, and hard-coding the site from scratch. While tables can be useful for layout, that was not their intended use. Additionally, they're older, much slower, and less browser-friendly than a well-written CSS stylesheet. Good HTML and CSS are hard to beat.

Once you've decided how to go about making your site, you need the right tools to do it.

Although one could write a fully-functional site in Notepad, I recommend Adobe Dreamweaver for your HTML and CSS needs. Another alternative is to use another HTML editor like CoffeeCup and write your CSS in a simple text editor.

For graphics, I'll be using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, two must-haves that will give your site some eye-candy pizazz (thanks UConn!)

Here are some sources that have helped me refine my eye for design and strengthen my coding skills, as well as some reviews of Kodi's recommended sites.

• Illustrator and Dreamweaver tutorials from talented Toronto designer Nick La's N.Design Studio.

W3Schools taught me HTML and CSS. It can teach anyone just about any web language.

About.com's article explains why using CSS beats using tables for layout.

CSS Zen Garden is a cool site where users edit the CSS only -- not the HTML -- to create many visions of the same content.

Mozilla's Web Developer toolbar for Firefox is a must-have for designers who want to check out the CSS layouts of their sites and others!

Is navigation useful? Of course. But I don't agree that all pages can't share a navbar in a small site.

Mindy McAdams' site has some good stuff about design, color, and CSS layout.

There must be some good design tutorials in here somewhere, although some of the designer's own pages that I checked out were terrible looking!

UConn UITS Web Development site has some cool visual design and flash effects. However, some of their table elements and CSS divs don't line up -- for shame!

Sweet Movie

2004 Red Sox

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