The N&O and Online Journalism Students

I had nothing to do with it, but I was happy to see three students I had in my Online News Writing and Editing classes this year get a shout out on newsobserver.com for their work this semester with the Under the Dome blog.

That partnership was a great example of what can happen when good students get paired up with a patient, energetic and innovative journalist like Ryan Teague Beckwith, the reporter who minds the blog.

Research Question: Curious or Influential?

Over at his blog, Under the Dome, at NewsObserver.com, Ryan Teague Beckwith points out another interesting online political communication question: What’s the relationship between candidate messages in paid media, free media coverage of those messages and Google searches related to those messages?

And who are the Google searchers on political terms? Are they The Influentials? Young People? Newspaper readers? Non-voters? All of the above?

Bloggers: The New Anchors

A colleague of mine at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Val Lauder, recently shared this article with the faculty e-mail list. The piece, written by Johnnie L. Roberts for Newsweek, wonders “Can News Anchors like Katie Couric Survive?”

I don’t know whether anchors like Katie Couric can survive, but there is one kind of news anchor that is thriving. They’re called bloggers.

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Win $1M the Holovaty Way

In Just Seven Easy Steps

For anyone who has ever been to an online journalism conference, you know Adrian Holovaty. He’s either on a panel, winning an award or being referenced by newsroom mangers, usually with some phrase similar to “we need more people like Adrian Holovaty”

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R&D at J-Schools

Ken Sands, executive editor of innovation at Congressional Quarterly, sent me this BusinessWeek article.

“Last fall, psychologist B. J. Fogg taught a class at Stanford University in which he assigned students to develop Facebook applications. During the 10 weeks of the class, 73 students developed applications such as Kiss Me, Oregon Trail, and Secret Admirer, that have since resulted in 25 million installs and, by the end of the class, were attracting about 1 million daily, active users. These applications have generated more than $500,000 in ad revenue since September. At least three companies were formed by students in the class.”

Sometimes I drone on about j-schools needing to be R&D shops for industry. This is what I’m talking about.

If you have other examples, please send them my way.