(above: Brenda caters to cohorts on the last day of class)
Our journey into the world of writing for converged media has come to an end.
What did we learn? Well, for the journalists in the class, including myself, I think it was a wake-up call about where the industry is headed.
I always hate using the terms "industry" and "business" but in these days of lay-offs and contraction, it's never been more obvious that we still have to consider the bottom line in everything we do. Will the next article attract the hits we need? Could this video become viral and surge site traffic?
Back in the old days, journalists really didn't have to worry that much about attracting an audience. Now they do.
The other important part of the class was learning that we shouldn't be so one-dimensional in our approach to covering stories.
The biggest breakthrough I experienced personally was when I live-blogged during a homeless walkathon on the National Mall. As a television reporter, I'm used to gathering elements and putting them together within a few hours for the 6 o'clock news.
The live-blogging showed me the immediacy of the web. I had to write about what was happening and show people too, all at the same time. It's very different from television news, but just as effective. I'm not saying television news is going away anytime soon, but there's obviously a growing audience for the web blog style versus my tradition t.v. news methods.
And what about that presentation by John Bell from Ogilvy P.R.? What a shock to the system. We all need to be conscious of our social marketing optimization and our influence on the blogosphere.
Amy Eisman taught us a lot about where the industry is headed and how to write for it and think about using different media to tell your story. I'm now vooming along the information superhighway. Thanks, Amy.
Oh, and lunch was fantastic. Thanks for that, Brenda.
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