High school scholarship winners

NINA is pleased to announce the winners of our annual journalism scholarship contest for graduating high school seniors. Left to right: first place, Tara Grimes, Huntley High School; second place, Alex Ruppenthal, Naperville Central High School; third place, Vincent E. Dixon Jr., Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, Chicago. Honorable mentions went to (not pictured) Mary Kenkel, Kaneland High School; and Tara Knott, Geneva High School.

Congratulations to these outstanding future journalists.

More information soon on the NINA Web site and the print newsletter.

The Breaking News Blog

Good article from USC's Online Journalism Review about developing a breaking news blog. Excerpt:

Newspaper.com managers, take a lesson. If you do not have a breaking news blog ready to go on your website, get started on building one. Today. The blog is the ideal format to deliver information in a breaking news situation. There's no reason to continue relying on traditional newspaper narrative formats online when editors could better serve their readers with the far more online-friendly blog format.

... The readers in your community will come to see your paper's home page as the place to go for a friendly, authoritative voice that provides the very latest news about their community.

Full article

June 14 Workshop

Multimedia Storytelling

Thursday, June 14, 2007 • 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. • Rockford Catholic Diocese offices

Blogs • Photo Slideshows • Audio • Video

How do we keep from being left behind, but without wasting our time? Where should newspapers focus? What are the benefits and pitfalls of each of these forms of online news? How do we get started? What hardware and software do we need? What kind of training/knowledge do we need? What can we do on a tight budget?

Find answers and return to your newsroom armed with ideas and tips!

Instructors

• Audio and Video: Mike Weiler, Managing Editor for Interactive Media, Northwest NewsGroup
• Photo Slideshows: Denise Renckens, Executive Editor, The Daily Journal, Kankakee
• Blogs: Jim Killam, Adviser, Northern Star, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb
  

Cost: Only $20 for NINA members / attendees from NINA-member newspapers. $40 for non-members. Lunch included.

Check in anytime between 9 and 9:30; program begins at 9:30

Printable flier

To register: Contact Jim Killam, jkillam@niu.edu / 815-753-4239. Hurry! Only 40 spots available. Registration deadline: Thursday, June 7.

Directions: The Rockford Diocese offices are located at 555 Colman Center Drive, just off Interstate 90. See our Web site, www.northernstar.info/nina, for more detailed directions and maps.

NINA contest revitalized for 2007

NINA announces its annual newspaper contest, with several new and revised categories for 2007. Rules, categories, entry forms and more are available at http://www.northernstar.info/nina/. They're also being snail-mailed to member newspapers.

Contest period is May 1, 2006, to April 30, 2007. Postmark deadline for entries is Monday, June 25, 2007.

Good luck!

Ideas for Future Workshops

From the past two NINA workshops, here are ideas participants gave us for future workshop topics:

1. Minority coverage
   
2. Bring in readers and have them give feedback on writing samples. Or have regional papers conduct focus groups and assemble results to bring to workshop, along with a leader / spokesman from each paper’s pool of readers.
   
3. Copy editing and headline writing
   
4. Interviewing – helping people relax and give good quotes. Asking good questions.
   Getting the quote; how to talk to all kinds of sources; networking with community members so they approach us when they have ideas.
   
5. Taking group photos that look relaxed and not so posed
   
6. Choose stories (not just ledes) to pick apart and determine what would have made them more interesting.
   
7. New media (this one's coming June 14!)
   
8. Focus on news presentation rather than syntax. We as journalists are not going to attract new readers with clever leads. It will take some assimilation into new media and convergence for newspapers to return to a focus on success rather than survival.
   
9. How to appeal to readers without dumbing things down
   
10. A reporter who can talk about how to research and write a long-term story – even a book.
    
11. Alternative story forms (coming this fall!)
    
12. Help with pitching ideas. Confidence that my ideas are ones that should be followed through.
    
13. Getting info from town governments’ Web sites.
    
14. Writing obituaries as more than just a regular story.
    
15. Grammar
    
16. Computer resources
    
17. Ethics
    
18. Someone like Rick Kogan of the Chicago Tribune, who goes out and patrols the city for stories and always comes back with colorful ones.