Final Presentation
Elle Moxley
Tanya Sneddon
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Project Summary
Business Week wants us to create local
content humanizing the impact of the
ongoing financial crisis. You'll work
directly with students in the school's
Economics and Finance of the Media
course taught by Marty Steffens to report
and edit stories for the web site of this
prominent national publication.
Initial Project Overview
• Collaborate with BusinessWeek.com to create
localized content covering economic recession
• Partner with Marty Steffens’ business
journalism class to produce video pods
• Serve as reporters, editors and liaisons for
BusinessWeek.com
• Establish an ongoing relationship with an
external, professional media outlet
Expectations
• Fully-formed relationship with Business Week
• Regular feedback from our contact at
BusinessWeek.com
• Arrangements for equipment check-out
already made
• Variety of skill levels in Business Journalism
• A different kind of editing experience
Reality
• New, untested partnership
• Sporadic communication with contact at
Business Week
• No prior arrangements made regarding
equipment checkout
• Variety of skill levels in Business Journalism
• A different kind of editing experience
Marty’s Expectations
• Capacity to serve as both reporters and
editors
• Creation of “example” pod demonstrating
incorporation of Business Week branding
Reality
• Necessary to build additional skill set as part
of an upper level class
• BusinessWeek.com in process of developing
new branding
Initial Plan
• Turn BusinessWeek.com partnership into
legitimate capstone project
– Create a different reporting/editing experience
unavailable in traditional newsrooms
• Take an active role in student learning
– Establish office hours
– Compile resource guide
• Communicate regularly with Business Week
about needs, wants and expectations
Timeline
• Ambitious six-phase program of internal
deadlines
• Early conversations with BusinessWeek.com
– Redesign of web branding meant we would have
to wait to incorporate Business Week logos
– BusinessWeek.com’s “wait and see” attitude
meant we would be defining the project ourselves
• Presentation of available resources to
Business Journalism class
Business Journalism
• Class included students in every different
sequence at every stage of their education
• Students had very little knowledge of the
project prior to our presentation
• Students self-selected groups within their
sequences, putting print at a disadvantage
• Many groups waited until the last week to
check out equipment or to use office hours
Problems with Equipment
• Saving video projects
– School servers (especially Bengal) ill-equipped to
handle large video projects
– Students who shared external hard drives couldn’t
edit at the same time
• Incorporating BusinessWeek.com branding
– Couldn’t add necessary font to lab computers
– Few students had Photoshop on notebooks
– Lack of experience using supers
Other Concerns
• Students without a multimedia background
discouraged easily, impacting overall quality
• Few groups checked in with us prior to
submission, despite being a requirement
• Many groups were reluctant to make edits
after submitting projects to Marty
• Though internally we can judge projects by
ability, BusinessWeek.com has no way of
accessing level of experience
Notes about Projects
• Inconsistent application of BusinessWeek.com
branding, even within same project
• Noticeable fluctuations in audio levels/quality
• Solid reporting but lack of narrative
• Most pods were too short (less than three
minutes) or too long (more than four minutes)
• Surprisingly, just two of ten groups used
SoundSlides instead of shooting video
Student Work
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
PEORIA, Il. - Layoffs
at the local
Caterpillar plant
have residents
wondering if there’s
hope for Peoria’s
future (3:13).
Student Work
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Centralia, Mo. - The
declining value of
commodities will
hurt local farmers,
many of whom
borrowed against
last year’s high
prices (2:47).
Initial Research Strategy
• Primary Research Question: How can we tell
compelling business stories with multimedia?
– Qualitative analysis of multimedia
– Quantitative analysis of web traffic
• Secondary Research Question: How can we
maintain our partnership with Business Week
and explore untapped external partnerships?
Preliminary Research
• Content analysis of BusinessWeek.com
– Video commentary, traditional feature packages,
taped Q&As, anchor reports, pods
– Heavy reliance on “talking head” journalism
– Poor shooting techniques
• By targeting web video weaknesses in our own
pods, we hoped to subtly suggest
improvements to Business Week’s in-house
multimedia staff
Problems
• Site analytics unavailable
– Business Week considers this information
proprietary
• Underestimation of production component
– Time spent negotiating logistics with
BusinessWeek.com
– Time spent assisting students
Revised Research Strategy
• Primary Research Question: How can the
journalism school establish and maintain
mutually beneficial external partnerships?
– Interviews with collaborators
– Online “best practices” guide
• Secondary Research Question: How should the
journalism school incorporate external
partnerships into curriculum?
External Partnerships Research
• Convergence Partnerships
– Current TV
– Newsy.com
• KMOV
• The Economy Project
Convergence Partnerships
• Discussion with professors Mike McKean,
Lynda Kraxberger and Karen Mitchell about
the convergence department’s external
collaborations
– Students produced pods for Current TV, a news
channel that relies on user-generated content
– Students examine global news bias in video
reports for Newsy.com
KMOV
• Discussion with senior convergence students
JJ Bailey and Steve Weinman about their
capstone project
– Convergence students generate Tiger sports
coverage for KMOV, the CBS station in St. Louis
– Capstone students explore other local outlets for
sports coverage generated by journalism students
The Economy Project
• Discussion with KBIA staff members about
their attempts to launch an interactive
Missouri newsroom for NPR coverage of the
economic recession
– John Bailey, web editor
– Janet Saidi, news director
– Maria Totoraitis, capstone student
Best Practices for Partnerships
• Web guide for journalism students, faculty
and partners interested in a different kind of
newsroom experience
• Includes video clips of interviews, tips for
establishing and maintaining partnerships and
ideas for future collaborations
Missouri Method 2.0
• How can students benefit from working
outside of traditional Missouri newsrooms?
– Regional and national newsrooms demand a
higher quality of work
– Provides experience in reporting, peer-editing and
producing outside of local newsrooms
• Is the solution a stable of partners we can
work with on a rotating basis?
Possible Barriers
• Business Journalism not offered every
semester
• Many students lack multimedia training
• Additional workload for professor
Possible Solutions
• Offer “themed” Intermediate Writing and
Advanced Reporting classes
• Incorporate opportunities for multimedia into
every student’s newsroom experience
– In a perfect world, 4802 would be a required class
for ALL journalism students
• Professors should commit to partnerships only
if willing to see they succeed