To update from the previous post, Project Mango, a site I’m building to bring young journalists together to share their stories, experiences, tips and more, now has an official name: JournU.

The URL will be JournU.net. And it should debut in July. For now, you can follow JournU on Twitter and on Facebook.

But for the site to go public by July, I could use some more journalists to volunteer.

I understand this effort is going to be difficult at first with people not knowing what exactly JournU will be. So I decided to put together an outline of what I’m looking for out of contributors (which will be the “Write for Us!” page on the site itself), plus two posts I’ve already written to launch with the site.

To the right: A preview of the site (so far). Final logo pending.

I’m inviting you

JournU is meant to be a collective effort by as many bright young journalists as possible. If you believe you fall under that category, I encourage you to jump in and write about your experiences, your lessons, your advice and more!

What JournU is looking for

Who should write: “Young journalist” is not discriminatory toward age. A definition to start out with: any college journalist or professional journalists with between 1-5 years of experience. If you fall short of that definition, don’t worry! I still want you to chip in. The point is to bring many journalists together to share what they’ve learned and experienced in the field to encourage and inspire others to grow as professionals.

What to write about: Anything you want. The floor is yours. Are you a designer looking to share what you’ve learned designing front pages? Write about it. Are you in broadcasting and have an incredible story of a day in the field? Write about it. Are you a photographer with tips on how to survive as a freelancer? Write about it! Anything that you think would benefit or even entertain other young journalists, I want you to share it.

Requirements: Barely any. You can write whenever you want, however you want.

• Your writing may be subject to some editing, but only for spelling and grammar.
• For biographical purposes, I want you to use your real name, a short bio of yourself which at least includes which university you attend(ed), and an avatar (see: right). This can all be filled out in the WordPress Dashboard once your login is set up.

A preview of two posts I’ve written so far:

How to build your journalism reading list: The habit I got into that has helped me the most as a young journalist is reading my RSS feed with the latest updates from my favorite journalism sites and blogs. Therefore, I’m sharing how you can set yours up, with what reader(s) you should choose and how to begin searching for the feeds that suit you.

Looking for a journalism job? Consider moving across the country: I spent my first 23 years of existence in Michigan, but decided to take my first post-graduate job 1,900 miles away in Arizona. It’s not an easy decision to make for anyone, but there are benefits to doing so from my own experiences and why I think journalists should consider that path.

How do I get started?

Fill out the form below!

Caution: Depending on how many people sign up to write, I can’t guarantee everyone who fills out the form will become contributors. However, the more information you provide, the better your chances.

Should you be approved to write for JournU, you’ll be provided with WordPress login information which you can use to access the back end as an author. There, you can update your bio and add new posts whenever you wish.

So get on board:

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It started with an email from GoDaddy.com a few weeks ago: The domain BrianManzullo.com needed to be renewed after two years.

I met the reminder with mixed feelings. For one thing, it’s hard to believe I first built this site two years ago… while I was interning at The Grand Rapids Press in 2009. The point? To build my brand with an online portfolio and for me to blog on my current projects and findings. The hope? To set myself up in the job market once I graduate and land a sweet gig somewhere.

Check… and check.

Looking back, I guess that’s why the updates have been so sporadic. I wanted to update BrianManzullo.com at least once a week. It turned out to be monthly, if that, once I graduated college. It’s not that I’ve “checked out” from the industry; if anything, I’m becoming more enveloped in it, especially as a professional journalist.

I just haven’t been motivated to write for a personal blog. There’s no direction, no specific audience and no purpose with this thing anymore. It’s time for something new. But what?

I tossed some ideas back and forth the previous few weeks. Even up until a couple days ago, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I definitely wanted another blog. I wanted to contribute in some way to journalism. To the craft, in particular. But if I was going to do something, it had to be unique in some way. It had to be something new (or at least somewhat new) with potential to grow into something significant.

It always came back to journalism education.

I can’t say I’m familiar with every college journalism program in the country but, at Central Michigan University, there are generally two types of students: Those who are extremely passionate about journalism and those who are… well… not. You have the student who, for example, works hard at the student newspaper or local startup, nails a few internships, immerses themselves in the future of their craft and not only lands an awesome job but kicks ass at it. Then you have the student (again, for example) who is immersed in classwork, maybe joins another student organization and places their journalistic knowledge in the hands of their professors, most of whom are out of touch.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter. But today’s journalism students will encompass the next generation of journalism. And the problem comes from the apathy: Too many students depend on their professors to know what they’re talking about. With the way journalism has changed already, many no longer do. Neither do the editors many students end up working for one day.

This is the point of what, for now, I’m calling Project Mango.

Molding journalists through community

My philosophy has always been that journalism is an industry of passion and true journalism education lies in experience. To know it, you have to do it.

One of my colleagues and best friends, Jake May, and I talk about this sort of thing every now and then. To put it bluntly, we love journalism. We study it and practice it even when we’re not on the job. As I type this, Jake is in Joplin, Mo., with other Central Michigan University photojournalists to capture and tell the stories of the town, which was ravaged by a tornado several weeks ago. No boss told him to do it. He isn’t even getting paid a dime for it. He’s doing it for the experience before he starts his photo internship at The Herald in Jasper, Ind.

That’s exactly the sort of thing I want Project Mango to do. Under a different name, of course, I want this site to help inspire and motivate young journalists to get better, to stay ahead and to lead this industry (if that’s what you want to call it) toward a better future. Yes, there are a handful of young journalists out there who are ahead of the curve, many of which I’ve had the great privilege of meeting… this is more about multiplying that handful. It’s about helping to create the sort of passion Jake has among even more young journalism hopefuls.

How so? For one, by creating community. It’s much easier to get off the sofa and exercise when you have others with you to motivate you. Same concept here. Young journalists — from writers to photographers to broadcasters to programmers to designers — will contribute to the site with their stories, tips, lessons and experience within their craft. Many others will comment, critique and encourage.

My hope is word of mouth spreads around to different journalism schools and more people get involved. I also hope more sites similar to Project Mango form to reach out to even more young journalists. The more sources of motivation, the better.

But this is very early into the process. I’m still in the beginning stages of designing this site. It may not launch for a couple months, at least.

So, in the meantime, I’m looking for help.

Want to help contribute to Project Mango? Have ideas, thoughts, questions, concerns? What kind of content would you want to post? Shoot me an e-mail. Project Mango also can be found on Twitter at @ProjectMango. I can’t guarantee that everyone who inquiries will be involved in the building of this project but, again, my hope is to get as many bright young journalists as possible involved with this in some way.

As for BrianManzullo.com? Maybe it won’t be completely dead. I’ll keep the domain name for another two years. And maybe I’ll have the motivation to keep a personal blog one day. But for now, it’s going to say goodbye.

In the meantime… spread the word about Project Mango.

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“You awake, Brian?”

Those words, coming from my freshman-year Geometry teacher, provided a shot of adrenaline during an extremely groggy Tuesday morning in a dark, projector-lit classroom.

I always fell asleep in class when I was in high school. I couldn’t help it. And while I was usually pretty good about masking my grogginess, Mr. Murphy caught me this particular morning as he looked up from a problem he was solving.

That’s about the extent of what I remember that morning. That is, until I walked into my Tuesday seminar and saw burning buildings on the television set in the corner.

My first reaction: What movie is this? I was a big fan of large-scope action films such as Independence Day — those that involved incredible international (and sometimes extraterrestrial) crises. I figured this was another one I just had to watch.

But almost immediately I noticed the channel was set to CNN, and that the burning buildings were the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

This was my September 11.

It’s difficult to say what I was thinking about as this was happening. The news being reported was that two planes had hit the towers. For some stupid reason, I wondered if it was an accident; the sound was muted on the TV as it usually was and 14-year-olds have a tendency to be naive about some things.

But from talking about it with classmates and Mr. Snyder, the teacher in my next class (language arts), all I knew was that it definitely wasn’t an accident.

It was around that time when I heard the name Osama bin Laden for the first time.

Every day, Mr. Snyder would have the class write something on a full piece of paper. It didn’t matter what you wrote about. You could write anything. The point was to practice the craft and to better translate thoughts into written words.

Nothing changed on September 11; our assignment stayed the same. All I could write about was what was occurring in front of me — on the television set.

I wrote as I watched the towers bellowing smoke and listened to alarms blaring through New York City. I wrote as the cameras caught people jumping from burning windows. I wrote during the first collapse. Then the second. Then during the video clips of screaming people running down the street. These things only happen in movies, I recalled. Now it’s reality.

I still have that piece of paper in a bedroom closet in Saginaw, Michigan. I stowed it away moments after I found my mother sitting up in bed, tears in her eyes with the TV channel set to CNN. “You’re going to remember today for the rest of your life,” she said.

* * * * *

I’m not going to pretend like I know what life would be like today had it not been for 9/11. I reminisce about the past, but I don’t hold regrets close to home or even wonder too much about what things would be like had I made different decisions. There is a reason behind everything that happens, even if it’s menial, and the only thing you can control is what’s in front of you at this moment.

I’m not even sure if 9/11 changed me on a personal level in the years that followed. I certainly remembered it. I still have copies of USA Today and The Saginaw News from that day, plus the special editions released one year later. My family and I visited New York City in 2002 and visited Ground Zero, touring around to all the memorials in the area and paying our respects. And I’ve always followed the news closely throughout my life, though I wasn’t intent on becoming a journalist that early in my high school years (I was leaning toward graphic design).

So without much of a personal, emotional connection to it all, 9/11 was simply a reminder to me of the reality of life is and how nothing should be taken for granted. Sure, we had to take positives out of watching this country bleed that day. We had to look up to the fortunes we really had and be thankful for the troops who sacrifice every day to keep this nation strong. But if life was a bedroom, 9/11 was the teddy bear in the corner. A memory and little more.

That brings me to May 1, 2011.

A lot has changed since I first took notice of Osama bin Laden. I graduated through two levels of education, I worked two jobs along with three internships and I made dozens of new friends while (sadly) losing touch with dozens of others. I’m now 1,900 miles away from Michigan, a place I called home my entire life up until this past September.

And here I am, finally watching the news break before my eyes on Twitter and on CNN while I was working at The Republic. Osama bin Laden — the poster boy of evil, the mastermind behind the greatest tragedy on our soil, the closest thing America had to a comic-book villain — is dead.

My first thought: How on earth am I not more happy about this? This is a man I was taught to hate for 10 years. His face was made into a proverbial dart board in the media and in much of the entertainment I watched during my teenage and young-adult years. His death brought hundreds to the streets of Washington, chanting “U-S-A!” and signing the National Anthem.

You know what that actually reminded me of? It reminded me of people in foreign countries burning the American flag. It reminded me of watching videos of people celebrating in the streets following Sept. 11. It reminded me that for how evil we made bin Laden out to be, for how powerful of a figure we claimed he was, he really was not. When was the last time you thought about him before news of his death broke? Probably not for a while. He was a man in hiding for many years; long enough to make his existence almost a moot point.

This is not an extension of sympathy to bin Laden; I’ve always felt he was a man who deserved to die for the actions he was ultimately responsible for. But I think the most important thing we will eventually take from May 1, 2011 is that May 1, 2011 will hold little significance to the transcendence of humanity. Especially compared to 9/11. It may be a victory to some, but it’s certainly a shallow one. It doesn’t mean the wars we’re fighting are over. It doesn’t mean our everyday lives are safer. It doesn’t even mean gas prices will go down.

It means one more man is dead. And such is life.

I apologize if this post seems like a bunch of scribbling. I guess my point is that May 1, for me, is simply a reminder of the reality of life just like 9/11 was nearly 10 years ago. Except it’s a much smaller reminder. We can be happy all we want about Osama bin Laden being dead but, once all the dust from this media storm settles, we’re going to realize that we’re living life just like we did the week before, contributing to society the same way we did the week before and, most of all, facing the same struggles we were the week before.

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Tuesday’s big story in azcentral.com sports (where I work) was the unveiling of Arizona State University’s new uniforms, logo and color scheme.

This press conference was built up for some time by the ASU athletics department. This past Saturday, they offered a inside peek at the new identity via invitation only in nearby Scottsdale. And even if you forked over the $125 to go (no pun intended), you had to sign an agreement saying you would not leak it to the public.

So that event drew quite a buzz, yet nothing was leaked until Tuesday. The slogan: “It’s time.” The font: “Sun Devil bold” (see right). The uniforms: The usual maroon and gold… with black as the new arrival. Nike, the same company notorious for the University of Oregon’s athletic look, spearheaded the effort for ASU.

(If you want an idea of how much anticipation surrounded this event, our slideshow on azcentral.com raked in more than 550,000 hits within four hours of the press conference. Insane.)

This might not seem like a big deal to sports fans; a handful of universities and pro teams change logos/uniforms/etc. every year. But for ASU, it wasn’t just about modernizing the look. It was about making Sun Devils athletics an official brand. I mean, they invented a new typeface, for Pete’s sake.

A lot of ASU alumni are upset for the university “changing tradition.” They especially don’t like the mascot, Sparky, being somewhat diminished in the identity, especially on the football helmets. Problem is, this “evolution” of the ASU brand was never about pleasing alumni; it’s about making the Sun Devils brand “official.” It’s about bringing in recruits. It’s about bringing current students and faculty together. It’s about changing the face and developing excitement, especially around the football and basketball programs.

Most of all, it’s about bringing in money — but that’s beside the point.

Point is, ASU showcased a great example of why branding is important. It makes properties “official.” It makes them consistent and credible. It gives them an easy-to-recognize identity. It provides unity. In cases of “re-branding,” such as ASU’s, it motivates and excites the community.

And the branding effort doesn’t even have to be universal; it can be about the little things. Take ESPN, for example. As much as I’ve bashed ESPN in the past, they have branding down to a tee. SportsCenter. SportsNation. Page 2. 30 for 30. Year of the QB. E60. Playoff Challenge. Streak for the Cash. ESPN Arcade. ESPN brands everything, from its shows to its sites, from its films to its games.

If we’re going to optimize this concept to newspaper websites, we have to start with the little things. The universal brand is probably already there – The New York Times (NYTimes.com) is a good example.

What about weekly online features? The Arizona Republic sports section has what is called the “Sunday Showcase” for bigger sports features. What about periodical live chats? Last year, while I was editor at Central Michigan Life, we began the “Digital Roundtable” series. What about sections of your site (lifestyles, photo, video, etc.), outreach efforts or online advertising campaigns? Even give the little Facebook games/contests you host for readers a name and a logo.

Then, when readers see that identity, whether it’s the flag of a webpage or a thumbnail logo on a social media posting… they know what to expect.

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The inspiration for this post comes from this well written piece by Lauren Rabaino (who you should be following on Twitter, too, if you’re at all interested in journalism).

It was around the summer of 2009 when I began participating in Twitter chats such as #journchat, #wjchat and #collegejourn. If you’re unfamiliar with these, they are weekly discussions on Twitter that people participate in by using the hashtag in their tweets. I began getting involved in some serious talks about how to improve college media, in particular. What do student newspapers need to do? What aren’t the departments teaching?

The consensus we reached in 2009: Student newspapers need to move off College Publisher, innovate and adapt to the web. J-schools need to engrain the web into their core curriculum and spend money wisely on tools the students need.

Reading Lauren’s post got me to thinking. We’re nearly three months into 2011. Dozens of Twitter chats and college journalism conferences around the country have passed. What has changed since 2009? Practically nothing.

Student newspapers are still on College Publisher. Many more student newspapers haven’t moved to a web-first workflow. J-students are still not inspired to work online. J-schools are still overrun by old-timer professors who have little to no clue where their industry is going. (And if they do, all they’re doing is whining about how journalism is nothing like it used to be)

This is the time when college media needs to step up, when the young generation of journalists come in and steer this profession into the right direction… yet very few are taking the wheel.

What I’m seeing is a severe lack of leadership on the part of both the J-schools and the student newspapers. Instead of taking the risk of reinventing the wheel and innovating, they’re coasting. Doing the bare minimum, going risk-free and making menial changes when large changes are called for.

Sound familiar? That’s because newspapers are doing the exact same thing — and it’s costing heavy losses in revenue and jobs. There’s nobody willing to step in and say, “Okay, we really need to do something everything different.”

To me, the root of the problem in college media lies in the J-school. There are many J-schools, including my alma mater (unfortunately), who are still offering “online journalism” as a curriculum option within the department.

Are you kidding me? If you’re looking for a way to kill a journalism student’s inspiration to innovate, there it is. “Online journalism” is not an alternative or a specialized form of journalism — it’s journalism, period. And it’s the wave of the profession’s present and future. There’s a reason why I’m typing “online journalism” in quotes — it’s because I despise the term. It’s today’s journalism. It’s the future of journalism. Professors today should teach how to link like they teach how to write a lede.

To make matters worse — One CMU professor, who will remain nameless, taught an “online journalism” class last year without owning a cell phone. When it came to the video editing unit of the class, this person needed someone else to teach because they couldn’t teach it to themselves in time for the unit. Is this what journalism education has come down to? How can our industry’s leaders inspire students to work online when they absolutely stink at teaching it?

Unfortunately, I think this negative attitude toward “online journalism” reverberates into the student newsroom more than some might think. Many student newspapers take pride in being independent from the J-schools they’re commonly associated with, but when “online journalism” is treated like an option — an alternative — by the professors and leaders across the hall, it influences more than a handful of students to do the same thing. I’m here to learn how to be a reporter, why should I bother to learn the web? Why should I use social media?

Easy answer — because if you plan on being a journalist in the next decade, it will be your job. Period. Too bad your professors won’t tell you that.

Want to make a difference? Want to try something new? Want the chance to turn things around at your J-school or student newspaper? Here’s a list of three things I dare journalism students to do before they graduate.

Yeah. I know I wrote it in July. Unfortunately, it’s just as relevant today.

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A bit of background: About a week and a half ago, I finally earned my invite to try out Storify, a social media storytelling tool that allows you to combine tweets, Facebook posts, videos and more to tell effective stories.

One of my favorite simple examples of Storify’s use is Adam Schweigert’s story of Ted Williams, the homeless man who became an Internet sensation with his “golden” radio voice. Storify helps being a personal touch to many of the stories we tell because, sometimes, the way a story breaks on social media with the actual people involved is more effective than a reporter relaying the information all the time. Here’s a great example of a story told via Facebook posts.

Anyhow, to test out Storify and get a feel for its basic use, I compiled a search of tweets with the hashtag #partylikeajournalist. Hopefully, if you’re a journalist on Twitter, you know what that is by now. The things we do, the experiences we cover are those only a journalist can recall.

Without further ado…

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Marcia Parker, the West Coast editorial director of Aol/Patch Media, came to speak in last week’s “Must See Monday” series at Arizona State University’s Cronkite school. She was there to discuss hyperlocal content in a digital world, which essentially sums up the endeavors of Patch, a multi-million-dollar venture by Aol to bring hyperlocal news sites to hundreds of communities across the United States.

This wasn’t my first experience with Patch. That came when I talked with Nancy Hanus, the regional editor of Michigan’s metro Detroit Patch sites, this past summer about the possibility of becoming a local editor. We talked a lot about philosophies of digital journalism in comparison to newspapers (including the overlap), and what Patch was striving to do in each community.

While I ended up at the Arizona Republic instead, I was still intrigued by Patch’s effort, particularly in the new-media efforts prominently displayed on each site (social media, geolocation, etc.).

Still, in watching and reading about Patch’s progress, there are important lessons to be learned in the big picture from what I still consider to be a project. After all, Patch has only reached 18 states so far (not including D.C.). Aol doesn’t expect Patch to contribute to its profitability until this year. And we’ve still yet to see how Aol’s purchase of the Huffington Post will affect Patch. So judging whether this venture is a success or a failure is moot at this point. But in the meantime, there are ideas and warnings to take from Patch.

Here are some of my thoughts:

What I like about Patch

Emphasis on small-community news. I may have mentioned it before, but I am a huge advocate for small-community news. It is one of the most underrated and unappreciated parts of my craft. I constantly read about the endeavors of big-market publications and news media outlets such as The New York Times, The Seattle Times and the like — but I never read about what small community news outlets are doing.

Is that because many of them lack money, resources and manpower? Probably. But it makes you wonder how much those troubles are coming at the expense of the people. Are public officials in these small towns being held accountable? Are we effectively analyzing government cash flow and the state of the economy? In a way, Patch helps this by bringing visibility to these communities, many of which had none in the first place.

The goal of being an engagement hub, not just a news source. Parker mentioned during Monday’s presentation that Patch’s goal wasn’t just to bring news to small communities. Each site is trying to be a hub of information, resources and engagement. For example, at the top of each Patch site, you have the choice of viewing a comprehensive business directory, an interactive schedule of events, volunteer opportunities in your community and even questions and answers from other community members.

I’m particularly intrigued by the engagement part rather than the directory (more on that in a bit) — while small community members do interact through platforms such as Facebook, many need a centralized forum for discussion on important public issues. Patch can provide that.

A goal of transparency. According to Parker, each Patch site’s local editor is required to go out and meet people in the community through activities such as meetups, coffee breaks, etc. How many editors in the mainstream media have that requirement? And how many of them actually do it?

The ivory-tower mentality is broken down here and it makes community coverage that much more effective because it keeps the public interested and informed. All editors and reporters in every journalistic entity need to be easily accessible by the public, period.

Geolocation. Maps, such as the one above. Why aren’t more news sites using these?

Why I’m skeptical about Patch

Poor branding. This is not a knock on the name “Patch,” or the logo, color scheme or anything of that nature. It’s the overall presentation of Aol’s news venture, which essentially brings the Patch name to hundreds of communities around the country. Although I admit it’s not an equal comparison, imagine if Gannett forced every one of its dozens of newspapers to be renamed “*City* Gannett” and to operate the same exact template of a website and newspaper. There’s no personal identity in that!

No community, big or small, is the same. Their news entities shouldn’t be, either. The goal of a small community news outlet should be to maintain a maximal connection with its public arena, and that’s virtually impossible when your news outlet hangs under the umbrella of a much larger corporation. The name “Patch” on each site only makes it worse.

Oversaturating the flow of information. Piggybacking off of Lauren Rabaino’s post on the oversaturation of news (which you should read, by the way), I can’t help but feel like Patch is bringing nothing new to the table for each community outside of its news front.

I pointed out the comprehensive business directory earlier — while it is nice to neatly organize a community’s array of businesses into one spot and add a social media component, I can still find more information on most of these businesses through Google’s semantic web, or even the Yellow Pages. So why waste labor building all of it again? “Stick to what you do best… and link to the rest.”

Will it really make money? I mentioned earlier that Aol doesn’t plan on making profits from Patch until this year. Problem is, those profits hinge on the collective effort of hundreds of Patch sites. How many of them are effectively covering their communities and generating enough money through advertising, classifieds and the like? I’m not doubting that some are doing well but, there are so many moving pieces in the equation, it doesn’t matter how well a handful of Patch sites are doing.

Conclusion

The future of news is hyperlocal and personalized. It starts with news from your immediate surroundings. And the typical United States community, from the major metropolitan suburb to the town by the rural countryside, doesn’t receive enough visibility. Small community newspapers are suffering worse than their metropolitan counterparts, if not already closed down. It’s time to bring the news to these communities.

That’s where Patch comes in. For now.

I stated in a tweet following Parker’s presentation that while I’m still skeptical about some things, particularly with the marketing and business model, Patch is still employing techniques that should be followed in the mainstream media. Is Patch the final answer to what journalism needs? Probably not.

But one thing that can’t be ignored: It’s trying something new. It’s experimenting. There are lessons we need to take from that.

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Sometimes it takes a sitdown with some of the more creative minds in social media and journalism to get your brain into overdrive.

That’s how I viewed the first meeting of the “Webslingers,” a group of about 15 Phoenix-area journalists, social media gurus and Web geeks (some would classify under all three) formed by Arizona Republic social media editor Chad Graham. Most of us in the group got together Friday night for the first of hopefully many informal discussions of ideas and strategies relating to our work.

Caught me looking at my phone. (Courtesy of Kevin Spidel)

This was the sort of thing I envisioned getting involved in when I first came out to Arizona. It’s all too easy to fall into a daily routine of going to work, doing your job and coming home to rest; it can put a real damper on thinking “outside the box.” Which is what journalism needs.

Having these meet-ups helps for a lot of reasons: It’s outside the office setting. It involves people from a variety of professions (one Webslinger works for a construction company). It’s informal. It gives you a chance to hear perspective from the outside looking in on your work. And, of course, it involves appetizers and beer, although the latter of which I couldn’t enjoy; I had work afterward.

My favorite part about the meet-up Friday: Nothing concrete came out of it. As I eluded to earlier, the point is to stimulate creative, critical thinking. The point is to walk out with inspiration; your brain in a rush to experiment, start or finish projects or discuss ideas even further. The point is to break out of the daily mold a little bit with something new. These meet-ups will most likely take place once a month, which is certainly good enough given everyone’s busy schedules… here’s hoping they continue to get better.

Speaker series

Starting today, I have another opportunity to get the creative juices flowing.

Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication is hosting a speaker series this semester, at 7 p.m. every Monday, featuring some of the most prominent minds in journalism. It starts with Brian Storm, founder and executive producer of MediaStorm, and will feature journalists from NPR, CNN, The New York Times, The Seattle Times and more throughout the next few months.

I plan on going to all of them. So should you, if you live in the Phoenix area!

If not, a word of advice to fellow young journalists: Check out the nearest journalism school (that is, if you aren’t currently attending one) and see if any events are coming up that are open to the public. Even if it doesn’t necessarily involve your exact line of work, it’s great to network with as many people as possible in media and communications.

And if there are no events? Start them. Start a meet-up. Invite speakers. Make connections. Take initative.

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Over the past five months, I’ve enjoyed working on a wide array of everyday projects as sports producer at The Arizona Republic. But one of my favorite duties is creating “close-up” photo galleries.

Here’s one example from the 2011 Fiesta Bowl, which took place in Glendale, about 15 minutes from where I work (downtown Phoenix).

The format might look familiar to you if you’re a follower of the Boston Globe’s “The Big Picture” photo blog, or of the St. Petersburg Times’ “All Eyes.” Same concept here. I mixed photos from some of the Republic photographers with those of the Associated Press and Getty Images and put them together at 905 pixels strong.

Normal photo galleries on azcentral.com are placed into regular slideshow format, or even in a super slideshow that displays images a little larger and is meant for visualizing stories that run in print. But on rare occasion, for bigger games, we will put a close-up gallery together.

Another one of my close-ups here, this time the 2011 BCS Championship from Glendale. Compare it to the regular slideshow.

Photojournalism falling into a template

If you compare the close-ups with the typical slideshows, you can probably see why I’m a big fan of the former over the other. What makes photojournalism so powerful is that when it’s done right, it brings readers into a story in a way writing can’t. It evokes thoughts and emotions that are impossible to draw through reading and imagination. Photography is the greatest form of nostalgia in journalism.

But taking great photos is half the battle — they also need room to breathe. And many newspaper websites shove them, usually one per story, into a corner. I couldn’t even count how many times I’ve read stories in print with five- or six-column photos that earn every inch, only to see them crammed into a template online. Design is essentially tossed out the window.

Take a look, for example, at this Miami Herald story from the latest Florida Panthers game. Photos are typically reduced to between 300 and 400 pixels wide and thrown into a template spot on the left side of each story. (Even worse, if you expand the slideshow, photos go about 500 or 600 pixels wide, tops. Full screen them!) Unfortunately, this is the same on a lot of sites, and it only gets worse when they try to tell feature stories.

Close-up galleries are one step toward expanding the power of photojournalism. They give photos that chance to breathe and provide the depth necessary to best tell a story.

What I’d love to see is this close-up concept better employed within online stories — for example, a clickable photo gallery embedded inside each article, no fewer than 800 pixels wide, with the option to full-screen the photos. Or even just have larger photos littered throughout the text, much like we see in print packages. If we can do it in print, why can’t we do it online?

But, from what I can gather, we’re in 2011 and we haven’t quite gotten there yet. (However, we can develop supercomputers that can pummel you in Jeopardy.)

Back to “The Big Picture” for a second: I’m particularly intrigued by creator Alan Taylor’s move to The Atlantic, where he will run a similar photo blog, “In Focus.” Taylor plans on bringing user involvement into the mix, something he experimented a little bit with at the Globe with user-generated content. Here’s an interview with Taylor from a couple years ago, if you’re interested in reading more. It’s nice to see someone thinking innovation when it comes to photojournalism because, in my opinion, we’re lagging a little bit.

Just a little bit.

What does the future hold?

Feel free to comment below with your thoughts on close-up galleries and the like. What are your favorite examples of sites getting digital storytelling right or wrong? Do you think close-up galleries are a step toward the future for online photojournalism? I don’t believe there is one right answer, but there are certainly steps we can take to make this sort of storytelling better.

Lastly, a quick shout-out to my former Central Michigan colleague, a good friend of mine and a hell of a photojournalist, Jake May, for the idea behind this post.

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Last week, 10,000 Words creator Mark S. Luckie wrote a blog post on five myths about digital journalism. I recommend you read the post, but just to provide a roundup, here are the five myths:

• Journalists must know everything.
• Social media is the answer (to saving journalism).
• Journalists must have database development skills.
• Comments suck/comments are essential for democracy.
• There are no journalism jobs.

This led to a rebuttal one day later from Andy Boyle, a digital developer with The New York Times Media Group in Tampa, Fla., on all but one of those points. In a nutshell: You do need to “do it all” with some form of success, there is no one answer to saving journalism and you do need basic database skills.

Combined, the two sides make for an interesting debate on what today’s journalists really need (the subject of this blog post in particular) and what is essential for the industry to move forward. Mindy McAdams, a journalism professor at the University of Florida, rounded up the two sides with her thoughts in a well-written post.

I’m not going to go from point to point on this. I think McAdams did a nice job of it and I generally agree with her arguments (in that both sides are right, to an extent). But I think when it comes to defining what journalists really need, we need to go broader than just what skills are essential, what programs you need to know and what devices you need to be familiar with. Why? Because these skills, programs and devices are changing all the time. One day, we needed to know how to use a voice recorder, then a standard video camera, then a flip cam, then a smartphone. Even different versions of the same program (for example, Photoshop CS2 and CS5) have different learning curves — and I had to work with all four in between during my five years in college!

The real key for journalists in moving ahead is adaptability. And not just being able to adapt, but being willing, too. Andy Boyle touched up on this: ” … you DO need to be able to do it all with some semblance of not-suckitude.” What I mean by adaptability is being willing and able to try new things to enhance the quality of your journalistic work with some degree of success. This can be anything from using your smartphone to shoot photos or video on the job to using a public records database for a follow-up story.

From working at Central Michigan Life for five years, I have come to know dozens of student journalists, possibly hundreds. I know plenty that graduated and moved on to good jobs with good newspapers. But I know others that didn’t. They either couldn’t find a decent, well-paying job, majored outside of journalism, went back to graduate school or dropped out of college altogether.

Not that any of those things are bad! But this is the nature of the beast of journalism: You have to put in a little extra, think outside the box and try new things as they come along for a good journalism job these days, and some people just aren’t willing to do that. It comes down to passion. Do you have to be a master at multiple trades? No. Just be aware of what’s at your disposal and try to maximize your effort in telling the best possible story.

Let’s get even broader with this. A former colleague of mine, Mark W. Smith, was honored as Central Michigan University’s Young Journalist of the Year by the journalism department at the annual Hall of Fame banquet in November. He graduated in 2007 and currently serves as Web Editor at the Detroit Free Press. How’d he get into such a prestigious job so fast?

His motto: “Work harder than the person next to you.”

That, really, is all it comes down to.

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