The next issue of The Linc — the student newspaper I edit — is coming out soon. I’m very excited about the issue, it has some really good stuff going in.
This year, I’ve enlisted the help of a student to help me revamp the website, which currently is just a blog.
What should a good student newspaper attempted to achieve on the internet? I’m in ‘talks’ with the university over a podcasting project, which I’m very excited about, but I’d like some input from the blogging community over what they think makes a student website good.
I’ve been looking at a few examples.
Cherwell 24, the web edition of Oxford Uni’s popular Cherwell rag, has recently revamped its site. And it’s a great effort. The CMS being used (does anyone know what it is?) is perfect for its purpose. Navigation is simple but comprehensive. Content wise I feel it drops a couple of clangers; this feature on David Blaine is not fit for web. Don’t get me wrong, the article is good, but without so much as a picture the huge slices of text just boggle the brain somewhat.
They have, with great enthusiasm it seems, embraced blogging with open arms. The blogs listed are a little inactive, although it’s unfair to judge at this time as it is (despite the rain) still summer. Will be keeping an eye out and seeing how it develops.
Cardiff’s Gair Rhydd (that’s ‘Free Word’ in English) is a cracking example, but there’s a distinct ‘old media’ feel to the outfit. A great, quick-loading design would do well to have some good blogs and new media touches bundled in. Perhaps the odd video clip — even if it is just syndicated from a local news site. In their defense, there are comment facilities for most stories, so the progression is certainly being made.
What strikes you immediately about Gair Rhydd is that of all the student newspapers, it is by far the most professional of the lot. But, with much of the editorial staff actually being paid up members of staff who have graduated already, I’d argue that Gair Rhydd is less a student paper, and more a local Cardiff paper with student contributors. EDIT: Turns out only the editor is a full-time employee — the position is an elected sabbatical position. I take back the above comment.
UCLan’s Pluto, edited by the hugely talented Ed Walker, has experimented lately with web formats, and at the moment is running a fairly small scale site that would suit a newspaper like The Linc.
Looking at all the sites above, and considering our own man-power and expertise, I think the website for The Linc should aim to achieve the following:
- News. Articles lifted from print edition complimented with more regular splatterings of daily pieces hoiked from around the web and personal findings.
- Blogs. Two blogs. News blog and sports blog. Simple. I’m not going to kid myself — like I did last year — and believe that I could create a thriving blogging with lots of contributors and eager readers. I can’t. But we can have a news blog and a sports blog, no problem.
- Multimedia. Ah! This is where it gets fun. This years word of choice is podcast. Podcast podcast podcast. Students at Lincoln are podcasting every day, except it never gets uploaded. Siren FM, our radio station, has some great shows on it, and where do they go once they’ve come off air? Nowhere. They drift off into the air, never to be heard again. Stick them on the website and we’re on to a winner.
And that’s it. If I’d have approached this a year ago I’d have been talking of message boards and all sorts. But why would students visit a newspaper web forum? Facebook does it much better. So, of course, our forum will be on Facebook.
[PRESS GAZETTE] Football club closes training sessions over citizen journalism
Championship football club Norwich City have resorted to private training sessions, blaming rapid online reporting due to the surge in ‘citizen journalism’.
Previously, fans could enjoy watching their team prepare for upcoming games at the club’s Colney Training Centre. However, access to the centre will be closed to the public on days leading up to fixtures from 16 August.
[via Rick Waghorn]
Might be a little break from posting for a while (as if I did a lot anyway…!). My placement with Press Gazette starts tomorrow for two weeks. Unless I do something stupid. But here’s hoping.
Ciao!
Every so often I find myself chatting — either electronically or in that magical thing called ‘real life’ — about experiences editing a student newspaper.
None have made my laugh quite as much as this little tale from an ex-editor that would, funnily enough, prefer to remain anonymous.
It was one of my earlier issues, and everything was almost ready to go to the printer, and I was just looking through the Quark files one last time. I decided to run Quark’s built-in spellchecker (which is crap, I’ve now learned) to try to pick up any last typos. Our front page story that week was about a group of left-wing societies trying to get Coca Cola banned on campus. Quark didn’t recognise ‘Coca’ and suggested ‘Cock’ instead. I SWEAR to this day that I did NOT accept the suggested change, but low and behold when the paper got back from the printers we had a front page story about a boycott of a brand new beverage, Cock Cola.
Priceless!
Hail Mindy!
I spent a little while earlier today thinking of ways to structure the first editorial meeting of the new academic year, wondering how best to approach the managment of a new team, when this little gem popped up in my RSS reader.
I’ll be following the five steps as if it were religion.
Good thing is, we have a cracking lead story for this issue, so it’s going to be a perfect start to the year’s issues. Cannot wait.
“Violent games = violent thoughts. Discuss.”
Or don’t, as it’s impossible. Come on BBC, if you want people to discuss your articles, how about allowing us to make a comment?
Margaret Robertson is a great blogger (as I’ve just found out). I wonder if she can tell the Beeb to enable comments so I can add my two pence?
Courtesy of Carole on the Journobiz forums…
Ricochet – Looking for journalists for a new Channel 4 documentary
Following the RSA drugs report which came up with a scale of harm listing alcohol as more harmful than cannabis and ecstasy in that order. Hannah Lamb Assistant Producer for Ricochet is looking for journalists in their 20’s or early 30’s who are happy to admit to the occasional or more regular use of one of these substances and allow us to follow the effects that it has on their body over the period of a month. They would take the journalists to Holland where there would be no legal repercussions and where they have a great university who will be monitoring the effects.
Hannah wants journalists who would be interested in this type of experiential journalism and would like to have a further chat about the project.
Hannah can be reached on +44 (0)1273 224 800 and hannah.lamb@NOSPAMricochet.co.uk
Duuude.
When the Guardian re-launched in the Berliner format, I remember reading some great blog entries coming from within the cogs of the paper. It was interesting to see the process involved in managing something like a format change, and also to put a more human face to a newspaper that I read.
Most interesting was the debate over the Doonesbury cartoon. After a day of complaints about its removal, G2 editor Ian Katz issued a swift apology and the comic strip returned to the paper. It highlighted the way in which a good blog from a newspaper can be used to produce a better paper and improve reader interaction.
Once the fuss over the Berliner switch had died down, the blog ceased to be. Luckily, however, a new permanent blog was to be launched as part of the new (and brilliant) Comment is Free blog network. The Editors’ Blog (that’s plural — lots of editors, not just the editor) began with this opening statement:
Welcome to the editors’ blog. Note where the possessive apostrophe appears. This is not the voice of the editor. It is not the official voice of Guardian Newspapers Ltd. It is the blog of an inside observer, who will from time to time call on the editor and other editors of different sections of the paper to help explain to you how it works, how decisions are taken, who takes them. It’s about how the paper you receive in the morning, and the website you’re reading this on, are created.
It started fairly well. This entry tells us how the Film and Music supplement is created, others focus on editorial decisions within the main paper itself.
Sadly, despite a good start, the Editors’ Blog is now a rather pointless entity. This entry is from last Thursday:
Is there any basis for the rumours of a state of emergency being imposed in Pakistan by President Musharraf?
He failed to attend a meeting in Kabul yesterday designed to investigate peace moves on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border and faces a challenge in the courts today over the possible return from exile of the former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, whom he deposed in 1999.
He faces two election battles early next year, one for the presidency — and he is constitutionally ineligible for a further term of office — and a parliamentary election.
And so on. At no point do we get to hear how the editor(s) came to their decisions about how to produce the coverage. This is, without being too harsh on the blogger, just a standard news blog that has very little real interest for anyone.
Back in that first post, Murray Armstrong wrote that the Editors’ Blog is not the voice of the editor, or Guardian Newspapers Ltd. So whose is it?
I’d very much like to see the Guardian Editor’s Blog resurrected soon. It would be a shame for a newspaper that prides itself on its transparency to waste an opportunity to keep us all in the loop.
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