Mid-semester Update

This blogsite was originally planned to serve as an adjunct to the courses I teach in online journalism at Hofstra University. But, as those of us who work online know well, change is one constant in this field.

Today, my classes publish to a blog that I set up for that particular class. This semester, you can see the student-reporters' work at http://hofstrajournalism80.blogspot.com.

Previously, I would provide short abstracts of significant articles on this site, and ask my students to read and discuss, then write and analyze on what they had read. But, this process took too long to get the conversation going. Today, the students are assigned to go out and find articles that are to the point of what we are discussing in the classroom, and then write and analyze, then post to their blogger site. This shortens the cycle.

So, here, I am going to post articles that are of general interest to those in the field of multimedia journalism. Hopefully, my students will find them and read them (for extra credit, of course). Then again, I may just assign them.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has just issued The State of the News Media 2007. This is a lengthy annual publication that should have a shelfmlife of more than a couple of months (things move fast in this medium).

ZDNet Asia publishes an interview with Howard Rheingold by Daniel Terdiman of CNET News.com. I interviewed Rheingold in 1999 when I was working with CMP Media's TechWeb. Back then, Rheingold advised online businesses seeking to tap into online communities to listen to the customer:

"You have to ask if you are prepared to reorganize your people and your resources in response to what people tell you [online]," Rheingold said. "If you don't respond, they will go away, and then you are turning away somebody who was a customer and wanted to participate in your business."

Good advice, always.

Today, Rheingold is seeking to learn video and how to navigate Second Life.

I've done the first, but the second, right now, has me stumped. I am totally indecisive over selecting my Second Life name. And, like I need something else to do? Anyway, today [cranky alert] we niche community with Web 2.0 and can say that Second Life is just a extremely sophisticated MUD that we recall from back in the early days of the Internet.

Back to important pieces published recently. From the Columbia Journalism Review, Robert Kuttner reports some optimism over the perceived fate of newspapers in his article, The Race.

Meantime, a frightening scenario -- at least to journalists -- in an article from the San Francisco Chronicle's Joe Garofoli who reports that a small Santa Rosa, Calif., television station has canned most of its news staff and instead will seek to replace its professionals with citizen-journalism submitted coverage. Payment? To be determined.