Convergence Newsletter

From Newsplex at the University of South Carolina

Vol. III No. 7 (January 12, 2006)

 

Commenting on Convergence

 

By Jordan Storm, editor of The Convergence Newsletter

 

I must say, I always get excited in the beginning of a new year. To me, January brings the possibility of change and 2006 promises to be full of change. Just think, Knight Ridder is for sale and Steve Outing, senior editor at the Poynter Institute, has reported http://www.reporter.co.za/, a South African Web site, is soliciting and paying for citizen-generated content. I wonder, what will 2006 mean for convergence? Will convergence continue to be defined and debated, or, with the introduction of new communication technologies, will it continue to evolve and grow into something else? Perhaps, as Douglas Starr of Texas A&M hints below, convergence will continue to be old-hat, simply the process of renaming old concepts and job titles that have been in the profession for years.

 

Although The Convergence Newsletter does not usually publish in January, my executive editor and I felt it was important to share Starr’s piece with you, the newsletter’s audience. Too often the newsletter acts as a cheerleader for convergence. The real purpose of The Convergence Newsletter is to create an open forum where scholars and professionals can explore and debate how issues of convergent media and new communication technologies are shaping journalism. In order to have a debate, of course, two opposing sides need to participate.

 

That is why we are sharing this supplemental issue with you. We invite you to send in your thoughts after reading Starr’s piece in order to continue the conversation. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Jordan Storm is working toward a Master of Arts degree at the University of South Carolina. Contact her at convergence-editor@mailbox.sc.edu.

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Feature Articles

 

A Dispatch from the Convergence Trenches

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Conference Information

 

Citizen Media: Engaging an Empowered Audience

 

Ver 1.0: Institute for Analytic Journalism

 

BEA2006: Convergence Shockwave

 

Newsplex Summer Seminar Series

 

World Editors Forum

 

ICA: Networking Communication Research Conference

 

Convergence and Society: Ethics, Religion and New Media

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---------------Feature Articles

 

A Dispatch from the Convergence Trenches

                 

By Douglas Perret Starr, Professor of Agricultural Journalism, Texas A&M University

 

Oh, boy! No matter how closely and carefully I look at His Royal Convergence Highness, I still get the impression that his clothing leaves something to be desired. He’s not exactly as naked as his fairy tale forebear, but he sure isn’t dressed to the nines as most people seem to have it.

 

In the first place, the only things about convergence that are new are some terms and the fact that duties once the prerogative of the News Editor and the Photographer and techniques used in newspapers and magazines now are relegated to the News Reporter.

 

The Web News Reporter covers the story, shoots the photographs and the video, writes the story and the headline, helps select the photograph and writes the captions, and puts the whole thing on the Web page.

 

Then, of course, the News Reporter writes the broadcast version of the story and prepares the Teleprompter version. What a salary today’s News Reporter must draw.

 

The Way Things Were

 

Years ago, we learned that giving a camera to a News Reporter meant that we would have a good story or a good photograph, but not both. That idea seems to have disappeared. Maybe that’s why many stories are not so good.

 

I was a rimmer, or copy editor, at the Fort Worth Star–Telegram in the late 1970s, editing copy and writing headlines as directed by the News Editor (today’s Gatekeeper) when the newspaper shifted to the computer from Underwood standard typewriters and No. 1 copy pencils.

 

The newspaper laid off two dozen or more union Linotype operators on the grounds that the four rimmers/copy editors were setting type, so what were Linotype operators needed for, anyway?

 

To compensate for our extra duty, our hourly wage was elevated from $7 to $7.25. We were cheaper than union Linotype operators and we had no union backing.

 

In the 1960s, when I was an Associated Press newsman in Jackson, Miss., writing news on all-caps teletype machines, we wrote as many as seven versions of the same story every day: one for the morning newspaper (AMS), one for the afternoon newspaper (PMS), and five versions, all different, for the five afternoon hourly radio newscasts.

 

We composed directly on the keyboard, which meant that, because we were punching tape, and the tape had to feed through the transmitter before we could read it, we were typing blind. Even so, we could compose copy at 80–85 words a minute.

 

In covering legislative senate and house sessions, we composed on the keyboard as many as eight or 10 stories, one after the other, using only notes, because of the press of the deadline. AP was always on deadline. And we punched that tape at 80–85 words a minute.

 

In those days, every AP field newsman in the bureaus too small to warrant a teletype operator operated in that fashion.

 

New Tool, New Terms, Techniques

 

Now comes his Royal Convergence Highness. Wow! A new tool, so it must require new techniques, even new terms. Can’t use the old terminology with new equipment and new ideas, even if they appear to mirror the old.

 

So, the duties of the News Editor shifted to the Web page editor, with small changes. The Web has no pages to fill, no newshole, no space left over after the advertising is set down on each page, because the Web is its own newshole, eliminating page design.

 

So the Web page designer sets up the page, and the design duties fall to the News Reporter. Where the News Editor inserted subheads (two to four words inserted and centered in the column to break up the gray type and indicate what is coming up) and called for paragraphs of no more than four or five lines of type, the News Reporter inserts the subheads and restricts Web paragraphs to four or five lines on screen, but with a blank line between paragraphs.

 

That does two things, the same two things that were done in newspapers: The short paragraphs made for plenty of white space and easy reading in the 2-inch-wide newspaper column, and the subheads told readers what was coming next.

 

Gee, the Emperor’s clothes seem to be fading away.

 

And, whereas in the old days, the copy editors edited the copy and wrote the headlines, on the Web, the News Reporter writes the headlines. I really don’t know who copyedits the News Reporter, but from stories I have read, it seems that News Reporters edit their own copy, a gross mistake.

 

And those old sidebars, secondary news stories that accompanied many long, important pieces, became Hyperlinks on the Web. Same idea, new name.

 

More clothes are disappearing.

 

Surfing the Web

 

Another new term, surfing, means flipping through the Web file in search of interesting stories. Imagine. Just like turning the pages in a newspaper to see what other goodies are in store.

 

I think I am becoming sacrilegious. I don’t mean to be, but I just don’t see the new attire on His Royal Highness. It all seems to me that the new equipment is just that, new equipment. When Gutenberg developed movable type, nobody called for new ways to write.

 

The writers used the same language that they had used for years; they just published it more easily and faster.

 

Well, that’s what the computer does, enables News Reporters to produce their stories faster.

 

But, as in Gutenberg’s time, nobody could read the product of the new technique until it was published; neither can people read what is on the Web unless they are online.

 

Drat! I knew it was going too well.

 

But the Web has a singular advantage: it has so much space that News Reporters can develop their stories as long as they wish, including all of the details that bear upon the story. Oh, boy, that’s great. Now readers will know all those dreary details.

 

Really? Few readers read all the way through any one story in the newspaper, a relatively easy task. To expect readers to slog through 10,000 words on the small, blinking computer screen … well, it ain’t gonna happen.

 

The only people who read all the way through such long pieces are scholars seeking information for their own writing in hopes of gaining publication in an academic journal and securing tenure and promotion.

 

Other Terms, Other Comments

 

Now that His Highness is nearly naked, I’d like to comment on three terms: Gatekeeper, Agenda-setting and Framing. Those jobs may be a bit out of the convergence area, but they are there.

 

The Gatekeeper is the newspaper’s News Editor, the desk that decides both which stories to publish and which stories not to publish. That means that the Gatekeeper sets the Agenda — somebody has to do it — and decides on which news story readers read. Powerful position, that.

 

Consider this: The average newspaper publishes 40,000 words of news a day. The Associated Press transmits 2 million words of usable copy a day. In addition, each newspaper has news from its own staffers.

 

Without a Gatekeeper, no, let me change that, without a News Editor, a job held by a professional with years of experience and vast knowledge, very little usable news would appear in the newspaper except by accident. Readers have to trust somebody.

 

And Framing, which has terribly undesirable connotations, is a bugaboo tacked onto news stories, as though the News Reporter has time to decide in what frame the story will be cast. Writing copy at 80–85 words a minute gives precious little time for the story itself, let alone determining some devious approach to set a tone.

 

News Reporters are just too professional for that. Besides, Accuracy and Objectivity are their watchwords.

 

Inverted Pyramid Easy To Read

 

I fear that if His Convergence Highness were not the Emperor, he would stand a good chance of being arrested for indecent exposure after this next suggestion: changing the writing style for the Web.

 

I have read Ann Wylie and Jakob Nielsen and their suggestions for Web writing, and The Convergence Newsletter writers’ suggestions about using narrative writing and telling the story first, and they are good suggestions. But I have concerns.

 

If an airplane crashes and kills 250 people, I don’t want to begin by reading that it departed O’Hare on schedule heading east for Washington, D.C. To me, the news is that the airplane crashed and a bunch of people were killed, not a narrative with a “once-upon-a-time” approach.

 

The narrative can be put into the story later.

 

Of course, if these pundits — other than me, of course — are referring to analyses and columns rather than to news stories, then, fine. Write opinion copy any way you want to.

 

But, please, for hard news stories, write them straight. Remember? Start with the Who and tell readers what the Who did and Why the Who did it. Terse, concise, to the point. The Inverted Pyramid.

 

Remember the rule: Don’t write a 500-word story in 1,000 words; write a 1,000-word story in 500 words.

 

I’d appreciate it. Maybe your readers will, too.

 

By the way, notice how easy this copy is on your eyes. No paragraph longer than five lines. A blank space between paragraphs. And subheads. Gee, ain’t that sumpin’.

 

You’re welcome.

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Editor’s Note: If you became hot and bothered by Starr’s commentary, or yelled aloud, “Hurrah, someone finally said it,” I want you to share your thoughts with me by e-mailing the newsletter at convergence-editor@mailbox.sc.edu. This conversation often is discussed in hushed whispers; let’s scream it in print.

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---------------Conferences

 

American Press Institute and J-Lab

Citizen Media: Engaging an Empowered Audience

April 4-5, 2006

Reston, Virginia USA

http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/06/Citizen/

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Institute for Analytic Journalism

Ver 1.0 – A Workshop on Public Database Verification for Journalists and Social Scientists

April 9-12, 2006

Santa Fe, New Mexico USA

http://www.ver1point0.cjb.net

 

Participants in the three-day workshop will explore developing statistical and other methodological tools suitable for social scientists, biomedical and behavioral researchers, journalists and other interested investigators to determine the veracity of public records databases.

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Broadcast Education Association

Convergence Shockwave: Change, Challenge and Opportunity

April 27-29, 2006

Las Vegas, Nevada USA

www.beaweb.org

 

The BEA2006 Conference aims to create a forum for discussion and research on the issues that face media convergence today. The deadline for pre-registration is March 10, 2006.

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The University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications

Newsplex Summer Seminar Series

May 8 – June 30, 2006

Columbia, South Carolina USA

 

Four separate seminars will be held at Newsplex in May and June 2006, ranging in topic from a broad overview of convergence trends to more specific training in Web publishing and specific software operation. The seminars are:

 

May 08-12: Convergence Software Bootcamp #1

May 22-26, 2006: Teaching and Research in Convergent Journalism

June 12-16, 2006: Web publishing in Convergent Journalism

June 26-30, 2006: Convergence Software Bootcamp #2

 

For more information, or to reserve a spot, visit: http://Newsplex.sc.edu or e-mail Augie Grant: augie@sc.edu.

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World Association of Newspapers

World Editors Forum

June 4-7, 2006

Moscow, Russia

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International Communication Association

Networking Communication Research Conference

June 19-23, 2006

Dresden, Germany

http://www.icahdq.org/events/conference/2006/conf2006info.asp

 

Conference pre-registration starts January 15, 2006.

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University of South Carolina College of Mass Communication and Information Science and Newsplex

Convergence and Society: Ethics, Religion, and New Media Conference

October 19-21, 2006

http://newsplex.sc.edu/newsplex_cfpapers06.html

 

Since September 11, ethics and religion have emerged as important topics in the study of new media. At this conference, the moral implications of emerging media are addressed at the levels of society, culture, and the media professions. It is a forum for scholars, media professionals and theologians to discuss converging media from the standpoint of competing values. Papers and panels may include institutional, content, audience, cultural, political and technological perspectives on media from the perspective of social responsibility. Abstracts, completed papers and panel proposals for this conference should deal with one or more of the following four themes:

 

= Ethics: Examination of current approaches to moral reasoning about convergence

= Values: Analysis of values related to converging technologies (i.e., information equity, privacy, diversity, etc.).

= Religiosity: How denominations are contributing to public and policy discussion of convergence and values.

= Media Convergence, including convergent journalism, technological convergence and audience behavior.

 

The purpose of this conference is to provide a scholarly exploration of these issues individually and of the connections among them. Submission may address theory, history, media practice, social influences, cultural issues, legal implications and effects upon consumers.

 

Faculty and graduate students are invited to submit in one or more of three categories: completed papers, proposals or abstracts of papers in progress and proposals for panels.

 

Submissions may address practical, theoretical, phenomenological, critical and/or empirical approaches to any of the subjects listed above. All submissions will be reviewed by a jury that will consider: 1) relevance to the conference theme, 2) the quality of the contribution, and 3) overall contribution to the field. Submission deadline (postmark) is June 15, 2006.

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---------------Announcements/News

 

Publishing a book about convergence? The Convergence Newsletter regularly publishes information about new and upcoming books on convergent journalism. Send your submissions to convergence-editor@mailbox.sc.edu. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

---------------Publisher and Editorial Staff

 

The Convergence Newsletter is free and published by The College of Mass Communications and Information Studies at the University of South Carolina.

 

Executive Editor

Augie Grant, Ph.D.

augie@sc.edu

 

Editor

Jordan Storm

convergence-news@mailbox.sc.edu

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---------------Copyright and Redistribution

 

The Convergence Newsletter is Copyright © 2006 by the University of South Carolina, College of Mass Communications and Information Studies. All rights reserved.

 

This newsletter may be redistributed in any form - print or electronic - without edits or deletion of any content.

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---------------Formatting

 

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---------------Submission Guidelines/Deadline Schedule

 

The Convergence Newsletter provides an editorially neutral forum for discussion of the theoretical and professional meaning of media convergence. We welcome articles of all sorts addressing the subject of convergence in journalism and media. We also accept news briefs, calls for papers and conference announcements. Our audience is both academics and professionals and the publication style is APA 7th edition. Feature articles should be 750 to 1,500 words; other articles should be 250 to 750 words; announcements and conference submissions should be 200 words. All articles should be submitted to The Convergence Newsletter editor at convergence-editor@mailbox.sc.edu. Please include your name, affiliation and contact information with your submission.

 

The Convergence Newsletter is published the first week of each month except January. Articles should be submitted at least 10 days prior to the publication date. Any questions should be sent to convergence-editor@mailbox.sc.edu.

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---------------Subscribe/Unsubscribe Information

 

To subscribe, unsubscribe or edit your information, please send a message to convergence-editor@mailbox.sc.edu or write to The Convergence Newsletter c/o School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208.