Great news day

I don't know about you guys, but I really enjoyed the news section today. It was informative and (mostly) well-reported. There were some areas that needed touching up, but we will get to that later in the blog. News is one of the most difficult things to produce for the paper, and today's front page was one of the best. Excellent job for just the second day.

PRAISE

Great job to Sean Lawson on an interesting story about the .xxx domains. I never even considered OU would be part of the institutions (it makes sense now) trying to protect their image. There also was a great quote from Nash that referenced .xxx domains attached to coaches. The implied use of this was humorous. More importantly, the depth of that answer (getting information regarding SPECIFIC people attached to the .xxx domain) was a wonderful addition to the story.

Hillary McLain's lead in her Tedx feature story was awesome. It set the scene and wasn't afraid to do something a little different than The Daily's norm. Remember, if you are writing a feature story, don't be afraid to get a little creative and descriptive. Use what you see to set the stage of your stories and describe situations to the reader to make them more meaningful. Keep these words in mind when writing: don't tell me what happened, show me what happened.

AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT


There were a lot of stories jumping online today. A lot of this has to do with space restrictions and design. However, it can be a bit of a bummer to write a story and have it get cut off halfway through the print product. This is going to happen. Sometimes editor's have to make tough decisions. But, if you want to make sure your story is well represented in the print and online products, communicate with your editors when you have a long story. There could be a print version of the story written out (most commonly a summary of the longer story) and the full story placed online. This satisfies both audiences (you might be surprise to know that the people that read the print don't always read the online product). Doing this will make you happy, your editor happy and the readers happy.

The life and arts story about books turned movie was an interesting read, but the design was a bit cluttered. I'm a big fan of non-linear storytelling (and this story provided a bit of it), but the jumbled nature of the design made the reading difficult. This could have been alleviated with a more spaced out design and a more prominent opening paragraph (I didn't read the lead paragraph until I had already read two of the movie bits). Something to think about.

FINAL THOUGHTS


Apart from still adjusting to the work schedule and figuring out when and where to plan, the paper is shaping up well. Today's paper didn't have any fact errors (that we know of yet) and there was strong content all around. Remember to keep communicating and keep planning. We will do great things.