| | ONLINE-EDITING TRACK Wild Wild Web Incyberspace, the news cycle
never ceases and the rules
are evolving. Yet online
journalism is still journalism,
and opportunities abound
for those with solid editing skills ByKate Karp
With nearly every paper in the countrysupporting an adjunct Web site, copy desks are jumpinginto fast cars and driving the Information Superhighway, leavingprint-only in the dust. At this year’sACES conference in Miami, an online journalism track wasintroduced to address questions and topics that plague or intrigue copy editors:necessary skills to facilitate a culture change, job cuts and opportunities, the importance of a print medium in a cyber world and whatsort of animal exists as a Web page. “What rules dowe follow?” asked Robert Griffin, assistant news editorat The Oklahoman. According to JohnRussial of University of Oregon and co-presenter of “Editingin a Multimedia World,” all bets are off, for now. The rules are still beingwritten, whether by individual editorial staff, reporters, online producers, print editors or a combination of any and all. Online journalismis still in a fledgling state, but has a wingspan thatseems to be extending indefinitely. READ MORE
| | CLOSING GENERAL SESSION An uncertain future
Amid turmoil in the newspaper industry
and the stampede to the Web,
copy editors ask themselves,
"Where do we go from here?" ByJackie Kunzmann
“These are times that try copy editors’ souls.”
With those words, Hank Glamann summed up what’s been happeningin the newspaper industry: Newspapers have been sold; previouslylarge companies have ceased to exist; staffs have beenreduced. And, through it all, copy editors have been asked to change the waythey do their jobs.
An unease is brewing in the ranks. We are concerned abouthow we maintain our standards as the newspaper industrychanges around us. “We are very much where we were whenwe met for the first time 10 years ago in Chapel Hill,”Glamann said, referring to the initial meeting of ACES at the University ofNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill. READ MORE | | |
| Mackenzie Warren (Fort Myers, Fla., News-Press) discusses his paper's emphasis on all things local. | | | "GOING HYPER-LOCAL" Local news in overdrive AFlorida newspaper finds
success by deploying an army
of "mobile journalists" to
cover neighborhood happenings
for the Web and by publishing
all-local section fronts in print ByKhari Williams
A southwest Florida newspaper is addingreaders by working its “mojos.”
Managers at The (Fort Myers) News-Press,aware they cannot compete with the likes of the St. Petersburg Times or Miami Herald on stateor regional coverage, have embraced a “local-local” philosophy of saturating neighborhoods with coverage of everyday happenings andcontinuously posting local reports on News-Press.com. The result hasbeen a spike in readership online and new revenue opportunitiesas advertisers take note, said Mackenzie Warren, News-Press managing editor for information distribution, during hissession titled “Going Hyper-local” on April 19 at the ACESconference in Miami.
Central to the hyper-local movement is a team of mojos,or mobile journalists, who are much more likely to writeabout a new hot dog stand than they are to cover a schoolboard meeting. The idea, Warren said, is to get at the issues that matter most to readers: how they spend their time and their money. Of the paper’s65 content-gatherers (reporters and photographers), 52are full- or part-time mojos. They are equipped with $2,000 worth of equipment in a backpack that Warren says is “road-tested and scoliosis-approved,”and their tools include their choice of one of two typesof laptop computer with a built-in audio recording device,a wireless access point, Nikon Coolpix camera with video ability,MP3 recorder and cell phone. READ MORE | |
ROBINSON PRIZE | Oneof the highlights of Friday's banquet was the surprise announcementof Tim Lynch, right, as the winner of the second annual Robinson Prize forediting excellence. Lynch, of the Los Angeles Times, didn't know he won theaward until the announcement by judging committee chairmanJ.A. Montalbano (Albuquerque Tribune), left. See the Robinson Prizepage for a story and more photos. | | BANQUET | DebaneyShepard, editorial manager at Business 2.0 in San Francisco,shares a Kodak moment with banquet speaker Dave Barry. Visit the banquet page for more photos and reporter Emily Seawell'sstories about the banquet and Pulitizer Prize-winning humorist Barry's side-splittingspeech. Also read Gerri Berendzen's story about the silent auction, which raised a record $5,648 for theACES Education Fund. (Photo by Sue Blair) | |
OPENING GENERAL SESSION | XX | | Recognitionof the ACES scholarship and headline contest winners wasamong the highlights of Thursday's opening general session. At left, KrystenChambrot (University of Missouri, Columbia) was one of five scholarship recipients. At right, Rachel Dunn (Los Angeles Times)walks off with the plaque and a $500 check as the winnerof the large-circulation division of the headline contest. Also announced at the opening sessionwere the 11 winners of the ACES election. Goto the opening session page for Katherine Drouin-Keith's roundupstory, the text of ACES President Chris Wienandt's "State of the Society" speech and more photos. | | RETURN TOTHE ACES HOME PAGE xx |
