NewsWire.co.nz is the new news website for the Whitireia Journalism School, New Zealand.

I built it. And, aside from the fee for hosting (pennies) and my own personal wage, we did it for FREE. And what’s more, it’ll stay free.

We created and launched the site within THREE WEEKS. That includes setting up the hosting, domain name, content management system, design, editorial structure, promotion and publishing software. Oh, and lets not forget that students creating the content have been training as journalists for less than six weeks.

I’ll cut to the chase: IF YOU RUN A JOURNALISM SCHOOL, YOU NEED TO DO THIS TOO. IT IS TOO EASY TO NOT BOTHER.

The simplicity of the operation is staggering. Using a series of free, open-source tools, we have created a multi-media news website that is already involving the community.

Now, when I was putting all this together, I constantly referred to the work of Mindy McAdams. Her how-to guides have meant some very tricky aspects of the teaching — setting up Audacity, for example — were made a lot simpler.

Now it’s one thing for Mindy to create those sorts of guides for her own students, but it’s another thing altogether to put those resources on the web, for free, for everyone to learn from.

So, inspired by Mindy’s example, I’ll explain everything that went into NewsWire.co.nz. Maybe some other journalism schools can follow Whitireia’s lead.

The nuts ‘n’ bolts

We used Wordpress. It’s easy to install, beautifully simple to use and immensely powerful. Short of paying a web team to hand code a custom CMS for us, I don’t think we could have found a better solution. At The Linc, I flirted with using Joomla and Drupal, but I couldn’t get my own head around the back-end, so god help me if I thought I’d be able to pass on the knowledge to my students.

With plugins, we could extend NewsWire to work exactly how we wanted. I’ll explain how that all works as I go along.

Of course, Wordpress has a huge open-source following. With that comes a vast abundance of themes that were perfectly suited to what we wanted. Aaron, a student in the class, found Branford Magazine. A great template for a news site. It meant we could give one major story a big chunk of page space, but also have lots of other items dotted about the page. Also, the ‘widgets’ functionality of the theme meant that the sidebar can be changed by anyone with the right administrator level — without them knowing any HTML. Perfect.

If you want to give Wordpress a try, sign up for a free account at Wordpress.com.

How do you keep costs down when you expect hundreds of visits a day? All watching video and downloading audio? Quite a scary thought, but not when you put your photos on Flickr and your videos on YouTube.

The hardware

All our students are well tooled-up with some form of multimedia news-gathering tool. Some have Nokia N95s, others have high-end Canon cameras. The Nokias were arranged as part of a deal with the local Vodafone store. Our man Baha sorted us out a bulk deal. I know there will be a few online journalism tutors reading this who will relate when I say how great it is being able to send out students with N95s. The news gathering potential is massive.

Each students has their own computer. Just like any school, really. It is handy if everyone has a USB stick too — it’s easier to install the software on a stick when you’re under the constraints of a network.

The software

I’d decided on two conditions that had to be met with all our software. Condition 1: It had to be easy to use. Condition 2: It had to be free.

When I studied TV, we had editing suites that had to be booked in hourly blocks. Sure, they were brilliantly kitted out suites, but creativity was stifled by the fact I couldn’t go home and really get to know the software. I didn’t have time to create video for FUN.

So I made damned sure that everything we used in class could be used at home.

For audio, we use Audacity. It works like a dream: Import audio, cut audio, export audio. Easy. And it’s everything a journalist needs to produce audio clips. Follow Mindy’s guide (PDF) if you want to try it out.

For video, we’re using Windows Movie Maker. It’s not perfect, but it allows us to quickly cut clips from the phones and cameras, as well as add title sequences to the beginning and end of each video. [EXAMPLE: Luke Appleby interviews a truckie on protest]

My favourite type of multimedia is the audio slideshow. I think it’s perfect for web journalism, and some of the best examples of reporting online has come via this format. For our audio slideshows, we’re using Soundslides. Designed by a journalist, Soundslides is a dream to use. We make our audio with Audacity, gather our pictures, and hey presto… it all slots into Soundslides without second thought. [EXAMPLE: Sandra Dickson's Hutt Valley cycle memorial]

I won’t go into images too much. But so far we’ve been using Coral Painter 8. Urgh. Adobe Photoshop is being set up soon.

The social media

Now I’m not going to claim this is a ground-breaking website in terms of social-networking enhancements. But we’re doing a damn site better than, for example, various regional websites in the UK which were produced for thousands of pounds.

My favourite tool is the NewsWire map. Each of the students has been assigned a geographical area in which to cover. We decided to plot the areas on a map in the newsroom before it dawned on us: We should share this. Read more about the NewsWire map here. I’m delighted to say that the map is working; and tips for stories have started coming in. People like knowing they have a journalist working for them. Isn’t that how it should be?

For the students, the map gives extra focus. It provides competition — there’s no worse feeling than another student scooping you with a story on your own patch — and it means that students learn how to integrate with their sources. Each news round has a school. Almost all the students have already been out to meet the respective principals. We’ve only been live since Friday, and so far the school visits have yealded great results. [EXAMPLE: Have a look here, here and here.]

Of course, we allow comments on our site. We (I) would like to have post-moderated comments, but legalities would make it too big a risk. So, for the time being, we run on a rota of comment moderators.

We’re working on an interactive calendar feature too. We want members of the Wellington community to come forward and say ‘WE’RE DOING THIS!’, and then we can decide if we should cover it.

At the bottom of all our posts, we have added social media bookmarks using the Sociable plugin. To be frank, I don’t expect our target audience to use them, but, like many internet functions, these things take time to take off in the mainstream. Having them on display will do no harm.

The customary contact page is made a little easier with the cforms plugin. Everyone likes a good poll, and for this we used the WP-Poll plugin along with its accompanying widget.

In time I’d like to implement Geo-Tagging, but that’s a project (and a blog) for another day.

The admin

It’s no good having an all-singing, all-dancing website if you can’t fill it with good work. NewsWire needed a strong, stable system that everyone could understand. And I think we have one. Let me explain.

Top of the pile is Jim Tucker, program leader. He controls the admin account, and has the final say on what gets published and what doesn’t.

Currently, I share that position with Jim as head admin.

Below myself and Jim are a team of web editors. These are students who volunteered to handle the slightly techier bits of the process. Adding images, for example, can be a step too far for those not too familiar with web interfaces. I predict that the web editor position will become less critical as the year rolls on — the other students will be able to do most of the steps involved to make the story ‘ready’.

Using the Role Manager plugin, we could create the web editor login as a specific role. They can edit students stories and upload files, but their control stops at the point of being able to publish. That responsibility — and liability — rests with Jim.

Every other student has their own login which they use to submit stories to the moderation queue. So far, we expect, as a minimum, that students format their stories and place them in Wordpress. Then, students email any images to a Gmail address which we set up. Why gmail? It’s massive. And it allows integration with Google Docs, Google Maps and everything else.

This set up works well. It means students get experience of web publishing without being placed in a legal minefield.

The result

See for yourself: www.newswire.co.nz

On our launch day, we were handed a gift. Hundreds of truck drivers rolled into Wellington for a mass protest. We covered every inch of the city. WE BEAT EVERY NEWS WEBSITE IN NEW ZEALAND to pictures. We had video, pictures, twitter feeds (offline now… the story is over) and, of course, good old fashioned copy.

Other great stories include student Reesh’s investigation into the work of a local MP who is using a news site to promote herself. There are many more to come. They’re all written up on a whiteboard back in my office.

At the heart of all this is community. As you can see by this vox pop, we want to get as many Wellingtonians on our site as possible. And, so far, it’s working.

The future

I’m back home soon, and I leave the website in the capable hands of students Aaron and Luke, and Jim. I’m spending this week doing extra-intensive training on multimedia journalism so that NewsWire can continue to flourish. I’m confident it will.

The thanks

While I don’t want this to sound like an over-sentimental load of gabble, it’s important that certain people get thanks for their contributions to NewsWire.

Firstly, Aaron Caskey, who has been the first port of call with problems that I can’t solve myself. And there have been plenty. And also for general brainstorming sessions for the website. Greatly appreciated.

Secondly, Luke Appleby, who stepped up to the plate in unbelievable fashion on our launch day. He was the first back from ‘the field’, and the words “I jumped into a truckies cab and interviewed him as he drove” just made my day.

Jim… for having the foresight and the bravery with this whole project. Every idea was met with a ‘YES! DO IT!’ response. The working partnership has been a perfect blend of old media wisdom and new media attitude.

All of the students studying journalism at Whitireia. Knowing the class has only been studying journalism for less than six weeks is mind-boggling when you look at the quality on display.

The feedback

Let’s have it. Please.

Edit: Comments now closed on this entry — getting spammed into oblivion. Sorry folks. If you want to send feedback, please email me.

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