In my ongoing quest to help find ways to assist local newsrooms in saving money and continuing good journalism, I’m trying to take full advantage of my time as a Reynolds Journalism Institute fellow. So far I was able to complete a major collaborative effort between four newsrooms on election night and three newsrooms leading up to the election. I was able to help put together a massive webcast and community party to help bring a closer connection between the institute and Columbia, MO. I’ve spent a bunch of time trying to expand and enhance the connection between RJI and the Missouri School of Journalism faculty and students. I’ve also worked on trying to build new connections between the two university entities and businesses that can really help our industry. I have students who are wrapping up a project with CBS Mobile and CBS interactive (which is currently going through a merger with CNET). I’m always looking for new ways to connect with Adobe and Apple. I’m playing with a number of open source CMS to find a solution for my journalistic needs.

But that isn’t enough. I learned a lot in our previous Smart Decision 08 project. I don’t want to lose momentum… So I’m working on creating a way to bubble up great journalism in the thick of the failing economy. I’d like to launch a collaborative effort based on the economy and try to become a central hub of information and collaboration in a time of uncertainty and need. Here are my initial thoughts that have come through many meetings and late noodling before I fall asleep at night:

1) This site needs to launch soon - I’m thinking about building a blog system (possibly WordPress?) at first and then consider building something more extensive in Drupal as our needs grow.
2) I’d like to launch it by asking as many people in the mid-Missouri area to tell us (the journalists) what is important to them. I want them to lead us towards the stories we need to tell.
3) This could be a great opportunity to team up with some of the journalism students who are in the earlier classes. They could help gather simple evergreen information that can help make the site really helpful for our community
4) I need to play with my own server space until the university is willing to open up a server space outside of our firewall that allows us to play with open source platforms. I’ve said this for at least two years. I haven’t won this battle yet.

While I try to noodle on these ideas, I’m packing for a big family trip to Florida so I can see my parents and enjoy the beach. I realize I never brain dump enough on this blog and it will be my resolution next year to share my thoughts more often and openly as I try to make the most out of my fellowship time.

At the same time, I hope I can use my university knowledge to help guide my fellow fellows Jane Stevens and Matt Thompson’s projects into the future beyond their fellowship. It would be wonderful to take advantage of their hard work and help find ways to institutionalize their ideas into the workflow of our newsrooms. It’s going to be an amazing four months. At the same time I hope to continue to work with my other fellow fellows (Bill Densmore and Mike Fancher) and faculty fellow (Margaret Duffy) to take full advantage of all of our amazing projects!

I’ve talked about social media here and in many different presentations at the Missouri School of Journalism, conferences and training seminars. I feel like all of my ramblings are a little more legitimate as more and more journalists debate on whether these trends are good or bad. Obviously I plant myself into the camp that this is good.

Feel free to view my PowerPoint slideshow.

A slide from my presentation

Twitter isnt the end-all be-all for journalism, but I do see it as a growing news tool. The trick, you need to be in there to understand how it works. For the first time, I recommended to all of my students that they should join a few social networks and learn how they work. I started out in Twitter, Blogger, Flickr, YouTube, Motionbox, Vimeo (I could go on) for my personal needs online and I’ve transitioned that use into ways I can use them professionally. You cannot jump in and think you know how it works. That’s how you end up finding reports like this one. It is so easy to fall into a culture of fear. Journalists shouldn’t allow themselves to do that. I think we should act like journalists, investigate these tools and see how they can be helpful. People are using them. Let’s see how we can use them to our advantage to deliver better news to our markets.

Now I’ll try to stop ranting.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Twitter lately… Heck, a lot of my posts have been about Twitter since I started this nerd blog. But I have to say, Twitter came into its own this week due to the tragedy in Mumbai. It’s been a major focus since the attacks started Wednesday and many media outlets have noticed.

CNN: “Tweeting the terror: How social media reacted to Mumbai”
Forbes: “Mumbai: Twitter’s Moment”
Reuters: “Blogs feed information frenzy on Mumbai attacks”
ABC News: “Social Media a Lifeline, Also a Threat?”
CBS News: “Web a Reliable Resource in Mumbai Madness”
France 24: “Citizen journalism offers intimate view of Mumbai attacks”
The Guardian: “Twitter comes of age with fast reports from the ground in Mumbai”
The Times of India: “Twittering & blogging about terror”
New York Times: “Citizen Journalists Provided Glimpses of Mumbai Attacks”

(@tweetip followed the first tweets on the Mumbai attacks)

It’s fascinating to see how people flocked to share information onto Twitter and then watch how some of the more mainstream media tried to explain it. Amy Gahran (who is a consultant and works at Poynter) was kind to speak to a number of these media outlets to explain how information needs to be filtered. She tried to explain how social media is a news source and not an evil threat. Unfortunately, some outlets hear that call, others continue to play to the culture of fear. (Note the title of the ABC news article) She wrote a great piece for Poynter on how to be a responsible tweeter.

In reading the many articles online and watching the conversations on Twitter, I’ve come to a couple conclusions on why Twitter can be a wonderful news source for all of us to use during developing news. First, you can’t understand or rely on information from Twitter without becoming a part of the Twitter community. It’s very hard to trust or understand the information found on there unless you’ve been there long enough to build a community and a reliable chunk of people you follow. I knew about Sarah Palin’s nomination hours before it went puplic. My husband thought I was crazy to bring it up. I knew about the earthquake in China and the kind of damage it was causing before there were full accounts on the international media outlets. I knew about developments of smaller stories across the country because I follow people I trust and I’ve spent enough time following them that I knew what they are experts in. If a mom blogger suddenly started tweeting with financial tips, I would question that information unless she happens to be a day trader and a mom blogger (it can happen).

Second, I consider Twitter like how I work with scanners in a newsroom. When there is scanner squawk during breaking news (such as the #Mumbai hashtag) often it’s correct information… but you have to consider the source and confirm it. Twitter can be more reliable considering if you’ve been there a while you already know your sources, background and reliability. When there’s breaking news, you can follow it through a hashtag but confirm and do follow up with the people you follow.

Aggregation. It’s a big focus of my life these days. I’m looking for easy ways to collect information and share it with the general public. At the same time, I’m trying to find ways to collect the websites and social networks I visit and aggregate it into one place. That’s why I’m curious to see how Google’s Friend Connect, Facebook Connect and MySpace’s dataportability may help play in this goal to link everything into one location on the Internet.

I look at this on two levels: How can it work for me and how can it work for my news website.

For me, I love social networking. I love chatting, learning and sharing. It’s kind of obvious from my previous posts. But I think it’s so cool to be able to share and see different perspectives from people I trust. It’s the same idea as having a get together with your friends - but I know I’m not alone when I say many of my friends live across the country. We move around a lot! Not to mention, my job has given me the chance to meet really cool and smart people in all kinds of locations. Social networking lets me stay in touch in ways that writing a letter and sending it in the mail can’t do. And in a slightly self-centered way, it gives me a chance to know what my friends are doing after years of them reading my family blogs and never leaving comments! They know all about me but I don’t know a thing about their most recent updates.

On the professional side of things, I want my news product used by my market! So that’s why I tried an aggregated website sharing the news from KOMU.com, the local NPR newsroom and a local newspaper as a test. We’re aggregating all of our election-themed news and sharing it into the SmartDecision08.com website. This is a way to create a one-stop information hub on the election season in Missouri, specifically mid-Missouri. I don’t have enough funding to make it function as well as I would like it to function, but it is deep. There is so much information and it’s delivered in a way that can really let a news and political information consumer learn a lot. I want to find ways to help collect information and give people the change to socially learn and share on this kind of level. Take news and make it personal. That’s been my goal for years. It’s so cool to see how today’s technology is reaching the concepts I thought about a long time ago.

I am trying out a new site called blippr.com - it gives you a way to socially share the things that entertain you: books, movies, music and games. It’s a level of social networking I haven’t really participated in before. Facebook has all kinds of options that include those items, but blippr seems to have a very clean, concise and non-gimmicky way to accomplish sharing entertainment reviews. It connects to facebook and twitter and friend feed so the idea is to use it as an aggregator of sorts to collect and share your likes and dislikes within the products you already use. I think that’s where everything is headed. I just wish I could wrap my head around how we can use these kinds of tools and still help inform online consumers the news they want and possibly need to know to participate in the non-computer based world where they live. I would have something really cool if I had money and programmers who would put up with my constant brain dumps!

I’m deep inside many different social networking tools. I use them personally in order to see how useful they are for my job. If it’s useful for my day to day life, then there may be a great reason for my newsroom to share its information using those tools. A year ago I got into Twitter, but no one else in my circle got into it so I left. I jumped back in last fall and it’s really picked up steam. Now I’m trying to think of ways these short messages can be helpful for my job and I’ve enjoyed what I can talk about in my life. Fun products like Tweetstats can show off what I talk about the most (like kids, work, meetings, newsroom). I spend a lot of time playing with these tools and thinking big — on a personal and professional level. I blog on Wordpress and Blogger, I tweet on Twitter, I post pictures on Flickr, I create “scrapbooks” on Scrapblog, I co-moderate a Yahoo group, I connect with people on LinkedIn and Facebook. I oversee a news website and an election website. I text, I surf the web from my phone. It’s a hell of a juggle and someday someone is going to find a way to merge all of these products and concepts that offer a connection into one cellphone based tool. I hope I’ll be able to join in and help with the creation of those tools. It wasn’t that long ago when my boss and I were talking about how he would love to see a small handheld video player — Oh you know, like a video iPod? I’m visioning the world’s most interactive iPhone where you can type, talk or post without any effort. That will be super cool. Who knows. Maybe’s Google’s Friend Connect will do that… When it goes live (and it’s rumored to launch today). This could have major implications on how to help a standard website (like komu.com) connect with its audience in a more social way. (The Washington Post explains)

I’ve had Twitter in my view for a while. I joined early last year and decided to drop it when I realized I kept using my own children’s names in the feed. I decided to shut down that username. A few months later I joined back in and I’ve been stunned to watch how my little town in the middle of Missouri is just starting to catch onto Twitter. Not only have individuals joined Twitter, more local media is joining in on the fun as well. You can view my tweets by going to www.twitter.com/jenleereeves. You can view KOMU.com’s tweets by visiting www.twitter.com/komunews. There is a distinct difference between the two twitter accounts. Right now, I tweet about personal and professional things. I also talk to other Twitter members. For KOMU, I tweet with Twitterfeed which is a way to share your RSS feed on Twitter. Twitterfeed turns your URL into a TinyURL so it fits on the 140 character limit. A “follower” simply keeps up to date with the latest top news categorized stories from KOMU.com. I haven’t used it for anything beyond a simplified RSS feed. But I see a TON of potential for Twitter when it comes to delivering news to followers and possibly using the tool for reporters covering news out in the field. The field tweets could be used as direct pieces of information for Twitter followers but it could also be used for gathering up details in the newsroom.

A side tool called Hashtags can collect tweets that have a theme. If there’s a fire in Fulton, Hashtags would aggregate all tweets that contain the word #fultonfire. This would give the newsroom a simple way to keep up with the reporters who are out on the breaking news story. Heck, I wonder if we could use it to follow the reporters covering daily events. I haven’t tried it but I bet it would be an awesome way to keep an eye on the reporters without them feeling micromanaged.

I just realized I have babbled on and on about Twitter and I haven’t even explained it. Twitter is a site that collects your thoughts, status or links. It’s kind of like your Facebook status, but you can update it easily: from your computer (on the twitter ste, via IM or widget tools) or your cellphone. Actually, I update my Twitter and my Facebook profile at the same time. The twist: You must tweet within 140 characters. It’s a concise description of your life and thoughts. I love it. And apparently more and more people are loving it since a journalism student was rescued from jail in Egypt.

Then an extra interesting thing happened. Today, one of my local newspapers decided to follow my Twitter stream. I think that’s interesting. It’s a way to promote the fact that they have the Twitter stream, but it also affiliates the paper to every person who is followed. I purposefully chose not to follow people on Twitter because I didn’t want to appear to pander to the Twitter community. That makes me wonder. Did I make the right choice? Once I knew the local paper had a Twitter stream, I decided to follow them because I’m just curious what they’re up to. But I’d love to hear from those of you out in the interweb? What is the polite or appropriate way to “pimp your site” on Twitter? Is there a right way?

I love this stuff.

…be an automatic system that can take my blog thoughts out of my brain and post them for me so I can get all the other work done!

I’m constantly looking for a way to guide anyone into contributing to good journalism. It’s been my goal for a long time. It should be easy for any person to learn about their community and then pitch in on what they know. Here’s a really interesting article about how the tide is turning.I’ve always felt that journalists can help deliver information better, but everyone should be able to contribute. This article explains the trend very well: “In short, the expert is back. The revival comes amid mounting demand for a more reliable, bankable Web.” It went on to talk about how many of the open source tools out there are too big and too time consuming. Journalists can help mashup that information for the viewer. (I chose the word mashup, not the writer of that article) I think it’s really interesting.I got to meet one of the creators of the EPIC 2014 project from back in 2002. They recently came up with EPIC 2015. It’s fun to speculate about what is going to happen to the journalism industry — and just the overall concept of information sharing and delivery. For now, I’m going to continue to try to deliver and share and help the public do the same. Trying to be realistic is not as fun as just speculating.

I’m constantly swamped. It is so easy to do my job all the time that I actually tend to do my job all the time. I communicate with students over email, over instant message, over text message. I also can keep track of the komu.com site over my cellphone by visiting the site’s mobile site or just visiting the page from my phone’s web browser.

With all of this interaction, I still don’t feel like I’m teaching enough. Is that crazy? It’s because there is SO much to talk about and SO much to learn.

This past week I spent the week teaching small workshops on Flash with students. In most cases I worked with three people at a time. The best I can do is open their eyes to the basic functions of the software. If they want to know more, I encourage them to go to campus training sessions or visit places like lynda.com. A successful training session is opening their minds enough that they can “communicate in Flash.” That type of knowledge gives each person the ability to come up with an idea that would help online users learn about a topic. Then they can work with a Flash expert who would be able to understand the journalist’s instructions and ideas. Communicating in Flash means my journalists can envision good Flash journalism by working with an Action Script expert.

It’s hard to accept that I can’t teach everything that is worth teaching. I’m still learning to accept that.

I’m about to go on a trip to meet with some tech “players.” I hope to brain dump some of my ideas and see if they want to play with me. Ever since I started working with Apple on podcasting, I discovered how higher ed and the high tech corporate world can build some pretty fantastic relationships. Then I get to add in a professional newsroom environment where those products can be put to work in a real world setting where we think about profits. It’s a really exciting opportunity to offer. I haven’t been able to play with as many “toys” as I have hoped, but it’s fun to offer a professional and higher ed perspective at the same time. I hope I’ll come back with some cool projects in my future.

Back in January 2004, I had an opportunity. The Missouri School of Journalism and its partnership with Apple had opened up a chance to work with a subgroup from EDUCAUSE. These days it’s called ELI - EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. I had a chance to coordinate the podcast of ELI’s conference. It turns out, it was the first conference that was podcasted in the world. Pretty amazing when you think about that.

Since then, my mind started churning: Think of all the ways a journalist can share information in alternate ways beyond the standard newspaper, magazine, radio and television. Then my mind churned further: Think of all the ways I can use my knowledge as a broadcast news producer to deliver information in a non-traditional way to students on college campuses. The skills I have to maintain interest and share facts are even more useful with the new ways we can deliver information to college students.

That’s when my world rapidly changed.

I started thinking a lot. My mind was churning and I took my ideas back to the Missouri School of Journalism and my newsroom, KOMU-TV. Here’s how it all works. I’m a news manager at KOMU. It’s an NBC affiliate and owned by the University of Missouri. 3/4 of my pay comes from KOMU, 1/4 comes from the Missouri School of Journalism where I am an assistant professor. Those two roles give me access to amazing students and great opportunities to experiment with news delivery.

After I started sharing my ideas with the school and KOMU, I had an opportunity to move from the role as executive producer of all of our newscasts to new media director of our website, komu.com. I was able to work with a team of people to design a site and use a content manager system created through the Avid company. Our newsroom is made of mostly students who are taking classes at the school of journalism. We operated a working newsroom in as a lab experience. They come out of it with professional experience under their belt. My job has been to help take that experience up a notch and guide the students into thinking on multiple levels: Delivering the news in the way the story needs it delivered, not just on the air but also online.

I think it’s stunning how technology allows us to teach, share, inform, collaborate, communicate in such simple and convenient ways. I see these as ways to improve workflow in the classroom, in the newsroom and in life.

I hope to share my thoughts, start conversations and start piecing together what I really can do with all of these ideas that float in my head.