Online is all the rage in journalism, as many leading publications are posting stories on their Web sites in real time. The new platform allows us to share information in innovative ways, and gives you free outlets to build your skills.

As the newspaper industry remains shaky, knowing some of these skills will give you a leg up on getting a job. Play with them on your personal Web site, and also keep these in mind as you work at the DTH.

Step 1 — Talk like a pro

If you cruise journalism blogs, you’ll come across a lot of strange terms. Mastering them will let you in on the conversation.

Glossary

Citizen Journalism:The integration of reader photos and information on a news Web site. The practice has drawn strong opinions on both sides, from those who hate “amateur” content to those who believe it will save the industry. It involves the public “playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information,” according to the We Media report. Ranges from article comments to independent reports posted on YouTube to independent news blogs.

Content Management System (CMS): The method used to display content on a Web site. The Daily Tar Heel, and hundreds of other college sites, uses College Publisher. CP offers tabbed site browsing (home, news, opinion, sports, etc.), “Most read” and “Most commented” tools, featured stories and lead stories.

Crowdsourcing: Calling upon readers to help report. Instead of calling sources, they call (or e-mail) you. Typically used on a beat blog, where the reporter asks a question and waits for replies.

Mashup: This is a Web application that takes data from more than one source and combines them. Google Maps is a simple one, taking addresses it has and information you put in it (see below).

Mobile Journalist (MoJo): This refers to a reporter equipped with laptop, camera, video camera and audio recorder in order to post news from the scene. They spend most of their time on the streets of their community.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS): This takes updates to a particular site and creates an automatically updated “feed” so you can see the newest additions to a site. You can collect feeds in an “aggregator” like Google Reader or Bloglines. The Daily Tar Heel has several RSS feeds, including an “all news” feed, a “University” feed, “City” feed, etc.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): A strategy to get news stories to appear higher up in Google searches, and thus more easily found. This is done by making headlines straightforward and using key terms or names that people would search for.

Twitter: A cross between instant messaging, Facebook status and blogging, Twitter.com allows you to post 140 characters about whatever you want: where you are, what your plans are, what you’re working on, etc. You can “follow” twitterers you are interested in, and people can follow you. This allows conversations to develop, and allows you to ask a question to experts around the world.

Web 2.0: The rise of user-generated content and online communities is sometimes referred to as Web 2.0. It’s a shift from “Web 1.0,” which was one-way communication or simply posting print text online for reading. In its most simplistic, “Web 1.0 was about companies, Web 2.0 is about communities.”

Widget: This is a Web application that can be easily placed on a different site. News sites typically use them to deliver headlines via an RSS feed. Facebook applications are examples of widgets.

Keep up with journalism innovations on the following sites:

journalism.me
www.megantaylor.org
www.10000words.net
www.howardowens.com

Step 2 — Learn the skills

So you want to …..

Show where things are happening. GOOGLE MAPS (requires free Google account)

Creating a Google Map is easy if you have a street address for the locations you want to point out.

1) Go to maps.google.com
2) Go to “My Maps”
3) Create a new map with a title you will remember
4) Go to the search bar and type in the address you want.
5) Click “Save to My Maps.” Select your map from the drop-down menu.
6) Edit the label with the information you want shown with that location.
6) Repeat steps 4-6 until out of locations.
7) Click “done” to exit editing.

If you only have one street address you want to show, just search for it at maps.google.com and click “Link.”

Cool thing you can do with this:

See the “Link” button in the upper right? That will give you the HTML so you can put it straight into a blog post or other Web site.

Use for: Identifying a lesser-known place, showing route or distance.
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Show how events unfolded. DIPITY

This can be a good static page feature during a breaking news event, and can also be used to quickly give background as you are updating.

1) Go to dipity.com
2) Click “Create a new topic.”
3) Follow the instructions on the dropdown menu.
4) Click “Add an event” to add information until complete.

To update later, go to dipity.com and select “You,” then the timeline you created.

Cool things about this:

–You can zoom the timeline anywhere from spanning 500 years to 1 hour.
–You can add photos and video directly to the timeline.
–Like in Google Maps, there is a button to give you the HTML code.

The kinks:

The site still has issues with its time zones. It says GMT (London time) even if you specify Eastern time.

Use for: Ongoing news

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Show data visually. SWIVEL

By uploading a database, Swivel will help you choose the best way to display the numbers visually.

1) Get data in comma-separated-variable text format or in Excel.
2) Go to Swivel.com and follow the directions to upload.
3) Once your data is loaded, Swivel will make different graphs for you to choose from.
4) You can customize a graph by clicking “More options.”

You get the HTML code by scrolling down and finding “Post to blog.” You can also get a link to the raw dataset.


Use the : Self-created datasets, info divided by location or name, bar or line graphs in a hurry

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Post a document. SCRIBD

Scribd.com allows you to upload files in PDF, PowerPoint, spreadsheet or photo form, then spits out the code for you to embed it in a Web site or e-mail it anywhere.

1) Locate the file.
2) Go to Scribd.com, find the large “Upload” tab and follow the instructions.
3) Click on “embed” to get HTML or “share” to get a URL.


Use for: Lawsuits, complaint letters, drawings and plans,
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Create a simple Flash presentation. SPROUTBUILDER

If you can make a greeting card using a desktop publishing program, you can build a SproutBuilder Flash presentation. No knowledge of Flash is necessary; it’s all drag-and-drop.

It does, however, take a few hours of playing around — www.sproutbuilder.com — to figure it all out. But when you’re done, you have an awesome-looking presentation you can embed on your site.

Use for: Creating a map with clickable links, showing employers your clips, organizing a tab-based Web site.

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