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Principles and guidelines for writing for the web. I am discussing writing for the web and what we should be teaching our students in JEM 200. Essentially, I have laid out four principles:
- The writing should be tighter – more concise.
- Writers should use words and phrases that are information rich.
- Writing should be shorter but with no loss of information.
- Writers must learn to write quickly and with confidence.
You can read my discussion notes on the JPROF blog. (Posted Oct. 6, 2009)
Online journalism
. . . also known at WebJPROF
Welcome. This site is designed to be a resource for journalism instructors who want to teach web journalism courses and who want to introduce online journalism concepts into the course they already teach. We plan to continually add to the resources of this page as we find them. Please let us know if you find a link you would like to share with us and others -- and particularly if you have written something about web journalism that other journalism teachers and instructors should see.
Web journalists should have what all journalists should have:
the ability to gather information
The outline below began as a workshop for the faculty at the University of Tennessee to help them in understanding how the web had changed every phase of journalism and how they could integrate some of the principles of web journalism into their classes. Each of the headings has a separate page where more notes, comments, links and resources can be found.
Classroom exercises in writing and editing for the web and more can be found in the JPROF exercise room.
Introduction to web journalismHardware and software
- The web is the future of journalism.
- Two approaches to web journalism
-- an extension of the journalism we know
-- OR something very different - a different kind of journalism with different rules, customs, protocols and considerations
-- reviewing some of the basic hardware and software that students and instructors should know
Basic understandings our students need to have about the web
-- And don't assume they have them already. HTML, general concepts, a few specifics, such as linking tags, boldface, lists, etc.
Journalism on the web, starting with just journalism
Teach the basics of journalism -- reporting, writing, presentation; they're much the same on the web as they are in any other medium, but there are important differences that you should introduce.
Audience
-- The journalist and the news organization can no longer afford to ignore the audience. Instead, they must be prepare to build, cultivate, engage and respond to the audience.
-- People on the web have plenty of places to go besides your site. As Jakob Nielson says, visitors to a web site are "selfish, lazy and ruthless."
-- Audiences value what THEY think is important and interesting; they also want the opportunity to engage.
Writing and reporting for the web
-- Words above everything else (technology, pictures, design, everything); words are far more important than anything else on the web.
-- The web (and audiences) values original information -- information that cannot be found elsewhere.
Editing
-- understanding the many aspects of the web and its possibilities
Photojournalism
-- the importance of the single image; notes on becoming a good photojournalist
Audio
-- basics of recording and editing
Video
-- basics of recording and editing; quality matters but not that much
Advertising
--Online advertising is the primary vehicle for news Web site revenue currently. And in the case of media with legacy products, such as a print newspaper or television broadcast, online advertising is potentially the savior, or at least a method of slowing losses, of traditional revenue streams.
WebJPROF's latest links concerning online journalism
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