The document discusses the importance of integrating various media platforms in student journalism, emphasizing the need to engage with digital tools while maintaining traditional print methods. It provides a quiz to assess technological proficiency and offers insights into effective storytelling techniques and audience engagement through social media. Ultimately, it highlights the responsibility of student journalists to deliver compelling content across multiple formats and to serve as credible information sources within their school communities.

1. Print, Pixels & People
Ideas for today’s
student journalist
Logan Aimone, MJE, executive director
National Scholastic Press Association

2. Let’s start
with a quiz!
Keep score at your seat,
or just keep track in your head.
If you’re really techy, you’ll add
your points on your iPhone.
Print, Pixels & People

3. 1. Mobile
5 points: You have a Web-enabled
mobile device (BlackBerry, iPhone,
etc.)
3 points: You have a cellphone with
text message capability (that you use)
1 point: Cellphones can do that? Yours
is just for actual phone calls.
0 points: No cellphone.
+3 Bonus if you have a Web-enabled
phone and an iPad
Print, Pixels & People

4. 2. E-mail
5 points: You check your e-mail
account(s) on your computer, iPad and
phone.
3 points: You use only a computer to
access e-mail.
1 point: You have to print your
e-mails to file them.
0 points: No e-mail.
+1 if you’re on Gmail.
-1 if you still use AOL.
Print, Pixels & People

5. 3. Microblogging
5 points: You have a Twitter account
and regularly send tweets.
3 points: You set up a Twitter account
but never send tweets.
1 point: You have at least heard of
Twitter.
0 points: You think the only “tweets”
are from birds.
+1 Bonus: You Tweet from your phone,
or if you know and use TwitPic.
Print, Pixels & People

6. 4. Curated Links
5 points: You have an account on
Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon,
Publish2 or another social
bookmarking site.
3 points: You’ve seen these sites.
1 point: You’ve forwarded a link.
0 points: You thought curating was for
museums.
Print, Pixels & People

7. 5. Social Network
5 points: You’re a Facebook expert
(pages, groups, photos, links, apps).
3 points: You’ve seen these sites.
1 point: Your main Facebook activity is
Farmville or Mafia Wars.
0 points: No active Facebook.
+1 if you manage a fan page or a group.
-1 if you only have MySpace.
Print, Pixels & People

8. 6. Websites
5 points: You own your own domain
name and manage the site.
3 points: You’ve dabbled online with
HTML or WordPress.
1 point: You are mainly a user, not a
creator online.
0 points: You think the Internet is a
“series of tubes.”
+1 if you access on your phone.
Print, Pixels & People

9. 7. Flickr
5 points: You have a Flickr account and
post images regularly.
3 points: You’ve browsed Flickr.
1 point: You know Flickr exists.
0 points: You think this is about
candles and wonder why it’s
misspelled.
+5 if you know about Creative
Commons and have abided by a CC
license.
Print, Pixels & People

10. 8. Video
5 points: You’ve created and uploaded
a video to YouTube or another site.
3 points: You’ve watched multiple
YouTube videos.
1 point: You’ve maybe seen a couple
videos online.
0 points: You didn’t know YouTube
was an online video source.
+1 if you have seen the Old Spice ads.
+5 if your question was in one.
Print, Pixels & People

11. 9. Miscellaneous
Bonus Points:
+2 if you use RSS feeds
+2 if you read Mashable.com
+2 if you have at least one app for news
+2 if you have at least one app for
lifestyle
+2 if you’re on LinkedIn
+2 if you’ve made a Google Map
+2 if you use Google Docs
Print, Pixels & People

12. Scoring
35+: Impressive! You’re techy. You
probably already tweeted your score.
25-34: Not too shabby. You’ll probably
update your Facebook about this later.
11-24: You’re somewhat techy, but you
could to kick it up a notch. Ask your
friends how.
10 and under: Time to start living in
the 21st century.
Print, Pixels & People

13. Shifting Gears
What’s your platform?
Print, Pixels & People

14. Print
What’s working?
Print, Pixels & People

15. Print
• Although it has faced challenges from
broadcast media, it remains the most
common, widespread and portable form of
mass media.
• It’s relatively inexpensive, portable and
accessible.
• What is the impact on the school
community when printed media are
eliminated?
• What content should be printed?
Print, Pixels & People

16. Pixels
What’s new?
Print, Pixels & People

17. Pixels
• While the printed page has been the
dominant medium in scholastic
journalism, online publishing has started
to take off.
• More student newspapers — and even
magazines and yearbooks — are turning to
the Web for a variety of reasons.
Print, Pixels & People

18. Pixels
• The Internet allows for instant publishing
of content rather than the infrequent
publication of print.
• Compared to the expense of printing an
edition of the newspaper, a Web site is
dramatically less expensive — maybe even
free.
• However, websites can be hard to manage
and inaccessible to many.
Print, Pixels & People

19. People
What’s it all about?
Print, Pixels & People

20. People
• Ultimately, it’s the content that matters.
• You and your staff need to answer this
question:
• What is the most appropriate format to
use to tell this story?
Print, Pixels & People

21. Putting it
together
What does today’s
student journalist
need to think about?
Print, Pixels & People

22. Convergence
• The term convergence means a “coming
together” — and that’s what you have
available to you today.
• Members of Generation Y (that’s you!) are
comfortable with and operating in a
converged media environment.
Print, Pixels & People

23. Convergence
• Online tools allow a media staff to combine
multiple media to deliver content in the
most appropriate format: text, audio,
images or video.
• Online networks like MySpace, Facebook,
YouTube, Delicious, Flickr and Twitter
allow users to build a community and to
customize and share content.
Print, Pixels & People

24. Convergence
• Are you and your staff positioned to tell the
story in multiple formats?
• Why not?
Print, Pixels & People

25. Social Media
• Because teens are comfortable in this
environment, you need to shift your focus
to take advantage of where your readers/
viewers are.
• Engage your readers in a way that helps
them (they get news) and helps you (you
get tips for more news).
Print, Pixels & People

26. Social Media
• Do you have any idea how big of an impact
social media are having on every aspect of
our lives?
• Let’s watch a short video and see…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=sIFYPQjYhv8
(Social Media Revolution 2, May 5, 2010
Print, Pixels & People

27. Social Media
• A few highlights from the video:
• Nearly all of you (96%) are on a social
network.
• That’s the #1 Web activity.
• More than 500 million people are on
Facebook. (More on that in a minute.)
• Fastest-growing segment is women 55-65
(that’s your mom or grandma!).
Print, Pixels & People

28. Social Media
• More highlights from the video:
• 80% of Twitter use is by mobile device.
• That’s instant discussion, good or bad.
• Studies show Wikipedia is more accurate
than Encyclopedia Brittanica.
• But that’s not an excuse for using it as
your sole source.
Print, Pixels & People

29. Social Media
• More highlights from the video:
• 78% of people trust peer
recommendations. Only 14% trust ads.
• 25% of Americans watched a short video
in the last month on their phone.
Print, Pixels & People

30. Facebook
• In June 2009, the average United States
user spent an average of 4 hours, 39
minutes on the site per month (~9 minutes
per day), according to Nielsen Media.
• In January 2010, the average U.S. user
spent more than 7 hours per month (~14
minutes per day) on Facebook.
• That’s more time on Facebook than on
Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Microsoft,
Wikipedia and Amazon — combined.
Print, Pixels & People

31. 15 Things to Think
About This Year
Improving your operation
in 2010-2011
Print, Pixels & People

32. 1. Be excellent
• It probably goes without saying, but I’ll say
it anyway: Strive for excellence.
• Excellence isn’t settling for pretty good.
• Good enough is not good enough.
• Set goals to improve with each edition or
deadline.
Print, Pixels & People

33. 2. Get out there
• You can’t really get a story unless you get
out and talk to people. In person.
• Yes, in person!
• You can always tell the difference when a
writer has observed and interviewed in
person.
• E-mail or chat interviews fill a need, but
they are not as effective as being there.
Print, Pixels & People

34. 3. Find stories
• Establish a solid beat system in place to
gather the routine news.
• Expect that each beat will yield some briefs
and longer stories.
• Demand enterprise from reporters (editors,
too). That means digging around to find
something newsworthy and writing it in a
compelling, interesting and useful way.
Print, Pixels & People

35. 4. Show us
• Probably the most widely read (and most
liked) stories are those that tell interesting
stories about people.
• Your school and community are full of
these stories.
• Localize national issues with the stories of
people around you.
Print, Pixels & People

36. 5. Get a Web site
• There’s really no excuse today for not
having at least a basic Web site.
• Basic: You could post a PDF version of the
printed paper.
• Advanced: You could update news
throughout the school day.
• An online presence opens up a new
universe of multimedia opportunities.
Print, Pixels & People

37. 6. Get social
• MySpace and Facebook accounts are free.
Interact with readers by posting links to
stories and by getting tips from readers.
• With 60 million Facebook status updates
daily, you can monitor what’s happening
or ask them to let you know about events
occurring outside school (or at school but
not known).
• Let readers submit photos, letters, etc., to
you through these pages.
Print, Pixels & People

38. 7. Start Tweeting
• Twitter is a free “microblogging” site that
works in 140-character messages.
• As you gather “followers” you will be able
to pass along messages to a wide group of
people. That means instantly informing
your followers when news happens (sports
scores, lockdown, free burritos at
Chipotle).
• Use hashtags (#word) to label and search.
Print, Pixels & People

39. 8. Get Delicious
• Delicious.com is a social bookmarking site
that is, guess what, free.
• You can post links there that will be useful
to others.
• The links can be labeled and sorted in a
number of ways.
• This is a way to enhance content beyond
the printed page.
• You can also see what others bookmarked.
Print, Pixels & People

40. 9. Use Flickr
• Flickr is an online image-sharing service.
Yep, it’s free for a basic account.
• You can make your images available for
people to browse.
• Through a Creative Commons license, you
can get images to use (free and legal!).
Print, Pixels & People

41. 10. Use YouTube
• YouTube is a solution to upload videos.
• It might be blocked on your school’s
computers.
• However, it’s not blocked on mobile devices
or at home, which is where most people
will probably access the videos anyway.
• If you need a site to get by school filters, try
SchoolTube.com instead.
Print, Pixels & People

42. 11. Do multimedia
• With a Web site, not only can you update
news and information as frequently as you
want, you can improve the content.
• The newspaper can showcase one or two
images from an event. Online, you can
have dozens — with audio and captions.
• Yearbook staffs can promote the book
through “sneak peeks” or extras that are
posted online.
Print, Pixels & People

43. 12. Be the #1 source
• Be serious about being the top information
source for all things about your school.
• If someone wants to know a fact, score,
date, record, time or whatever — be the
place they turn for that information.
• Own sports stats, especially JV and lower
squads.
• Scoop the local paper. Doesn’t it feel good
when that happens?
Print, Pixels & People

44. 13. Do fewer…
• Horoscopes and advice columns
• Superficial columns (carpe diem,
senioritis, slow drivers, etc.) that could be
in any year
• Double-truck stories on “hot topics” that
aren’t tied to a news event. Make sure you
have a news peg if you’re committing that
much space.
Print, Pixels & People

45. 14. Follow the law
• Obey copyright.
• Only use “fair use” images or get
permission. Flickr lets you search for
Creative Commons images.
• Use copyright-free music unless you pay
a royalty.
• Saying it’s “for education” doesn’t let you
off the hook.
• Know privacy rules.
• Know your rights.
Print, Pixels & People

46. 15. Remember…
• Your role on campus is to inform and
enlighten your audience.
• You have a responsibility — an obligation,
even — to take that seriously and to do it
well.
• Your audience needs you to tell them the
things no one else will tell them.
Print, Pixels & People

47. Summary
Time to wake up if you
have been sleeping!
Print, Pixels & People

48. Print
Keep doing it.
• It’s perfect for long stories.
• People can pick it up and take it with
them.
• It’s permanent. (You can’t tape a Web page
in your scrapbook.)
Print, Pixels & People

49. Pixels
Get more digital.
• It’s instant.
• You build a community.
• Readers expect you to be online.
• If you don’t someone else will.
Print, Pixels & People

50. People
It’s always about them.
• Whether in print or online, it’s the story
that matters most.
• Find the platform that is most appropriate.
• Converge multiple platforms to
experiment.
• Be excellent.
Print, Pixels & People

51. Thanks!
Twitter: @NSPA
Facebook:
National Scholastic
Press Association
Any questions?
Print, Pixels & People