Speakeasy

With regards to the text editor, I would recommend Notepad on a PC. Another option is jEdit (www.jedit.org). Its free, and really powerful. Might be overkill. On the Mac side, Barebones just released Text Wrangler for free. Its a slightly stripped down version of BBedit.

For external links, I would make a blanket policy available somewhere on the site. Maybe have a link to it at the bottom of every page in the footer or end of the articles.

Hi Prof. Westfall,

My name is Cara McCoy, and I took your Info Gathering class last fall. I was really impressed with how you taught interviewing skills, and was wondering if you would be interested in coming to give a lecture it for my student organization.

I'm currently the vice-president of the Online Journalism Student Society. This quarter, we have undertaken a huge project and hope to launch an independent Web zine by spring. We currently have a staff of about 25 energetic writers, but most of them are freshmen and have not been able to take very many journalism classes yet. Erin Coyle is going to give a presentation on how to do basic news writing, such as ledes and nut graphs, next week. We were hoping that you would be able to give a lecture on interviewing on February 15, which is a Tuesday. We generally meet from 6:10-7 p.m., and would love it if you could come.

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them via email or you can call me at 590-1931.

Thanks so much for your time.

Sincerely,
Cara McCoy





===================================
Cara McCoy
Online Journalism Major
E.W. Scripps School of Journalism
Ohio University

Online Journalism Student Society VP
cara@lostpacket.com

So, an update of things discussed post-meeting with Erin Coyle.

Next Tuesday will be a special session with Erin Coyle, grad student and all-together awesome person who, along with Katie Gill will make a presentation to our budding young journalists. Topics covered will include how to gather info and how to write, esp. ledes and nut graphs.

I will invite Pat Westfall to our meeting on the following Tuesday to go over interviewing skills.

We also discussed doing a workshop that would cover basic HTML skills, and inviting Bob Stewart to host this.

We also discussed getting business cards that will have the (yet to be determined) Speakeasy logo on them, along with each reporter's contact info.

Katie, Caren and I are meeting individually with all section editors on Thursday. By that time, we will have written descriptions of all their jobs. This is to make sure that they can handle all the responsibility we give them, and to keep positions consistent throughout the years. With Erin (and also with Bob this morning) we discussed policies for keeping Speakeasy up and running ad infinitum, and I think we have established some rough policies for doing so. To replace the editors-in-chief (a position that will remain a co-position), interested parties will submit an application and proposal during winter quarter. They will also go through an interview process with the current editors-in-chief and also two faculty. They will select the new editors via committee. Also, it was discussed that these newly selected people be involved in selecting the heads of the different departments (section editors) along with faculty through the same process. It was suggested to also have them submit an example (not necessarily a clip) story and maybe write about what they would keep, what they would change on the site. Also to perhaps have them submit a sample front page.

We need to make sure that all writers use the same word processor (preferably not Word) to write their stories so that there aren't problems with formatting and the CMS.

We need to post a disclaimer on the site that we are not responsible for the content of external links. We also need to include that we only guarantee? the link works at the time the article was published.

A specific email address needs to be developed for each desk, especially for corrections.

Katie Gill has spelled out very excellently our corrections policy. Katie, if you read this, please post it here! Katie will be working on spelling out office style, and is working on compiling a list of buildings around town and their specific spellings.

Reference books used in the newsroom will be:
AP Style Book (duh.)
SPJ policy
Webster's Dictionary
Media Writer's Handbook

Next quarter we will have an established time for a weekly editor's meeting.

We need to establish a policy about who can try and contact which OU administrators s o we don't bombard them with questions on every story we write. Editors-in-chief should approve this contact.

For using the CMS of Athensi, we should avoid the use of Italics because they don't show up. We should use bold face, which is in contrast to AP style.

Ellen Cox will be heading the promotions and advertising team, and will talk to Ad Club to recruit members.

As an aside, looks like Rob Curley of www.lawrence.com may be coming to talk! Yay! Also, Bob Stewart wants us to organize a spring quarter conference... we'll see how that goes.

About SpeakEasy

- URL
o www.speakeasymag.com

- Target Audience
o 17-26 years old
o OU Students
o Broadband Users
o Small Monitors (15 inch)
o Active
o Open-Minded
o Culturally Connected (Pop Culture)

- Attitude
o Off-beat
o All from student point of view
o Support the use of humor and satire in appropriate articles

We need to establish how we are going to be responsible for links that we include as supplements to articles, but are not based on our site. Should we include a policy somewhere?


Also, we need to remember to include in the HTML links in the bottom the "about us" section.

Today we are looking for articles in the right style/we are going to write one for our reporters to use as an example. We'll see how it goes.

Things we need to consider with our site, according to Dean Singleton in a 2002 speech:

The importance of outstanding customer service
* Matching content with market
* Getting the right emphasis on local news
* Making the product easy to use
* Driving readership with advertising
* Branding
* Promoting content
* And building a culture within the paper that believes in these imperatives and is open to making the changes needed to put them to work.

Something to keep in mind (copied from something Cara found - to be attributed later):

In his classic book, Naked Lunch, William Burroughs described heroin as the ultimate product. Why? Because people would crawl through the sewers and beg to buy it. In the non-drug world, there are very few products that can be classified as having heroin's appeal.

How many web sites have heroin content?
Heroin Content's characteristics vary by type of site -- but you'll know it when you see it! One global characteristic, though, is frequently updated content. The best way to get people to come back to your site again and again is by having content they need, and then updating this content on a regular basis.

How do you create Heroin Content? The answer is, it depends on the likes and dislikes of your audience. Remember, it's what your audience wants that counts. What I consider Heroin Content is somebody else's Quinine Content.

Here are some thoughts about web content.
* Does your content solve your customers' problems or does it create problems?

* Does your content match your audience's expectations?

* Have you determined the purpose of your site?

* Do you know your target audience?

* Ask yourself: "What content do I have that would cause anybody in their right mind to visit my site a second, third, or fourth time?" -- This is extremely important. You might con (seduce) someone to visit your site once, but why would they want If you can't answer this question, you really shouldn't have a Web site.

* Is the content technically correct?

* Does your customer need to know the content you're presenting?

* Is the content current and updated frequently?

* Can people find the content they're looking for?

* Does my site have Heroin Content?
The best content is the content people want to see over and over and over again.

I just got through reading that Bill Gates wants to start a blog. Why would anyone in their right mind want to read it? Do you think it will contain Heroin Content? As Seth Godin points out, blogs only work when they meet four of the following five conditions:
1. Candor
2. Urgency
3. Timeliness
4. Pithiness
5. Controversy



http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html
http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/biggest-web-design-mistakes-in-2004.html

Here are the "official" updates from previous meetings:

• the online mag will be titled SpeakEasy with the url of www.speakeasymag.com
• Caren Baginski is heading up the Content Department
• there will be six different sections of SpeakEasy, officially titled:
  (1) On the Green -- Meghan Louttit
  (2) Event Calendar -- Ellen Cox
  (3) Staff Columns (Blogs) -- Jen Sickels
  (4) In the Limelight -- Anna Marie Finley
  (5) From our Readers -- Jen Edse
  (6) Culture -- Sara Goldenberg
• Katie Gill is designing our style book for SpeakEasy.

Agenda for today's meeting:

• Meghan Louttit and Liz Gray will be doing a quick presentation on tips for writing for the web and specifically for SpeakEasy
• Section editors will be splitting off into groups with those interested in being on their staff to establish contact with one another and develop an action plan - this will also give the design team a chance to get together.
• The last 10-15 minutes will be spent with Section Editors only
  

A note to the editors:

• Cara and I would like some kind of "timeless" content for each section and sub-section by March 11th. This will allow us time to work with the design team and CMS in order to get rid of any bugs.
• We would also like everyone to submit a more "up-to-date" piece by April 1st. We want to have as much content as possible when we launch the site on April 4th.
• Each section will need to be updated at a minimum of 2x each week once the site is launched, so remember to look for for good story ideas.
• Also, look for good photo and possibly multimedia opportunities.