“Data visualization tool” is a term that goes hand in hand with data journalism; but some students and maybe some rookie journalists are not quite clear what it is and does.
A data visualization tool makes it possible and easy to present and share visualized data, with interactivity, on the web. The visualization itself, though, is nothing new – Microsoft Excel has long had chart visualization as a built-in feature. Continue reading
From the Wall Street Journal to hyper-local newspapers in Philadelphia suburbs, print media are navigating the uncharted territory of video (that is, web and mobile). However, video production is not considered an essential skill by many journalism educators. This must be changed. Continue reading
NPR had an experiment among its 2.3 million Facebook page audiences to find out the types of local stories that are more likely to be read and shared by readers. The experiment identified nine types of local stories that will engage audiences.
Some of these story types (with modifications by me) will work equally well for digital-first college media to engage both print and digital audiences – students and alumni will be likely to read these stories and, more importantly, share them on social media networks. Moreover, they will also help journalism students brainstorm story ideas for their news writing assignments: Continue reading
In a test drive of Piktochart, a web-based infographic creation tool, I created an infographic on how to develop a digital journalism program, which is based on my survey of 500+ communication and digital journalism programs in U.S., as well as a series of articles about digital journalism education and practices. Continue reading
The newly launched Google Maps Engine Lite (beta) is touted as an upgrade to the popular My Maps, but it is not a data journalism tool I want to recommend for digital news reporting and classroom teaching – at least not for now. It has a good concept, but lacks interactive features, has a buggy workflow, and doesn’t function well. Continue reading
“Digital first” strategy is in comparison with the “platform first” practice of legacy media platforms (print, TV, radio). Web and mobile platforms demand us to adopt a platform-neutral mindset for an all-inclusive production approach – create the (digital) contents first, then distribute via appropriate platforms.
Digital-first strategy has been the buzzword lately as big-name media such as Financial Times announced that they are going digital-first. However, many people, including many journalism students, are not clear how a digital-first strategy differs from traditional media operation and what it takes to go digital-first – many have the misconception that it’s web-first or web-only. Continue reading
A year ago today, March 22, 2012, I created a Google map to plot “digital or multimedia journalism degree programs” in United States. A year later, the map was viewed 7,000 times and the accompanying project page ranks high in various Google searches related to digital or multimedia journalism education.
View Digital or Multimedia Journalism Degree Programs (with dedicated courses in digital journalism) in U.S. in a larger map
The student newspaper at University of Oregon, the Daily Emerald, ended its 92-year, Monday-to-Friday operation in June 2012, and switched to a digital operation. As a student newspaper adviser myself, I am more interested in the changes this digital switch brought to the day-to-day operations. Recently, I contacted the publisher and the editor in chief of the Emerald, and wanted to share with my readers what I learned about their new, digital newsroom operations. Continue reading
If you are a digital journalism instructor, consider this “writing for the web” assignment in your class – ask students to rewrite a lengthy blog post. Many blog posts are long and written in a print style; they are hard to read on a computer screen and may turn away impatient online readers. A writer is wasting his or her engaging writings if the texts are not optimized for reading online (that is, on a computer screen). Continue reading
Two photos taken at the same location in Vatican City in 2005 and 2013, respectively, show how mobile technology has changed the world and why journalism should gear up toward a mobile-first future. Continue reading
