Please lobby the Guv

The Illinois Senate unanimously passed the College Campus Press Act recently, and it now awaits Gov. Blagojevich's signature. This is not yet a sure thing. With thanks to those of you who already asked your legislators to support this bill, we in college media have one more favor to ask: Would you also now consider contacting the governor and asking him to sign SB0729 into law? To refresh your memory, this is the bill that would effectively negate the unfortunate Hosty v. Carter decision from a couple of years ago, and guarantee that student journalists at public colleges are free of administrative censorship. More background

Here's the contact info: Office of the Governor, 207 State House, Springfield, IL 62706 Phone: 217-782-0244 or 312-814-2121.

Or, much simpler, there's an online contact form.

Thanks!

NINA contest deadline

A reminder that this Monday, June 25, is the postmark deadline for entries for this year's NINA contest. All details, including category descriptions and entry forms, at the NINA Web site.

Summer newsletter

NINA's summer newsletter is here. There are stories about:

• Recent workshops, focusing especially on our Multimedia Storytelling workshop at The Observer in Rockford;
• Winners of our annual scholarship competition for high-school seniors;
• and Olga Gize Carlile of the Journal-Standard in Freeport, named this spring by NIU as Illinois Journalist of the Year.

The print version of the newsletter will be mailed soon.

"The libel case from hell"

Today's Chicago Tribune has an editorial about the ongoing case between Justice Robert Thomas and the Kane County Chronicle, calling it "the libel case from hell." It's mostly an explanatory piece, talking about the "collision of crucial rights" the case raises.

Slide-show software

Here's a blog piece about Soundslides by journalism educator Mindy McAdams. The upshot is, there's now a Soundslides Plus, for $70, that adds a bunch of features. Both that and the $40 regular version are available here.

And here's the link for PhotoStory 3, the free Microsoft software that creates audio slide shows.

What are you going to try?

For those who attended the multimedia workshop today in Rockford: If you try something new online based on the coversation today, we'd love to hear about it. Just post a reply below.

Front-page ads

Interesting piece in the June-July issue of American Journalism Review, about front-page ads: "A Fading Taboo." Am I wrong for remaining a purist on this issue and encouraging my students to keep ads off page 1? Do readers even care?

Blogging: The Handout

Here are notes and links from my NINA workshop talk June 14 about blogging.

Interesting things a few northern Illinois newspapers are doing:

Rockford Register Star
Beep (Daily Herald)
Daily Journal, Kankakee
Northwest Herald
Sun-Times News Group (Naperville)
Journal-Standard, Freeport
Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Tribune
Northern Star


Nationally, places you may want to be looking for inspiration:

Bakersfield Californian
Mix of staff blogs and reader blogs
Great idea: Ask the Californian

Wicked Local Plymouth
(this site won the EPpy for best Web site affiliated with a weekly newspaper)
note local videos blog

Bluffton Today
Community site for Bluffton, S.C.

Houston Chronicle: great place to look for ideas
reader blogs, too

San Antonio Express-News

Washington Post

Reader blogs at The Oklahoman

Knox County, Maine


A great idea from Minnesota Public Radio:
The Future of Small Towns idea generator


Article from Online Journalism Review about developing a breaking news blog

NYU students rate the best blogging newspapers in the U.S.


Post the rules! Prominently!

Staff-blogger guidelines from the Greensboro (N.C.) News-Record

Reader comments: Daily Chronicle, DeKalb

Poynter column by Al Tompkins about Assessing Legal Risks of allowing story comments

Setting up a blog

Wordpress

Blogger


Subscribing to a blog

Google Reader

Photojournalism's pending revolution

“Ten years from now there will not be a single still photographer shooting photojournalism. No, probably five years.”

Those words come not from a techie, but from a veteran, revered photojournalist at this past weekend's NPPA summit in Tampa. Chris Carroll, student media adviser at Vanderbilt University, files this fascinating report on the Innovation in College Media blog.

It's worth sharing with your photo staffs. Some great links, too.

"10 Obvious Things"

Interesting piece here from a blog called "Invisible Inkling": "10 obvious things about the future of newspapers you need to get through your head." A sampling:

8. You ignore new delivery systems at your own peril. RSS, SMS, iPhone, e-paper, Blackberry, widgets, podcasts, vlogs, Facebook, Twitter — these aren’t the competition, these are your new carriers. Learn how to deliver your content across every new technology that comes into view on the horizon, and be there when new devices go into mass production.

June 14 workshop reminder

NINA's Multimedia Storytelling workshop is Thursday, June 14. The registration deadline is Thursday, June 7, and seats are filling up. Please contact me to reserve your spot. jkillam@niu.edu or 815-753-4239.

See full information three posts below this one.

Also: If you are scoring at home, please note a change in speakers. Mike Weiler, Managing Editor for Interactive Media for the Northwest NewsGroup, will talk about audio and video. Mike recently was named Innovator of the Year by Suburban Newspapers of America.