While the printed page has been the dominant medium in scholastic journalism, online publishing has started to take off. But keep in mind: It’s always about people. Plus: 15 Things to Think About for 2010-2011.

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