School's Real-Media Outlets Expand Online, Social and Mobile Platforms
Videos Show Newsrooms, Agency at Work
A multitude of hands-on real-media and agency experiences is why many students decide to study at the Missouri School of Journalism and why employers appreciate the ability of recent alumni to hit the ground running upon graduation.
These days technology is transforming the outlets, as they expand their online presence and use social and media platforms for news delivery. The changes also are revolutionizing how newsrooms are managed, and students are involved in discussions about how best to organize resources in a 24/7 environment. Here's a snapshot of what some Missouri media and its advertising/public relations agencies have focused on this past semester.
Missouri School of Journalism Media/Advertising Outlets
AdZou, the strategic communication capstone agency
AdZou, the strategic communication capstone course, has a new look and, for the first time, a website to tell the world about the great work that is produced every semester by teams of graduating seniors. The program is now called AdZou.
Last fall, six teams of students did the research and developed strategic communication plans for real-life clients including the U.S. Army, a mid-Missouri sign company and the Femme Fatales, a group of nationally-known mystery writers. Clients for the spring semester are an eclectic mix including Fox Sports Midwest, which will employ three teams, the Excellence in Missouri Foundation, and Head East, a rock band from yesteryear out with a new video and CD.
Students spend the entire semester doing the research, developing strategy and creating tactics for clients who are often looking for a fresh approach to their marketing challenges and are eager to see what traditional and new media approaches our students might suggest. AdZou brings all of the knowledge and skills that students have learned at the J-School to bear on these real life projects. Clients are often astounded by the excellent work product they receive, and students consistently tell professors that in AdZou, they worked harder than in any class in college.
Center for the Digital Globe
The Center for the Digital Globe (CDiG) is an interdisciplinary center that focuses its research, teaching and conferences on the topics of globalization, e-commerce and digitization. Its mission is to prepare students and citizens for the world in which these interlinked and interacting forces are changing the way we live, work and learn.
The College of Business, the School of Law, the School of Journalism, and the College of Human Environmental Sciences, through the department of Textile & Apparel Management, were the original programs that created CDiG. Today, faculty members in political science, communication, geography, computer science, electrical and computer engineering, civil and environmental engineering, information sciences and learning technologies, mechanical and aerospace engineering and industrial and manufacturing systems engineering participate in CDiG projects.
CDiG's goals include interdisciplinary research, teaching and service at the state, national and international levels. Goals are accomplished in many ways, including involvement in grant projects, providing travel and project grants, offering sponsored events, which are open to the campus and to the public and offering courses and graduate certificate programs with a multidisciplinary and research focus.
CDiG-affiliated faculty are involved in numerous campus programs including directing two of the five Mizzou Advantage initiatives: Media for the Future and Understanding and Managing Transformational Technologies. Students are engaged in many research projects across disciplines and through graduate certificate programs. CDiG also helps students get involved in entrepreneurial projects where they can apply their research. In fall 2010 students across divisions built teams and competed on designing new software for Android, Google's mobile operating system. Adobe, Google and Sprint, as well as media partner Hearst Innovations, a unit of Hearst Corporation, sponsored the competition.
CDiG sponsors an annual spring symposium and additional events that feature recognized experts and other distinguished speakers. The 2010 symposium discussed new ideas for the future of media. Faculty and students present CDiG-funded research on campus as well as at peer-reviewed conferences around the world.
Additional information about CDiG projects is available at http://cdig.missouri.edu/.
Columbia Missourian
The Columbia Missourian made radical changes in the fall to improve its primary platform: ColumbiaMissourian.com.
For years, Missourian faculty members emphasized a "Web-first" focus, but the rhythm of the day still reflected print. Last spring, advanced reporting students urged Missourian faculty to let a small, isolated team concentrate on the print edition and then reconfigure all other newsroom responsibilities on the website and other emerging platforms.
This fall, news design students became the print team. Everyone else, freed from worrying about filling the paper edition, was charged with concentrating on the ColumbiaMissourian.com website. That change was particularly profound for the newly dubbed "interactive copy editors." No longer worried about trimming stories to fit a restricted space and writing one-column headlines, the copy editors began taking on more responsibility for the website. They now focus on creating headlines for search engine optimization, embedding interactive maps and surveys, managing comment threads and broadcasting the best headlines via Twitter and Facebook.
How's it going? The student team has managed the print edition with minimal involvement from others. Student copy editors, already comfortable citizens of the Internet, found themselves suited for a role that encourages them to keep reader interaction top of mind. The print edition hasn't suffered, while "Web first" is no longer just a mantra.
Global Journalist
With the arrival of a new Lee Hills Chair in Free Press Studies, Amy McCombs, the Journalism School's international magazine, Global Journalist, is transitioning to a cross-platform news product. Students in the Global Journalist class produce the print magazine and original, Web-only content with links and opportunities for online networking at www.globaljournalist.org.
The Global Journalist radio program features a weekly discussion of international news by a panel of journalists from around the world. The program streams live at 9 a.m. (CST) Thursdays and airs at 6:30 p.m. on KBIA 91.3 FM. The program is multimedia with video, images and graphics.
McCombs is a chief executive and business leader who was at the forefront of technological advances and the creation of news content for multiple media platforms.
"A digital Global Journalist will be able to connect individuals worldwide with major international issues and events," McCombs says. "Expanding Global Journalist in this convergent environment will showcase the work of Missouri journalism students to audiences around the world while continuing its mission to serve international journalists."
KBIA 91.3 FM
KOMU-TV
KOMU is undergoing a revolution of sorts in 2011. News Director Stacey Woelfel has put out the charge to students, faculty and staff to reinvent the way the station serves the public and prepares students for the "three-screen" world (TV, computer, mobile) that television newsrooms now serve.
Part of that change is a move toward three tiers of student journalists producing stories for the newcasts and KOMU's Web and mobile sites. The first tier covers the basic news of the day, working as part of what the newsroom has dubbed the "VO (voice over) Patrol." Reporters just starting at KOMU get this assignment and go out to cover the stories that will be an important part of the news mix but don't quite rate package status.
In the second tier, reporters who package stories and do live reports provide the other half of the station's general assignment mix. These reporters get the big stories and the breaking news. They work to put them together for web and air as quickly as possible.
Finally, the top tier is made up of the station's senior journalists, who turn out in-depth reports on important community issues. These reporters do deep investigative, consumer, environmental and other types of significant reporting.
Joining Woelfel to lead the newsroom are executive producer Randy Reeves, new media director Jennifer Reeves, managing editor Elizabeth Frogge, supervising producer Rod Petersen, and supervising producer Jennifer McMillen. The station's full-time anchor talent team is made up of Jim Riek, Angie Bailey, Sarah Hill, Megan Murphy, Chance Seales, Dave Schmidt, Eric Aldrich, Michelle Bogowith, Chris Gervino and Eric Blumberg.
Missouri Digital News
Missouri Digital News has spent the past year expanding its production platform. Print, broadcast and convergence journalism students now have complete user ID/password protected access to the full range of newsroom functions and databases from anywhere in the world where they can access Internet.
The completely in-house developed Newsroom without Walls (NW2) allows a student or editor to write and file stories; add digital audio wraps to MDN's broadcast story lineup; maintain the daily headline service NewsBook, as well as MDN's MPANews service to members of the Missouri Press Association; automatically tweet headlines and filed stories; search and manage the newsroom's day book of events, ticklers and enterprise story ideas; maintain their MDN homepages that provide an automatic update listing of their stories; and manage the newsroom's mail account and write their weekly MDN blogs.
NW2 had its most rigorous test on last November's election night when MDN reporters scattered across the state were able to file both stories and broadcast wraps while editors across the state were able to manage the copy flow without a hitch.
"It's great to know that wherever my story takes me, I'm able to complete the process," says Alysha Love, a print and digital news student who has advanced to the editor of MPANews for this year.
Phill Brooks, MDN's director, notes that his student assistants love NW2 because it allows them to assume a level of responsibility for the newsroom that is not restricted by scheduling limitations for getting to the statehouse. "It really has empowered and inspired my student assistants in ways I had not imagined," he says.
In 2011 MDN plans to work on incorporating into its archives the weekly TV program it helps produce for Missouri public television, Jeff City Journal. In addition, MDN will be producing setup video reports for the Jeff City Journal discussions. And, Love has begun adding audio packages to MDN's MPANews service for newspapers to include in their Web pages.
Having fully automated Twitter feeds, developing the same approach for MDN's Facebook account will be a major 2011 goal. Another major goal will to be to expand an experiment last year to create a graphics desk at MDN.
Mojo Ad
Mojo Ad, the School's student-staffed agency, continues to grow and expand its reputation as the go-to expert in the Youth and Young Adult (YAYA) market. Each year the agency produces a "State of the YAYA" report, which provides insights and marketing tips for reaching the 18- to 24-year-old demographic. Students have presented key highlights of the report to representatives of the U.S. Marines, Columbia agencies True Media, Pure and Woodruff Sweitzer as well as the MU research and development committee. Visit Mojo Ad's Our Work page to download the latest factbook.
Mojo Ad students produce integrated advertising and public relations campaigns for national brands. Redbox, the innovative movie rental company, was their client for the fall semester, and others have included Hallmark, AOL, Discovery Channel, Purina, Long John Silver's and A&W. Clients heap praise on the professionalism exhibited by Mojo Ad students. Noted AOL's Grant Belaire, vice president of marketing, "Each (Mojo Ad) team was spectacularly prepared, polished in their presentation and came off as well as any presentation from a true-life agency we have seen."
Mojo Ad graduates are now working at top agencies, nonprofits and corporations throughout the U.S., including Crispin Porter, Leo Burnett, Starcom, The Richards Group, Integer, Shriner's Hospital, Empower MediaMarketing, OMD, Adamson and Cannonball. The agency celebrated its fifth anniversary in the fall.
Newsy
In October Newsy launched its BlackBerry app, which was developed by convergence journalism student Tony Brown, and Qia Wang, an MU computer science graduate student. Newsy's popular iPad app has been downloaded more than 125,000 times, and its Android app and iPhone app are both highly rated. Journalism students partner with those in information technology and computer science to develop technology for emerging media.
This past fall, Jim Spencer, MA '91, president of Newsy, served on a panel about content delivery for mobile platforms at the Online News Association. Newsy won a W3 award for mobile applications for news.
Some Newsy video clips developed by Missouri journalism students have been shown on popular television shows. One produced by Lauren Zima, MA '10, has appeared on the Dr. Phil show and on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. Another Newsy video clip is scheduled to air on American Idol in January 2011. It was written by journalism seniors Keertana Sastry and anchored by Austin Kim.
To meet growing demand for content, Newsy continues to grow its workforce. The vast majority of its 11 full-time employees and dozens of the part-timers are graduates of or undergraduate students at the Missouri School of Journalism.
Vox
Vox is in your hands, on your computer, in your Twitter feed and on your smartphone.
Reporters also live-tweet events such as concerts and festivals and recently focused on expansive coverage of the Citizen Jane Film Festival, a Stephens College-sponsored event that highlights films created by women. Students from Assistant Professor Andrea Heiss' critical reviewing class watched the films, wrote reviews and sent drafts to the magazine staff (Vox) class student editors. They then made suggestions and worked with the writers on revisions before posting the reviews online.
All of this led to The Drinking Issue. Published Oct. 21, the 24-page special issue covered the pleasures and dangers of alcohol in department text, a feature well and online multimedia content that included a narrative glance at a local night on the town, a look at the language of liquor, fake IDs, sobering statistics and rehab. If you've never taken a late-night trip to the ER for alcohol poisoning, you can with Vox. If you've never heard of a Louisville chugger, it's in the same place. Associate professor Berkley Hudson's intermediate writing class brainstormed and produced all the issue's content with Vox student editors, and the result was a diverse exploration of alcohol that appeared in the Columbia Missourian and around the city.
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