Colorado Press Women

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Professional Development Workshop — "Exploring New Media"

(Photos by Ann Lockhart)

Blogging. Videos. Podcasts. Message boards. It’s all online — it’s the new media.

If journalists and marketing experts don’t start evolving and learning skills like shooting and uploading simple videos and editing and posting audio files, they will be left behind. That was the message at the "Exploring New Media" professional development workshop co-hosted by Colorado Press Women and the Denver Woman’s Press Club in March.

Nearly 50 people packed the DWPC clubhouse to hear three Colorado media pros discuss how new technologies are changing the way news is delivered and how consumers relate to news and marketing organizations.

“It’s a great time of transition between the written and digital medium,” said Gil Asakawa, content director for Examiner.com and founder of Nikkeiview, a blog dealing with pop culture and Asian-American perspectives on the media and politics that he started in 1988.

“News consumption used to be very ritualistic – sitting in your robe with coffee and a bagel reading the Sunday New York Times for several hours,” Asakawa said. “Young people, the demographic we’re most worried about, are more opportunistic and want to go to one place for that one piece of information, be it a car crash they just heard about or a hot band.”

He noted that this generation skips the local newsstand and goes to social networking sites like YouTube and message boards for their information and entertainment. Another source is blogs — web logs written in journal style that offer commentary or news on a subject and allow readers to leave comments. Podcasts — digital media files shared over the web that can be downloaded to your iPod or personal computer — are also popular.

The trick for news providers is to become opportunistic themselves, Asakawa said. Find a way to make the consumer click one more time on your web site by adding interactive elements like a digital slideshow, video clips or bloggers. He insists you don’t have to be technical, just know what equipment and software you have and explore it.

“News operations are starting to figure out what news is for consumers, and that’s why the media is becoming more niche-focused,” Asakawa said. “News is pervasive and by the time the morning paper comes out the story has [already] appeared online, on CNN and on the radio. If a story matters, people will find it.”

The Fort Collins Coloradoan, guided by New Media Development Manager Kate Gannon, launched online video, breaking news updates, twice-daily newsletters and photo galleries on its website this year to attract readers.

Gannon, a CPW member, held a newsroom boot camp for photographers, reporters and editors at the small paper to teach everyone how to shoot video — using it like a still camera on a tripod as well taking close-ups — and use a microphone to record natural sound. Several editors and reporters are now able to edit videos and post them online.

As a result, the paper was the first to publish images of police arresting robbers who had fled an Old Town grocery store after holding customers hostage.

“Our philosophy is, we write for the Web and update for print,” Gannon said. “Readers don’t care if you’re small, they expect timely information. We’re working on incorporating second-day heads to stories so readers aren’t bored after seeing it the day before.”

Coloradoan.com offers readers several ways to shape story coverage and provide content. A request for readers to e-mail their blizzard photos drew hundreds of responses and generated a great deal of traffic on the web site, Gannon noted.

“Storychat” allows readers to post comments about articles. Any mistakes discovered can be fixed for the print edition. On the horizon is “crowd sourcing,” when the paper will tell readers about a story it is working on and request research, documents and feedback.

“Our paper doesn’t have staff members that stay 10 years and cover city government, and this is a way to get more sources,” Gannon explained. “We’re tired of being behind. We want to be the portal to information that people need.”

Public relations practitioners are also becoming more tech savvy to get their message out, sometimes bypassing the traditional media, said Andrew Hudson, director of corporate communications for engineering firm ARCADIS. Hudson also runs a wildly popular PR Jobs List e-mailed to more than 2,000 subscribers.

“A PR person must understand what is compelling, trendy and on the front lines,” Hudson said. “Video news releases are cheap and effective. Companies are posting fun, cool videos on YourHub to attract consumers. Newspapers pay attention and may even pick it up.”

However, Hudson cautioned that new media can’t replace old-fashioned relationships. “Picking up the phone and calling the editor at the local paper is still the most effective way to get your news in the paper.”

January 2007

Author Alicia Shepard

CPW members enjoyed two opportunities to meet author Alicia Shepard in January. At both a Denver reception and an intimate dinner in Boulder, Shepard shared anecdotes about what it was like researching her latest book, Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate.

Shepard interviewed 175 people and combed through archives in preparation of the book. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, though the focus of the book, were not cooperative in their interviews.

Luckily for Shepard, Woodward and Bernstein sold the Watergate papers to the University of Texas for $5 million. The papers included fan letters, financial records and memos to Robert Redford on the movie version of their story. As it turns out, the “archives had more authoritative information than talking to them, because our memories are so skewed,” she said.

For example, the famous line, “Follow the money,” from the movie, “All the President’s Men,” was made up by a screenwriter and was never actually uttered by Deep Throat. Interviews led to tips about two other archives that were also crucial for Shepard in fitting the puzzle together. Another author, David Halberstam, had left archives at Boston University. The wife of director Alan Pakula had donated his notes to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. These archives gave Shepard many insights into the personalities of Woodward and Bernstein, as well as leading to further interviews.

One of those was with the curmudgeonly Barry Sussman, who was the city editor at the Washington Post when the Watergate story broke, Shepard said. He had assigned the story to the two men and understood its magnitude early on. Yet, when Woodward and Bernstein later wrote their own book about the experience, they cut him out entirely, she said. Shepard called Sussman in 2003 and talked to him several times. Even 31 years later, he was still bitter and told her, “I have nothing good to say about either of them.”

Shepard also shared how she wised up in one of her approaches to getting interviews. One time, she agreed to meet a source for dinner. He stretched it out, made it several courses, strung her along, hardly told her anything and left her with a bill for $162. She vowed not to do that ag in. Later, in contrast, she paid for an $18 lunch that provided her two key leads. When asked what was the biggest new thing about her book, Shepard said, “What I’ve really done is fill out this story. What happens when you’re 29 and 32 years old . . . and overnight you become wealthy?”

— Erin Hottenstein

Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006

Annual Authors Luncheon
Simms Landing, Lakewood

At CPW's Fall Authors Meeting members heard from three Colorado authors — Sybil Downing, Patricia Gaffney-Kindig and Baine Kerr.

Sybil Downing is the award-winning, best-selling author of four historical novels, a biography and 13 books for young readers. She writes of women and the American West with a passion born of being a fourth-generation Coloradan, a co-founder of Women Writing the West, a reviewer for The Denver Post and the great-granddaughter of Colorado's first U.S. congressman. Her latest book is The Vote: A Novel. Set in 1918, this is the story of the final fight for women's right to vote as seen through the eyes, ears and hearts of three young women from different backgrounds. Her other books include The Binding Oath, Ladies of the Goldfield Stock Exchange, Fire in the Hole, The Colorado Heritage series and the Women of the West series.

Patricia Gaffney-Kindig edited and contributed to American WWII Orphans Network, In Their Memory, published by Turner Publishers, which won a CPW first-place award for editing and an honorable mention from NFPW. Patricia is published in numerous newspapers and periodicals, as well as professional publications at Yale University, and is widely regarded as an expert resource on issues related to WWII losses and consequent impact on survivors’ families. Her story is included in The Greatest Generation Speaks by Tom Brokaw and in a segment of Beyond Chance produced in 1999 by the Lifetime Channel that featured the story of Patricia’s search and the discovery of her father’s airplane crash site.

Baine Kerr, a Boulder trial lawyer, draws on his litigation experience for his two novels, Wrongful Death and Harmful Intent. Publisher’s Weekly says of Wrongful Death, “Everything winds up fitting together beautifully in this strong and very moving tale. It's an impressive performance and a stunning, inspiring read.” Harmful Intent is a medical courtroom thriller and was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. A graduate of Stanford University and the University of Denver’s writing programs, Baine has written a collection of short stories, Jumping-Off Place, and was published in Best American Short Stories. He was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship and the Editors’ Prize award from the Missouri Review.

In other business at the meeting, Marilyn Saltzman was announced as the 2007 recipient of the CPW Communicator of Achievement. Read more > >