Today, I learned about a new tool called DocumentCloud. DocumentCloud is a tool that is very similar to Scribd. It is a site that allows you to upload documents into a viewer window so that you can embed it onto your website/blog.
This is an example of a map uploaded to Scribd:
Ulster County Legislature Map 4-27-11
As you can see Scribd allows you to view a document as is, full screen,or gives you the option to zoom in and out. It also allows you to download or share the document.
Now take a look at a map that was put into DocumentCloud:
DocumentCloud allows you to view the document as is, in full screen, or you can zoom in and out as you please. It also gives you the option of what you want to view; the actual document, the notes that were implemented, or the text format of the document.
The main difference between Scribd and DocumentCloud is that in DocumentCloud you can insert notes or annotations into the document. This is something that is not an option with Scribd.
For the purpose of testing out this tool, I used a map of Ulster County that shows the latest redistricting plan. Please acknowledge that I was simply trying to test out this tool, so the information may not be accurate.
I was able to highlight an area of the document that I wanted to comment on. When a viewer clicks on it, a notes tab pops up with the highlighted portion of the document. You can also insert a link into the pop-up box as well. It is more interactive than Scribd and allows for input on the document.
As great as DocumentCloud is, there are some drawbacks as well. DocumentCloud is only accessible for newspaper organizations and you need to get permission from an editor to use it. Scribd on the other hand, is available to anybody who signs up for an account.
As I said earlier, Scribd allows anybody to copy the embed code and share the document with others. DocumentCloud does not. If the creator chooses to make the document public, then only people who have an account can view the document, but they can not share.
I can definitely see DocumentCloud being extremely useful to a news organization. Many major news organizations such as The New York Times, Las Vegas Sun, PBS, L.A. Times, etc already use DocumentCloud.
Here is a link to examples of how they use the tool.
I created this document using Steve Buttry's suggestions for updating the SPJ Code of Ethics. He posted on his blog things he would add, and questions some of the clauses that are already implemented. I turned his suggestions into more of a interactive visual aid.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Maps, tools, and allergies!
I want to start off by saying how absolutely BEAUTIFUL it is out today. Finally, a day that belongs in April. It is unfortunate that just as the beautiful weather comes along, I am dying of allergies and am at risk to catching the flu and stomach viruses that are floating around New Paltz.
However, I did have a lot of fun today playing with UMapper. Last week I started looking at the cool kinds of maps that can be created from Umapper. Today, I made two interactive maps that are actually GAMES! So much fun!
To do this, you must create an account and go to "create map". Then you will have to create a title and description for your map, as well as choose which type of map you would like to use.
Then you click the tab "Templates" which is next to Edit Info. This is where you will choose what kind of map you want to make. In this case I chose "GeoDart Game" because I wanted to create an interactive game.
Next you use the tools on the right hand side of the screen to create your map. You use the hand symbol to move the map around. You use the pink icon to place your point down on the map. If you can't find a specific place you are looking for you have use the search bar.
When you place your cursor over a set point a box with come up that gives you some options:Info Window Content, Marker Appearance, Reposition Marker,Date/Time,or Remove Marker.
Click on "Info Window Content" and you will see a pop-up. For the Geo-Dart Game, you must post your question into the description box and place the answer into the title box. IT also gives you the option of inserting a link or audio into it.
When you are all done placing your points and inserting the information, click the big blue button on the right hand side that says save. Then go to the top and click "View Map". And there you have it.
Here are the two that I did today:
U.S. State License Plate Slogans
What to do in Staten Island:
I did the Staten Island one first because I did not have to look up any street names, landmarks, or information. I knew where everything was because I am familiar with the location so it was extremely easy for me to create this map. It took maybe ten minutes, probably less to put it together because I did not have to do any research. The second one I did was the license plate slogans. This one took a lot longer because there were a lot more points and I had to look up the information in order to ask the question.
I think that this would be cool and very engaging to people on the web. I think that it can be useful for some stories as a visual aid, and a fun thing to keep them on the page with the story. If the creator is familiar with the information and location that they are using it takes almost no time and effort to put it together.
After I did that,I did a lot of reading and researching. I kept a tab open with a Poynter live chat about "What skills do journalists need to effectively engage audiences?".
Chrys Wu, an established journalist answered questions about when to post tweets, how to engage an audience on facebook,and how to crowdsource effectively. The chat was almost like a summary of this blog as well as an overview of the detailed JRC chats.
I took a look at Health Indicators Warehouse hoping to be able to download information as an excel document and then be able to upload it to other tools in order to create charts and diagrams. This however, did not work as well as I would have liked it to, mainly because no matter how I saved the files and tried to change the format they were in, the documents were not compatible with the programs I was using. so that was a fail, sadly.
I posted last week about the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics and how it needs to be updated. I wanted to see how things were going with the debate on this topic an was pleased to see that it is becoming somewhat of a hot topic among journalists (which I think it needs to be). There are now multiple links on the website with articles written by established journalists on their opinions. If you are at all interested in the field of journalism I suggest you take a look at the debates.
SPJ also has a site called the Journalist's Toolbox. This site contains tons of links that can be used a resources for journalists. Although I have not been able to go through all of them yet, I have found a few that may have some good stuff for online journalism.
Tools for News is literally just a page with multiple lists of links that are categorized into: Audio, Blogging, Data Scraping, Data Visualization, Databases, Design, Feed Readers, FTP, Legal Guides, Maps, Networks and Associations, and Other. From there you can look at other tools that may be useful to you and also see what other people think about them.
Daytum is one of the tools I found and have been looking at and am trying to figure out how it could be useful to journalism. This is a video that shows the basics of the tool:
Although the video makes this tool seem trivial (it was literally tracking somebody's food intake), I think it may come in handy for a story that is being developed over a long period of time. Maybe a story that requires taking your own data in order to produce a story.
Woobox is a site that allows you to create contests, coupons, giveaways,etc to your audience. At first I thought this would be cool because it allows you to do this on social media sites such as facebook and twitter,which have strict regulations on this sort of thing. However, it is not FREE. So, nevermind. But it is kind of cool.
Lastly, I found Flare which is a data visualization tool. It looks AWSEOME. I didn't have enough time today to play around with it but I did look at some of the tutorials. There are not video tutorials which is sort of a disappointment; however, the text looks detailed and includes sample codes to insert. I'm going to have to try it out next time!
However, I did have a lot of fun today playing with UMapper. Last week I started looking at the cool kinds of maps that can be created from Umapper. Today, I made two interactive maps that are actually GAMES! So much fun!
To do this, you must create an account and go to "create map". Then you will have to create a title and description for your map, as well as choose which type of map you would like to use.
Then you click the tab "Templates" which is next to Edit Info. This is where you will choose what kind of map you want to make. In this case I chose "GeoDart Game" because I wanted to create an interactive game.
Next you use the tools on the right hand side of the screen to create your map. You use the hand symbol to move the map around. You use the pink icon to place your point down on the map. If you can't find a specific place you are looking for you have use the search bar.
When you place your cursor over a set point a box with come up that gives you some options:Info Window Content, Marker Appearance, Reposition Marker,Date/Time,or Remove Marker.
Click on "Info Window Content" and you will see a pop-up. For the Geo-Dart Game, you must post your question into the description box and place the answer into the title box. IT also gives you the option of inserting a link or audio into it.
When you are all done placing your points and inserting the information, click the big blue button on the right hand side that says save. Then go to the top and click "View Map". And there you have it.
Here are the two that I did today:
U.S. State License Plate Slogans
What to do in Staten Island:
I did the Staten Island one first because I did not have to look up any street names, landmarks, or information. I knew where everything was because I am familiar with the location so it was extremely easy for me to create this map. It took maybe ten minutes, probably less to put it together because I did not have to do any research. The second one I did was the license plate slogans. This one took a lot longer because there were a lot more points and I had to look up the information in order to ask the question.
I think that this would be cool and very engaging to people on the web. I think that it can be useful for some stories as a visual aid, and a fun thing to keep them on the page with the story. If the creator is familiar with the information and location that they are using it takes almost no time and effort to put it together.
After I did that,I did a lot of reading and researching. I kept a tab open with a Poynter live chat about "What skills do journalists need to effectively engage audiences?".
Chrys Wu, an established journalist answered questions about when to post tweets, how to engage an audience on facebook,and how to crowdsource effectively. The chat was almost like a summary of this blog as well as an overview of the detailed JRC chats.
I took a look at Health Indicators Warehouse hoping to be able to download information as an excel document and then be able to upload it to other tools in order to create charts and diagrams. This however, did not work as well as I would have liked it to, mainly because no matter how I saved the files and tried to change the format they were in, the documents were not compatible with the programs I was using. so that was a fail, sadly.
I posted last week about the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics and how it needs to be updated. I wanted to see how things were going with the debate on this topic an was pleased to see that it is becoming somewhat of a hot topic among journalists (which I think it needs to be). There are now multiple links on the website with articles written by established journalists on their opinions. If you are at all interested in the field of journalism I suggest you take a look at the debates.
SPJ also has a site called the Journalist's Toolbox. This site contains tons of links that can be used a resources for journalists. Although I have not been able to go through all of them yet, I have found a few that may have some good stuff for online journalism.
Tools for News is literally just a page with multiple lists of links that are categorized into: Audio, Blogging, Data Scraping, Data Visualization, Databases, Design, Feed Readers, FTP, Legal Guides, Maps, Networks and Associations, and Other. From there you can look at other tools that may be useful to you and also see what other people think about them.
Daytum is one of the tools I found and have been looking at and am trying to figure out how it could be useful to journalism. This is a video that shows the basics of the tool:
Daytum Screencast: Categories from Daytum on Vimeo.
Although the video makes this tool seem trivial (it was literally tracking somebody's food intake), I think it may come in handy for a story that is being developed over a long period of time. Maybe a story that requires taking your own data in order to produce a story.
Woobox is a site that allows you to create contests, coupons, giveaways,etc to your audience. At first I thought this would be cool because it allows you to do this on social media sites such as facebook and twitter,which have strict regulations on this sort of thing. However, it is not FREE. So, nevermind. But it is kind of cool.
Lastly, I found Flare which is a data visualization tool. It looks AWSEOME. I didn't have enough time today to play around with it but I did look at some of the tutorials. There are not video tutorials which is sort of a disappointment; however, the text looks detailed and includes sample codes to insert. I'm going to have to try it out next time!
Friday, April 22, 2011
Vuvox and UMapper!
Vuvox is a tool that I have looked at already during my internship. The first time I tried Vuvox I used it to collect and display pictures for the pet photo contest.
This is the first thing I created:
As a viewer, you can zoom in on the images as well as play with them and move them around.
Today I tried to play around with another application within the program; I tried to make a collage. The tool that Vuvox offers for creating collages (which can be used as a timeline as well)is really, really cool. It is easy to use and allows you the freedom to be however creative you want to be.
You can cut out items from pictures to make it look like an image is popping out. You also choose your own background, whatever it may be. It allows you to place icons on your project that have a window with a link to more information, that pops up when you scroll over it.
You can take a look at mine:
Mine is unfinished so far because of the fact that this is very TIME-CONSUMING. It took me forever just to get this far because it is so tedious. You need to upload every picture, including backgrounds. You then have to cut out other pictures manually which can take some time. Also, I came across a few glitches when I placed the icons down for my viewers to click; some of them kept disappearing.
I can definitely see this application being used for journalism in different aspects. I think that for news stories, and maybe sports stories as well, this could be used as a timeline with pictures and videos embedded in it. It makes it more interesting, and more appealing to the eye. I can also see this tool being used for feature stories. You can fill it up with pictures, quotations, and links to relevant topics or stories.
Vuvox Collages is really an awesome tool and the product that you create looks great at the end, it just takes a very very long time to get there. And time is the one thing that journalists really don't have.
This is an example of an awesome Vuvox Collage that is featured on the website. It is about Woodstock but is in french (I was able to read most of it which I am impressed by!):
UMapper is another tool I took a look at today; although I did not spend nearly as much time as I would have liked with this tool because I was making a collage. However, from what I have seen on the website, UMapper allows you to create Maps with your choice of host map. It allos you to incorporate pictures and links, as well as aspects of Twitter.
I do plan on trying this tool out myself later today; however, sadly, I was not able to make my own map today. This is an example of one that was made by somebody else an featured on the UMapper website:
That's all I have for today. If you have some free time and want to play around with some tools that could be useful in journalism...I suggest you play with Vuvox =) Have a good weekend and a Happy Easter!
This is the first thing I created:
As a viewer, you can zoom in on the images as well as play with them and move them around.
Today I tried to play around with another application within the program; I tried to make a collage. The tool that Vuvox offers for creating collages (which can be used as a timeline as well)is really, really cool. It is easy to use and allows you the freedom to be however creative you want to be.
You can cut out items from pictures to make it look like an image is popping out. You also choose your own background, whatever it may be. It allows you to place icons on your project that have a window with a link to more information, that pops up when you scroll over it.
You can take a look at mine:
Mine is unfinished so far because of the fact that this is very TIME-CONSUMING. It took me forever just to get this far because it is so tedious. You need to upload every picture, including backgrounds. You then have to cut out other pictures manually which can take some time. Also, I came across a few glitches when I placed the icons down for my viewers to click; some of them kept disappearing.
I can definitely see this application being used for journalism in different aspects. I think that for news stories, and maybe sports stories as well, this could be used as a timeline with pictures and videos embedded in it. It makes it more interesting, and more appealing to the eye. I can also see this tool being used for feature stories. You can fill it up with pictures, quotations, and links to relevant topics or stories.
Vuvox Collages is really an awesome tool and the product that you create looks great at the end, it just takes a very very long time to get there. And time is the one thing that journalists really don't have.
This is an example of an awesome Vuvox Collage that is featured on the website. It is about Woodstock but is in french (I was able to read most of it which I am impressed by!):
UMapper is another tool I took a look at today; although I did not spend nearly as much time as I would have liked with this tool because I was making a collage. However, from what I have seen on the website, UMapper allows you to create Maps with your choice of host map. It allos you to incorporate pictures and links, as well as aspects of Twitter.
I do plan on trying this tool out myself later today; however, sadly, I was not able to make my own map today. This is an example of one that was made by somebody else an featured on the UMapper website:
That's all I have for today. If you have some free time and want to play around with some tools that could be useful in journalism...I suggest you play with Vuvox =) Have a good weekend and a Happy Easter!
Friday, April 15, 2011
SPJ Code of Ethics
Ethics Code
As I stated in the post before this one, the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics has not been updated in the past fifteen years. And I think it is safe to say that technology has taken over in those years.
In November of last year, Steve Buttry, Director of Community Engagement at TBD, posted on his blog, his suggestions for updating the Code of Ethics.
He had many reasons,one of them being that technology has changed and needs guidelines that journalists can follow. In his suggestions, he implements social media into the pre-existing clauses. He simply updates old clauses to include detail about what do do when faced with documents,sources,links, etc from the internet.
Irwin Gratz has argued that the Code of Ethics does not need to change. His argument for this is that journalists and technology should conform to the codes that already exist.
The problem with this argument is that the codes are entirely way to vague to conform technology to them. There is no mention of the internet or the web, sources, images, documents, etc taken from the web.
The SPJ recently had a chat about updating the SPJ in which journalists expressed their concerns and suggestions for updating a new code. Here are some of the discussion points that were touched upon.
How do you cite a tweet? a blog? a status update? How do you give credit to a photo taken from Photobucket or Picassa?
There is no mention about whether or not reporters/journalist should keep their private social media accounts completely separate from their professional ones? Can they be linked together?
Links have become equivalent to a works cited page. It provides ethos and attribution to information and quotations. Yet there are no guidelines as to whether links should be required or how they should be used and presented.
Another thing that I am not sure about is whether or not compensation will be a problem. Do we need rules or guidelines that consider whether or not people are making money off of "hits" on the computer? What about paid advertisements, links, or reviews?
When is social media appropriate to use as a way to deliver information and news? When is it not? In a court room? a basketball game? a memorial? a press conference?
These are all open ended questions that journalists have no real,solid answers to. The SPJ Code of Ethics is in serious need of updates to accommodate new technology and vehicles for the spread of information and to give journalists some kind of guide to ethics. It doesn't need to be specific to social networking sites, but a general code of ethics for online journalism would be very useful.
Is live-tweeting from a trial ethical?
Since last week, the Kingston Freeman has been covering a murder trial that is taking place in Kingston, New York. They have been live-tweeting from the trial itself, allowing the public to essentially "be at the hearing" without physically being there. It has been a hit with many community members, yet even some of our own reporters here are questioning the ethics of live-tweeting from a trial. Here is some of the research I've done to try to figure this our myself.
Potter Box
First I decided to put together a Potter Box,to help determine if this is ethical. I listed the Facts, Values, Principles,and Loyalties of the situation and the company.
Based on the Potter Box, I don’t see an ethical problem with tweeting a murder case from inside a courtroom. Based on the facts given, tweeting these details does not go against the values or loyalties of the newspaper. The only principle, which came from the SPJ’s Code of Ethics, that may be up in the air would be “Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed”. As far as I am concerned, the trial had become more of a public event than a private trial. It also involved information on gang activity in surrounding areas, which is something I believe the public has a right to know about, especially if it is going on right around them.
Category of News
We can also look at the ethics of this situation by asking ourselves about the category of news.
Does the public have a right to know?
My answer to this question is absolutely. Public records and public hearings are mandated by the state as a right to know. The murder trial going on is a public trial and although there are only 40 seats in the court house, whoever would like to attend, has the right to. Therefore, I believe the public has a right to know, no matter how to information is delivered.
Does the public have a need to know?
According to Tim McGuire, professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, “The need to know covers information that is necessary to inform citizen readers of things important to society, business and government.” Therefore I believe that in this case, the public has a need to know about the trial because it is important to society, specifically the city they live in because it has to do with gangs and violence, which can very well affect them.
The question that I am struggling with is the rate of speed that the public needs to know. And although according to this method of measuring ethics, speed is not a part of the equation, it is something I can’t help but ask myself. I am not so sure that the public needs to know all details, the second it becomes available, especially since a lot of times there is a mistake within the first round of information.
Allowing the public to see this process of gaining information by delivering minute by minute tweets makes them in a sense involved in the process of gathering information. I am not so sure if I feel as though that brings journalism down by allowing more people to be involved in the process, or if it is a positive thing because it helps correct mistakes more quickly.
Does the public want to know?
I would think that a case like this, where there is a danger to the community, that people would want to know. The other side of people’s “want to know” is because it is new information and people want something to talk about.
Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics
The Society of Professional Journalists(SPJ) has a Code of Ethics that many journalists have voluntarily stuck by for years.
Ethics Code
If you go through each and every section. The only clause I see possibly being a problem to the question of whether or not live-tweeting a trial is ethical is under the “Minimize Harm” section: “Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed.” And I think that a reporter who has been trained on ethics and has been in the journalism field for long enough has the ability to keep this balance.
The last time the SPJ’s Code of Ethics was updated was in 1996. FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. A lot has changes in those fifteen years. I think that it is imperative for the SPJ to take a look at their Code of Ethics and add an entire new section to it that is devoted to technology, the online world, and where this has taken us in terms of ethics.
Conclusions
Although I am a bit skeptical of how ethical tweeting a trial is, for now I would say that yes it is ethical because it is public information and people do have a right to know. The reason I am skeptical is because of the fact that live-tweeting brings in many other people into the information-gathering process of journalism, which I am not so sure is a good thing. Essentially, the reporter is publishing his/her notes to the public. All of the tweets, are what he or she is writing down and going to use to write a story later on. It almost seems backwards.
The other thing I am thinking about is the fact that people who are going to be put on trial but have no yet, are getting an insight to details of a trial more quickly than ever before. It may be giving an upper hand to people when there should not be one.
So, I guess I am still a little on the fence as to whether or not it is ethical to be live-tweeting from a trial, but based on the Potter Box, Code of Ethics, and Categories of News, I am leaning towards yes, it is ethical to do this…for now, anyway.
Potter Box
First I decided to put together a Potter Box,to help determine if this is ethical. I listed the Facts, Values, Principles,and Loyalties of the situation and the company.
Based on the Potter Box, I don’t see an ethical problem with tweeting a murder case from inside a courtroom. Based on the facts given, tweeting these details does not go against the values or loyalties of the newspaper. The only principle, which came from the SPJ’s Code of Ethics, that may be up in the air would be “Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed”. As far as I am concerned, the trial had become more of a public event than a private trial. It also involved information on gang activity in surrounding areas, which is something I believe the public has a right to know about, especially if it is going on right around them.
Category of News
We can also look at the ethics of this situation by asking ourselves about the category of news.
Does the public have a right to know?
My answer to this question is absolutely. Public records and public hearings are mandated by the state as a right to know. The murder trial going on is a public trial and although there are only 40 seats in the court house, whoever would like to attend, has the right to. Therefore, I believe the public has a right to know, no matter how to information is delivered.
Does the public have a need to know?
According to Tim McGuire, professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, “The need to know covers information that is necessary to inform citizen readers of things important to society, business and government.” Therefore I believe that in this case, the public has a need to know about the trial because it is important to society, specifically the city they live in because it has to do with gangs and violence, which can very well affect them.
The question that I am struggling with is the rate of speed that the public needs to know. And although according to this method of measuring ethics, speed is not a part of the equation, it is something I can’t help but ask myself. I am not so sure that the public needs to know all details, the second it becomes available, especially since a lot of times there is a mistake within the first round of information.
Allowing the public to see this process of gaining information by delivering minute by minute tweets makes them in a sense involved in the process of gathering information. I am not so sure if I feel as though that brings journalism down by allowing more people to be involved in the process, or if it is a positive thing because it helps correct mistakes more quickly.
Does the public want to know?
I would think that a case like this, where there is a danger to the community, that people would want to know. The other side of people’s “want to know” is because it is new information and people want something to talk about.
Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics
The Society of Professional Journalists(SPJ) has a Code of Ethics that many journalists have voluntarily stuck by for years.
Ethics Code
If you go through each and every section. The only clause I see possibly being a problem to the question of whether or not live-tweeting a trial is ethical is under the “Minimize Harm” section: “Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed.” And I think that a reporter who has been trained on ethics and has been in the journalism field for long enough has the ability to keep this balance.
The last time the SPJ’s Code of Ethics was updated was in 1996. FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. A lot has changes in those fifteen years. I think that it is imperative for the SPJ to take a look at their Code of Ethics and add an entire new section to it that is devoted to technology, the online world, and where this has taken us in terms of ethics.
Conclusions
Although I am a bit skeptical of how ethical tweeting a trial is, for now I would say that yes it is ethical because it is public information and people do have a right to know. The reason I am skeptical is because of the fact that live-tweeting brings in many other people into the information-gathering process of journalism, which I am not so sure is a good thing. Essentially, the reporter is publishing his/her notes to the public. All of the tweets, are what he or she is writing down and going to use to write a story later on. It almost seems backwards.
The other thing I am thinking about is the fact that people who are going to be put on trial but have no yet, are getting an insight to details of a trial more quickly than ever before. It may be giving an upper hand to people when there should not be one.
So, I guess I am still a little on the fence as to whether or not it is ethical to be live-tweeting from a trial, but based on the Potter Box, Code of Ethics, and Categories of News, I am leaning towards yes, it is ethical to do this…for now, anyway.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
To tweet or not to tweet?
That question has been left to the judges to decide. It has been an ongoing debate over whether or not tweeting should or should not be done by a reporter in a court of law. Here at the Kingston Freeman we currently have a reporter in the court house covering the murder trial of Trevor “Little T” Mattis and Gary “G-Money” Griffin.
Patti had been tweeting the details of the proceeding for the past three days. The judge has allowed the tweeting to occur because it is a public trial and the public is in fact welcome to come to the court house to attain the same information that Patti is sharing via Twitter.
The court house currently holds about 40 people excluding police force and is at maximum capacity; therefore it seems acceptable for the public who can not fit in the court house to be able to receive information regarding the case on a minute by minute scale.
Throughout the past days the judge only asked the reporter once to delay tweeting about the exit of one of the witnesses, for the safety of the witness. The reporter complied with the wishes of the judge.
Since Twitter has come out the has been a growing debate over whether or not it should be allowed in court proceedings. The Supreme Court this year, decided that it was indeed allowed. This is mainly because cases that get to the level of the Supreme Court have already lost most of their privacy and have already received attention from the press.
When is comes down to the lower levels of judicial proceedings, the use of Twitter is up to the discretion of the judge and differs case by case.
In 2009, a Colorado judge allowed reporter Ron Sylvester to tweet during a murder trial. He was able to convince the judge to allow his to tweet by arguing that it was the same content going to the same audience. The only difference was the rate of speed at which the message is being sent and information is being processed.
Also in 2009, a judge in San Francisco denied the use of Twitter to reporters claiming that Twitter was a form of "broadcast" which is illegal. He used the same grounds that cameras and broadcast reporters are not allowed in court houses.
Outside of the U.S., countries are struggling with the same debate. Australia has made it law that the use of Twitter would be decided on a case by case decision claiming that if it could potentially be dangerous to a witness then it would not be allowed. In 2010, the top judge of England and Whales decided that there would be no ban on the use of Twitter in the courts.
For the rest of the United States, most cases of the use of Twitter are decided on based on the severity and seriousness of the case. Fears of some judges include exposing information to people who have still yet to testify in the case, giving them information quicker than they normally would have gotten it, giving them some kind of upper hand in a case. The other fear is for that of witnesses who are going to be put in danger by the real-time spread of their testimonies.
Is it ethical to be tweeting live from court cases? I agree with the judges who believe that ethics in this case is very situational and must be determined based on the circumstances on the case.
Patti had been tweeting the details of the proceeding for the past three days. The judge has allowed the tweeting to occur because it is a public trial and the public is in fact welcome to come to the court house to attain the same information that Patti is sharing via Twitter.
The court house currently holds about 40 people excluding police force and is at maximum capacity; therefore it seems acceptable for the public who can not fit in the court house to be able to receive information regarding the case on a minute by minute scale.
Throughout the past days the judge only asked the reporter once to delay tweeting about the exit of one of the witnesses, for the safety of the witness. The reporter complied with the wishes of the judge.
Since Twitter has come out the has been a growing debate over whether or not it should be allowed in court proceedings. The Supreme Court this year, decided that it was indeed allowed. This is mainly because cases that get to the level of the Supreme Court have already lost most of their privacy and have already received attention from the press.
When is comes down to the lower levels of judicial proceedings, the use of Twitter is up to the discretion of the judge and differs case by case.
In 2009, a Colorado judge allowed reporter Ron Sylvester to tweet during a murder trial. He was able to convince the judge to allow his to tweet by arguing that it was the same content going to the same audience. The only difference was the rate of speed at which the message is being sent and information is being processed.
Also in 2009, a judge in San Francisco denied the use of Twitter to reporters claiming that Twitter was a form of "broadcast" which is illegal. He used the same grounds that cameras and broadcast reporters are not allowed in court houses.
Outside of the U.S., countries are struggling with the same debate. Australia has made it law that the use of Twitter would be decided on a case by case decision claiming that if it could potentially be dangerous to a witness then it would not be allowed. In 2010, the top judge of England and Whales decided that there would be no ban on the use of Twitter in the courts.
For the rest of the United States, most cases of the use of Twitter are decided on based on the severity and seriousness of the case. Fears of some judges include exposing information to people who have still yet to testify in the case, giving them information quicker than they normally would have gotten it, giving them some kind of upper hand in a case. The other fear is for that of witnesses who are going to be put in danger by the real-time spread of their testimonies.
Is it ethical to be tweeting live from court cases? I agree with the judges who believe that ethics in this case is very situational and must be determined based on the circumstances on the case.
Cover it Live!
There is a lot going on here at the Daily Freeman today. Patti, a reporter at the Freeman is covering a Kingston murder case via Twitter and posting to Cover it Live.
Cover it Live is a real-time blogging program that allows people all over the world to get breaking news, receive updates, directly participate in Q&A's, and discuss local politics, television, speeches, etc. It provides a social space for discussion, debate, education, the spread of information, and amusement.
Every week, Ivan Lajara uses Cover it Live to conduct a discussion on different topics relating to the transition of journalism into the digital age. It is a very useful tool for journalists all over the place; so today I decided to see what it was all about.
After you sign up for a Cover it Live (CiL) account, you are directed to a console where you create, edit, and manage your event/discussion.
When you first create your event, there will be a place with codes for you to publish your discussion. You can copy and paste the URL or embed code to post the discussion on your website or blog. You can also e-mail it to people or tell people your hashtag if they want to immediately be put into your discussion.
As the "writer" or creator of the event, you have the control to insert audio, images, videos, etc. You also have control over everyone in your discussion and the comments they make.
There are some really cool things you can do with cover it live to make it more interactive. For example, you can create a poll for your contributors to take part it.
You click the "Polls and Interactive" tab on the left hand side and click which kind of tab you want from the drop-box. After you fill in the information click "Publish" and it will pop up on the screen that your audience is looking at.
As the writer of the event, you can go to the "Media Library" tab on the left hand side of the screen. All the way at the bottom there is a "Media Uploader" button. When you click on that, CiL allows you to upload images, audio, videos, links, etc to your discussion post.
When you click on a selected video from your Media Library,it video loads directly into the chat that everyone is viewing.
The same goes for images, audio, links, and any other kind of supplement.
If you are conducting a long discussion and need to leave your computer for a five minute break you can let your audience know by going to the "Tools" tab on the left hand side. You then click the 5th option down to select how many minutes you plan on being away from your computer.
A countdown then pops up into your CiL chat to allow viewers to know that you will be right back.
In Cover it Live, you act as your own editor and therefore control the comments coming from your audience. When somebody comments on your discussion it will pop up in the tab on the right side of your screen.
Once you read it, you then have the option to post, hold, block, or allow all comments from that user without permission. This gives you complete control over your discussion.
If you click on the "Twitter" tab on the left side of the screen and then click "Show/Edit Twitter Feeds" a screen will pop up that will allow you to enter twitter usernames or lists, as well as key words or hashtags.
Whenever those key users or lists and when someone uses those key words or hashtags, the comments will appear in your discussion. You can also search twitter and then post tweets from other people that have to do with your topic into your discussion for other people to view.
One more way to control the content that is being shown in your discussion is option to live edit.
This can also be found in the Tools tab on the left hand side of the screen. This allows you to edit or delete content that was shared by any commenter.
Private messages are useful for the writer of the discussion if he or she wishes to disclose information to a single person rather than the whole group of people.
This message appears in red and is only visible to the sender and receiver.
If you are discussing an election or a current news story that is being updated minute by minute and you need to get the attention of your audience, you can use the tool called News Flash that can be found on the left hand side underneath "News Flash and Scoreboard".
This appears where the poll results appear, at the bottom of the discussion and above the box where you type.
When your discussion is over, you simply go to "End Live Event" which is located underneath the "Tools" tab. and it will end the discussion and convert to replay mode so that it can be viewed after the live chat has ended.
One thing that I was not able to test out is having a live video stream in your discussion using UStream. Although I was not able to try it out I encourage others to take a took. Here is a tutorial on how to do it.
This was the result of my Practice Event;
Cover it Live is a real-time blogging program that allows people all over the world to get breaking news, receive updates, directly participate in Q&A's, and discuss local politics, television, speeches, etc. It provides a social space for discussion, debate, education, the spread of information, and amusement.
Every week, Ivan Lajara uses Cover it Live to conduct a discussion on different topics relating to the transition of journalism into the digital age. It is a very useful tool for journalists all over the place; so today I decided to see what it was all about.
After you sign up for a Cover it Live (CiL) account, you are directed to a console where you create, edit, and manage your event/discussion.
When you first create your event, there will be a place with codes for you to publish your discussion. You can copy and paste the URL or embed code to post the discussion on your website or blog. You can also e-mail it to people or tell people your hashtag if they want to immediately be put into your discussion.
As the "writer" or creator of the event, you have the control to insert audio, images, videos, etc. You also have control over everyone in your discussion and the comments they make.
There are some really cool things you can do with cover it live to make it more interactive. For example, you can create a poll for your contributors to take part it.
You click the "Polls and Interactive" tab on the left hand side and click which kind of tab you want from the drop-box. After you fill in the information click "Publish" and it will pop up on the screen that your audience is looking at.
As the writer of the event, you can go to the "Media Library" tab on the left hand side of the screen. All the way at the bottom there is a "Media Uploader" button. When you click on that, CiL allows you to upload images, audio, videos, links, etc to your discussion post.
When you click on a selected video from your Media Library,it video loads directly into the chat that everyone is viewing.
The same goes for images, audio, links, and any other kind of supplement.
If you are conducting a long discussion and need to leave your computer for a five minute break you can let your audience know by going to the "Tools" tab on the left hand side. You then click the 5th option down to select how many minutes you plan on being away from your computer.
A countdown then pops up into your CiL chat to allow viewers to know that you will be right back.
In Cover it Live, you act as your own editor and therefore control the comments coming from your audience. When somebody comments on your discussion it will pop up in the tab on the right side of your screen.
Once you read it, you then have the option to post, hold, block, or allow all comments from that user without permission. This gives you complete control over your discussion.
If you click on the "Twitter" tab on the left side of the screen and then click "Show/Edit Twitter Feeds" a screen will pop up that will allow you to enter twitter usernames or lists, as well as key words or hashtags.
Whenever those key users or lists and when someone uses those key words or hashtags, the comments will appear in your discussion. You can also search twitter and then post tweets from other people that have to do with your topic into your discussion for other people to view.
One more way to control the content that is being shown in your discussion is option to live edit.
This can also be found in the Tools tab on the left hand side of the screen. This allows you to edit or delete content that was shared by any commenter.
Private messages are useful for the writer of the discussion if he or she wishes to disclose information to a single person rather than the whole group of people.
This message appears in red and is only visible to the sender and receiver.
If you are discussing an election or a current news story that is being updated minute by minute and you need to get the attention of your audience, you can use the tool called News Flash that can be found on the left hand side underneath "News Flash and Scoreboard".
This appears where the poll results appear, at the bottom of the discussion and above the box where you type.
When your discussion is over, you simply go to "End Live Event" which is located underneath the "Tools" tab. and it will end the discussion and convert to replay mode so that it can be viewed after the live chat has ended.
One thing that I was not able to test out is having a live video stream in your discussion using UStream. Although I was not able to try it out I encourage others to take a took. Here is a tutorial on how to do it.
This was the result of my Practice Event;
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Anayltics and Multimedia Tools for Journalists
Today, I had a lot of fun finding different kinds of website; some can benefit journalism, some are for pure enjoyment.
When I first came in I took a look at the stats for my blog on Blogger itself. When you click on "stats" you first get a page with the overview of the statistics for your blog over a day, week, month, or all time.
When you start clicking around you will see how many page views you received from which specific traffic sources (specific URLS and websites).
Blogger Stats also allows you to see who is viewing your blog. It tells you what countries their IP addresses are coming from and which browser and operating system they are using.
I really like Blogger Stats because it provides you with clear and concise information along with tables and graphs.
Another similar tracking system for websites is StatCounter. StatCounter provides in depth analytics about specific websites. When you first enter your URL, the website proveds you with a summary overview.
This tells you how many page views, unique visitors, and returning visitors have viewed your page within that day,week, month, quarter, or year.
If you look at the toolbar on the left hand side of the page you will see many different options that will show you even more detailed statistics about the clicks that your website got.
In the screenshot below, the tool bar with all the different options is circled. The image on the desktop is a analytic chart of Visit Length. This chart measures how long visitors stayed on the website for.
Other options to view your stats include: came from (where your visitor found the link to your site), keyword analysis (what key words were searched to find your website), visitor paths (shows the websites visited before they got to your site), country/state/city/isp (self-explanatory- also shows what network visitors were on), etc.
I posted the link to my blog on my social media outlets and watched as the numbers started to come. I also went through my twitter followers to delete people who don't post often and to interact with some of the people I follow in hopes of gaining some of their followers.
After this I continued my hunt for applications or tools that could be used in the field of Journalism. I found a presentation called 'Good Tools for Digital Journalism" on SlideShare:
This presentation led me to explore two different tools:
Ping.fm is a service much like TweetDeck that allows you to post something to your multitude of social media sites all at the same time. Ping gives you the option of many more social media sites than TweetDeck does; however a lot of them are older social media sites. For example, I ended up getting onto my Myspace (which I haven't used since sophomore year of high school) and Xanga (I can't even remember the last time I used this).
While Ping has many more options, it does not have the same interactive element that Tweetdeck does. It is not as organized as TweetDeck in the sense that TweetDeck allows you to organize all of your social media sites and the action that goes on between your friends/followers.
The second tool that I found in the presentation listed above was Mixx.com. According to the website, Mixx Channels
"give publishers an easy way to cut through the swirl of social media and create an engaging experience with their brand and design."
I was not able to try it out myself because ti said "we are no longer taking new registrations at this time", but from what I could tell, it looked slightly similar to Storify.
The next thing I came across was a presentation called "Multimedia Tools for Journalists" on DigitalJournalism.org. This presentation is awesome!
Many of the tools and programs in this presentation I have already come across and played around with before. However, I did have a LOT of fun playing and just reading about other programs and tools that were listed in this presentation.
For journalists who are on the go all the time and have a smartphone, YouMail could be really cool, useful, and time efficient. The application turns voicemails that people leave you into text messages, allowing you to receive a voice message in places where you normally couldn't. It also allows you to block or play a disconnected message to people you don't want to talk to without having to change your phone number through your carrier. Lastly, it allows you to see missed calls from when your phone was turned off.
Ning is a website that allows you to create your own social media website. At first I didn't see how this could be useful; then I took a look at some examples that were on the website. Keep A Child Alive and Autism Speaks are both social media websites that were created through Ning.
There is a lot of freedom within this site to be creative. I am still not sure about how you could use this in journalism because it looks like a format similar to a website, which news organizations already have. I was thinking Ning could be used for a supplement site to a news organizations website. Maybe an interactive social media site for children?
The downfall of this really cool program: There's only a 30 day free trial,and then you have to pay. (And nobody wants to do that .)
The last thing that I looked at briefly and definitely need to spend more time with is SwiftRiver. They have an application called Sweeper that according to swiftly.org allows users to:
"* Combine many feeds into one: then curate, filter and translate
* Count and archive Twitter mentions
* Mashup content from Email, Twitter, Blogs, Flickr, News sites, RSS/ATOM etc.
* Automate the addition of context to data: Location, priority, influence, reputation, tags etc.
* Structure unstructured data
* Buffering against an excess of crowdsourced data
* Set-up pipes of conditional logic for automating data processes
* Collect and manage realtime data from SMS while completely offline
* Translate real-time content from social media on the fly
* Datamine real-time content aggregated by you or your team
* Keyword monitoring from Twitter, Posterous, Blogger, Google News and Wordpress
* Native integration with Ushahidi and Crowdmap"
This particular program is only about a year old but seems to be aimed at organizing sources found through crowd-sourcing.
Lastly, I found this music site, that has no journalistic purpose; it is just a cool free music player called Spotify. It is a huge music catalog that allows users to listen to music for free, create playlists, and chat with other users about music. All of your songs and playlists are saved to your account so that you can access your music on any computer, phone, etc.
When I first came in I took a look at the stats for my blog on Blogger itself. When you click on "stats" you first get a page with the overview of the statistics for your blog over a day, week, month, or all time.
When you start clicking around you will see how many page views you received from which specific traffic sources (specific URLS and websites).
Blogger Stats also allows you to see who is viewing your blog. It tells you what countries their IP addresses are coming from and which browser and operating system they are using.
I really like Blogger Stats because it provides you with clear and concise information along with tables and graphs.
Another similar tracking system for websites is StatCounter. StatCounter provides in depth analytics about specific websites. When you first enter your URL, the website proveds you with a summary overview.
This tells you how many page views, unique visitors, and returning visitors have viewed your page within that day,week, month, quarter, or year.
If you look at the toolbar on the left hand side of the page you will see many different options that will show you even more detailed statistics about the clicks that your website got.
In the screenshot below, the tool bar with all the different options is circled. The image on the desktop is a analytic chart of Visit Length. This chart measures how long visitors stayed on the website for.
Other options to view your stats include: came from (where your visitor found the link to your site), keyword analysis (what key words were searched to find your website), visitor paths (shows the websites visited before they got to your site), country/state/city/isp (self-explanatory- also shows what network visitors were on), etc.
I posted the link to my blog on my social media outlets and watched as the numbers started to come. I also went through my twitter followers to delete people who don't post often and to interact with some of the people I follow in hopes of gaining some of their followers.
After this I continued my hunt for applications or tools that could be used in the field of Journalism. I found a presentation called 'Good Tools for Digital Journalism" on SlideShare:
Good Tools for Digital Journalism
View more presentations from Erin Cubert
This presentation led me to explore two different tools:
Ping.fm is a service much like TweetDeck that allows you to post something to your multitude of social media sites all at the same time. Ping gives you the option of many more social media sites than TweetDeck does; however a lot of them are older social media sites. For example, I ended up getting onto my Myspace (which I haven't used since sophomore year of high school) and Xanga (I can't even remember the last time I used this).
While Ping has many more options, it does not have the same interactive element that Tweetdeck does. It is not as organized as TweetDeck in the sense that TweetDeck allows you to organize all of your social media sites and the action that goes on between your friends/followers.
The second tool that I found in the presentation listed above was Mixx.com. According to the website, Mixx Channels
"give publishers an easy way to cut through the swirl of social media and create an engaging experience with their brand and design."
I was not able to try it out myself because ti said "we are no longer taking new registrations at this time", but from what I could tell, it looked slightly similar to Storify.
The next thing I came across was a presentation called "Multimedia Tools for Journalists" on DigitalJournalism.org. This presentation is awesome!
Many of the tools and programs in this presentation I have already come across and played around with before. However, I did have a LOT of fun playing and just reading about other programs and tools that were listed in this presentation.
For journalists who are on the go all the time and have a smartphone, YouMail could be really cool, useful, and time efficient. The application turns voicemails that people leave you into text messages, allowing you to receive a voice message in places where you normally couldn't. It also allows you to block or play a disconnected message to people you don't want to talk to without having to change your phone number through your carrier. Lastly, it allows you to see missed calls from when your phone was turned off.
Ning is a website that allows you to create your own social media website. At first I didn't see how this could be useful; then I took a look at some examples that were on the website. Keep A Child Alive and Autism Speaks are both social media websites that were created through Ning.
There is a lot of freedom within this site to be creative. I am still not sure about how you could use this in journalism because it looks like a format similar to a website, which news organizations already have. I was thinking Ning could be used for a supplement site to a news organizations website. Maybe an interactive social media site for children?
The downfall of this really cool program: There's only a 30 day free trial,and then you have to pay. (And nobody wants to do that .)
The last thing that I looked at briefly and definitely need to spend more time with is SwiftRiver. They have an application called Sweeper that according to swiftly.org allows users to:
"* Combine many feeds into one: then curate, filter and translate
* Count and archive Twitter mentions
* Mashup content from Email, Twitter, Blogs, Flickr, News sites, RSS/ATOM etc.
* Automate the addition of context to data: Location, priority, influence, reputation, tags etc.
* Structure unstructured data
* Buffering against an excess of crowdsourced data
* Set-up pipes of conditional logic for automating data processes
* Collect and manage realtime data from SMS while completely offline
* Translate real-time content from social media on the fly
* Datamine real-time content aggregated by you or your team
* Keyword monitoring from Twitter, Posterous, Blogger, Google News and Wordpress
* Native integration with Ushahidi and Crowdmap"
This particular program is only about a year old but seems to be aimed at organizing sources found through crowd-sourcing.
Lastly, I found this music site, that has no journalistic purpose; it is just a cool free music player called Spotify. It is a huge music catalog that allows users to listen to music for free, create playlists, and chat with other users about music. All of your songs and playlists are saved to your account so that you can access your music on any computer, phone, etc.
Friday, April 1, 2011
TweetDeck
TweetDeck is a real-time browser that allows you to connect all of your social media outlets and contacts into one space. It allows you to organize your feeds by topic and allows you to search for things/people/places/events more easily than before. It allows you to connect your accounts from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google Buzz and more.
Registering
The first step is to register for an account. When you register, you will be asked for you twitter username and password. This is usually your main account.
Settings
Once you have your account, go into settings.First, you will see your general settings (none of which really need to be changed). Then there is a twitter settings section which allows you to enable real-time streaming and allows you to see people who have made your tweets one of their favorites in your mentions column (more about columns is coming!).
Twitter updates is the next tab within settings. This gives you the option of allowing Twitter to control your API,or gives you the option of controlling your API manually.
The settings for notifications allows you to choose which area or corner of the screen you would like pop-up notifications to appear in. It also allows you to decide how loud the sound is, how often they pop up, and how much detail you would like to be shown.
The fonts/colors options allow you to change the look of your tweet deck. For example, you could have a light colored scheme:
A dark colored scheme:
Or you could customize your own colors for your desktop.
The services settings is an important one to look out for. It is here that you can hook up your bit.ly account (which is an API service)to your TweetDeck account. This allows you to look at all the statistics that go along with the links you tweet or post on your facebook and is a very, very useful tool in journalism.
Lastly, you can edit your accounts. You can add your Facebook page, LinkedIn account, Foursquare,etc.
Columns
The heart and soul of TweetDeck lies in the columns. When you first register for TweetDeck, you are set up with five different columns: All Friends, Mentions, Direct Messages, WorldWide Trends, and TweetDeck Recommends.
You can create your own columns and delete the standard columns as well if you would like. To create a column, click the + sign in the top left corner of the desktop. You can then click on "search".
Here you can search for names, locations, hashtags, topics, whatever you want and then create a column based off of those words. If you want to search for more than one word at a time you put "OR" in between the words. (for example: #NewPaltz OR "SUNY New Paltz")
You could also add a column by lists, in which you simply select which list you would like to make a column.
The last option to make a column is the Core selection. This is a bunch of generic options including: all friends, direct messages, new followers, scheduled updates, etc.
Posting to your social media sites!
You can post up to 160 characters into the box at the top of the page. When you insert a link into the box, TweetDeck will automatically shorten it.
The great thing about TweetDeck is that it allows you to post to more than one social media site at one time. For example,if you look at the top left corner of the image below this, you will see two highlighted boxes (one for my Facebook and one for my Twitter). By clicking on both of those boxes, I will be publishing whatever I put into that box onto both of those sites.
You can also use TweetDeck to schedule updates. This is a very convenient tool for journalists who do not have much time to sit on a computer in order to post updates every hour on the hour. When you type whatever you want to post in the box at the top of the page, instead of clicking send, you click the button next to it. This will allow you to schedule a date and time for the post to be published. Just be careful! ...it is in military time.
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