Charles Apple

I don’t ‘get’ Twitter. I really don’t.

I can’t imagine investing the time and energy it takes to get up to speed on a device that allows me to tell everyone I know what I’m watching on TV, when I’m going to lunch and what I’m doing every moment of every day.

But, of course, I don’t have to ‘get’ Twitter. A lot of today’s new media is hit-or-miss with consumers. There are people out there who like and use Twitter — a lot of people — and that makes it a medium worth exploring.

Thank goodness there are top people working on it. People like Erica Smith of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Erica might not know exactly what news will look like in the 21st century. But she’s likely to beat you and me there.

Erica Smith last October at SND/
Boston. Photo by paginatrix.
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A 1999 graduate of Northwest Missouri State University, Erica spent three years as a designer at The Times of Northwest Indiana. She zipped over to the News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., for about a year-and-a-half before returning to Munster to become design editor. She moved to St. Louis a little more than a year ago.

On her LinkedIn profile, Erica describes herself:

I’m a journalist, a designer, a novice programmer … and I eat my M&Ms in Roy G. Biv order.

I am also addicted to the news. Twenty-four-hour-news-channel addicted. Breaking-news-e-mail-alerts addicted. Text-message-alerts addicted. It’s a sickness — a well-informed sickness.

I don’t think I can do the things that Erica can do. But God knows I sure need a dose of what she’s drinking from.

Luckily for me, she was up for a little Q&A action:

Q. Of your current job at the Post-Dispatch, what percent would you say is print and what percent is multimedia?

A. Through the end of 2007 (when everyone was taking his or her last vacation days), most of my time was spent in print. Now, I have two days in multimedia, two days in print and one day that’s split between the two.

Erica and her pal Andrea Jones, a features
designer at The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.
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Q. Do you agree with mixing print with online duties? Or do you feel newsrooms should follow a model in which you have full-time print folks who are separate from full-time multimedia folks?

A. Splitting your time isn’t for everyone, but it’s a way to get started in multimedia — or whatever new adventure you’re hoping to embark on. Besides, we’re not at a time in this industry where anyone can afford to say, “No, I’m only going to work in print.” And I think all journalists should be comfortable with multimedia:

• They should read and subscribe to blogs;
• They should write blogs, even if it’s not for work — especially if it’s not for work;
• They should join at least one social network (LinkedIn is a good place to start, and to network, if they’re not comfortable with MySpace, Facebook, etc.);
• They should know how to use a digital camera and post and share photos. (Bonus points for video.)

Industrywide, reporters are expected to write or contribute to blogs, to get audio when they’re interviewing people, to snap an on-the-scene photo; photographers are expected to shoot and edit video, to create slide shows. Why shouldn’t designers be expected to contribute/help with multimedia too?

That said, you can’t accomplish everything you need in print or online in this fashion. Newspapers need people who primarily work in print, other people who primarily work online. And it’s no secret that I’d eventually like to switch to the online side full-time.

Q. In your resume, you mention you do ‘mashups’ for the P-D web site. What’s a mashup?

A. A mashup just combines data from more than one source. One of the most popular is Adrian Holovaty’s ChicagoCrime.org.

A mashup map from Holovaty’s
ChicagoCrime.org. Unfortunately,
that site closed down last week.
—

My first P-D mashup was a map of the Missouri River that included flood information from the National Weather Service at 17 locations.

Erica’s flood map mashup.
—

The one I’m most proud of (so far), which wasn’t for the P-D, is the Paper Cuts map. [More about that in a moment]

Q. You seem to be taking to multimedia quite well. On the other hand, you profess a huge interest in computer programming. Is there a future in journalism for the technologically impaired?

A. I like to figure out how things work, so I don’t know if it’s the programming part that intrigues me as much as the “ah-ha!” moment of figuring out why something works the way it does.

Huge advances are being made every day that make creating multimedia easier and more accessible to more people. Look at the changes in Google Maps — a year ago, you could look up locations and directions. Now you can create a map, plot locations with photos or video, and post it to your site or blog, all without knowing a bit of code. There are third-party sites like ZeeMaps and Atlas that make it super-simple, too. Slide shows are pretty simple with SoundSlides.

There’s a future in journalism for the technology impaired. But keep in mind that most new graduates can be hired cheaper and with more technical knowledge than you have. And this isn’t a time when you can sit back and wait for your employer to train you — or send you somewhere to learn — new multimedia skills. If you want to learn how to create a Web-based map or create a graphic in Flash, take initiative and learn it. Ask friends and co-workers for pointers. See if your local college offers classes. In the last year, I attended two Flash workshops and three JavaScript classes. I took time off work and paid for each of them; work had nothing to do with it, although they’re definitely reaping some of the benefits. It’s not just learning new skills, it’s an investment in my future.

Erica’s GraphicDesignr blog.
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Q. You seem quite outspoken in your GraphicDesignr blog. How do your bosses at The Post-Dispatch feel about your opinions floating around the ether?

A. You make me sound so scandalous! My bosses know my blog exists, and they haven’t said anything. Obviously my opinions are my own, not the Post-Dispatch’s. And I don’t say anything on the blog, that I wouldn’t say in the newsroom.

Q. The Paper Cuts section of your site just fascinates me. I’ve not seen anyone else do that. Tell us about Paper Cuts and what you’re trying to accomplish with it.

A. On May 31, Editor & Publisher ran a special report: As cuts trim news pages and newsrooms — what gets lost? (The actual article does not seem to exist anymore.) After reading it and talking about it with other journalists (and blogging it), I was curious about how many layoffs and buyouts there were, but couldn’t find a running total anywhere. So I started keeping track.

All of the numbers come from published reports — Editor & Publisher stories, Romenesko’s blog or from the publication. Sometimes I get a head’s up from a secret-squirrel source (and secret-squirrel sources are always welcome). In December, I used Paper Cuts as an opportunity to learn some coding, and created a map mashup. In seven months, I’ve counted more than 2,200 newspaper jobs lost through layoffs and buyouts. Yikes.

Erica’s mashup map showing newspaper layoffs.
Yes, the markers are color-coded, go check it out
for details. Erica counted more than 295 layoffs
in January alone.
—

Q. You seem to be into Twittering in a big way. My observation is that one can suffer overload very rapidly reading tweets, and that most info being Twittered is not helpful, useful or newsworthy. Do I have a point? Or am I slowly becoming my grandfather? Will today’s Twittering evolve into a useful medium?

A. Oh, Charles. All of the cool kids are doing it; did you learn nothing from SND Boston?

The SND Twitter page from last
October’s Boston workshop.
—

I see huge potential for Twitter (and its many clones) and I think it’s already a useful medium.

The great thing about Twitter is that it started with the most basic of questions: What are you doing? And it continues to evolve. People have conversations over Twitter now; can you imagine?

For the uninitiated, users are limited to 140 characters per post. You “follow” people if you want to see what they’re posting, and you can post (and read) messages from Twitter’s site, instant messenger, text message or a plethora of third-party applications. Like a blog, if it gets overwhelming you don’t have to read every post. And you can choose to follow some people on your phone, others just on the Web, that sort of thing. I’ve definitely learned some new things and found some great stories from the things my friends post to Twitter.

The Post-Dispatch found a creative use for Twitter: A stretch of Highway 40, which connects I-270 to downtown St. Louis, closed on Jan. 2 for major reconstruction; the project should be finished in two years. Kurt Greenbaum, our social media guru, created a Highway 40 Twitter account and asked reporters, editors and community members — 14 total — to post traffic updates while they were out and about. The account has 102 followers, and the reports also are published on our site.

We also have a STLtoday page where we publish blog headlines and links, and breaking news. I’ve used that account to micro-blog primary results and Missouri’s State of the State address.

Other U.S. newspapers are on Twitter, too:

• Birmingham News: 13 followers
• Charlotte Observer: 39 followers
• Chicago Tribune: 98 followers
• Flint Journal: 9 followers
• Globe Gazette: 24 followers
• Knoxville News Sentinel: 79 followers
• Nashua Telegraph: 96 followers
• New York Times: 1,666 followers; the paper also has 15 other specialized Twitter accounts
• The Oregonian: 184 followers; the paper has three other specialized Twitter accounts
• Orlando Sentinel: 347 followers
• The Post-Standard: 6 followers; they joined just a couple of days ago
• RedEye: 98 followers
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch: 31 followers
• The Star-Ledger: 9 followers; the paper also has a specialized account for business
• Star Tribune: 36 followers
• The Times of Northwest Indiana: 28 followers; the paper also has a specialized account for sports
• Tribune Star: 3 followers; the paper joined last week

Someone is going to ask (come on, you know you want to) if it’s really worth the effort for three or 24 or 184 followers. I think it is. I blogged about newspapers with Twitter accounts a month ago, and I had to update the number of followers for each newspaper. That’s something!

(Plus, you can automate part of the process: Send your RSS feed to Twitter and it’ll post every 30 minutes with links, which can help increase traffic to your site. Then post breaking news items as they happen. Just remember to share the password for the newspaper’s account so others can post while you’re away from work.)

Q. You started a new blog last month. Tell me about the story behind ‘The Story of Man.’

A. An editor I used to work with kept a folder of headlines he’d clipped from the paper: They all started with “man,” and they were all chuckle-worthy. (His point, of course, was that there shouldn’t be “man” headlines. Or at least that many.)

A couple of weeks ago, I was skimming headlines and came across “Man puts out fire with aunt’s XL undies” and it reminded me of that folder. I couldn’t find an existing blog or site, so I decided it was time to start telling the “Story of Man”. The site is pretty simple right now, but it will evolve. And headline submissions are always welcome, too.

(Tumblr is a great way to start a blog if you’re unsure about getting your feet wet. It’s very easy to post entries, links to stories, photos, IM conversations, quotes, audio, video — anything you could ever want to throw in a blog, and more.)

Erica and Mark Bieganski from the
Times of Northwest Indiana at SND/
Orlando in Sept. 2006. At the time,
Erica still worked at The Times.
Photo by Bill Gaspard.
—

Q. OK, you just won the lottery. Not enough money to buy your own daily newspaper, but more than enough to set you up for life. What’s your dream job?

A. I should start playing the lottery.

After (at least) a month in Europe, I’d head back to work. I don’t think I could ever leave news; I get too excited over breaking news alerts. Literally, giddy over alerts — it’s ridiculous. I’d want to stay in multimedia: creating multimedia; encouraging citizen journalism; finding new tools and applications and experimenting with what works (and what doesn’t). It doesn’t have a name, really, and would be very adaptable. I’d also (re)start a student-professional mentoring program — there’s a lot we can learn from each other.

Thanks so much, Erica, for taking the time to answer our questions. We’ll see you online!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 8:45 am and is filed under Innovative ideas, Newspapers, VizEds Blog, Web news design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.