BPN 1093 Training a media versatile journalist

Yesterday, the LunchTalk at the Faculty of Communication and Journalism (FCJ) in Utrecht was interesting as students took notice of eReaders and eBooks. But around the LunchTalk some breaking news for the Faculty was happening. In a very short time television screens had been installed for narrowcasting within the HU University of Applied Science and especially in the FCJ. Besides, the journalism students started to register the LunchTalk, did an interview, edit these streams and bring them online.

It is a small revolution in communication that is happening at the FCJ. So far the faculty had computer screens hanging around, offering information about the schedule, lectures and events. The technology used was teletext-like: text in colours with rudimentary graphics. A few years ago also a tickertape newsbar was installed on the outside of the FCJ. The intention was to show the outside that the FCJ was about news. The small computer screens inside the building make place now for large screen television screen with flashy video, direct link–ins with guest lectures and interviews. Undoubtedly there will be text information, but the image of communication will change in a flashy video pictures.

To fill these screens with video and other information, the journalism students will run video- and audio productions. This is remarkable. Although there has been a change over the last years, the education towards media versatile journalists was not yet really integrated. Students who can work in teams and can produce text, audio and video are still rare and much sought after. It was great to see the students at work linking up their Macs to internet and streaming. After the lecture an interview was done as a summary to the lecture. Slides, photographs and movie parts were split into the video. Besides the registration, the Power Point presentation and the two historical movies will be online on the intranet of the FCJ.

The registration of the LunchTalk lecture has not been edited yet, so I cannot put it by an embedded link on my blog. But as soon as it is online, I will put an update to this posting.

Blog Posting Number: 1093

Tags: narrowcasting

BPN 1092 eReader does not add value to journalism

Today I was a guest speaker at the Faculty of Communication and Journalism (FCJ) in Utrecht. I had been invited by Job Twisk, the almost the last editor in chief of Planet Internet before the incumbent telecom operator KPN withdrew once again from content. The subject of the guest lecture was Goodbye print, Hello e-Reader. It looks like the introduction of a new medium. When CD-ROM was introduced the software developer Dataware had a poster saying: Goodbye Gutenberg, Hello CD-ROM. But media introductions have more customs have their particular publications such as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in the USA, the Bible in the USA and Europe and encyclopaedias (Grolier amongst others). For the introduction of the eReader I have not discovered Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the Bible or an encyclopaedia. So something might be changing in introducing digital media.

The presentation was dubbed a LunchTalk, a lecture during the lunch break, which students can attend at their own wish. The audience consisted of journalism students. And as the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad has recently introduced the iLiad as an eReader for its ePaper, I was asked to give a short historical overview of the development of the eReaders, the added value to journalism and the present scene. For the historical overview I had taken along my small eReader museum of the Sony EB, the Rocket Softbook and the iLiad. And I had found some historical movies: one on the Sony EB, produced for the Netherlands E-Book Committee, and I had been able to get converted the video tape of The Tablet. Not top quality videos, but good enough to understand the development.

It was great to show the development and failure factors in the first three waves of eReader technology. The first wave, the Sony EB of 1991, had a gadget with a screen too hard to read, a short battery life, it was too heavy and Sony used its own authoring software. The second wave with Rocket Softbook used internet as a distribution means, but the eReader had also a bad screen, it was too heavy and had a short battery life. The third wave has hardly taken place with an eReader on a mobile phone, although Nokia thought about it. But with the digital paper eReader there is definitely a break through; whether this is the ultimate break through can be doubted. Yet the digital paper is very readable

But the real discussion was of course whether an eReader brings added value to journalism. My position was clear from the beginning: the eReader takes out the distribution out of the production cycle. In other words, we do not need delivery boys any longer. Of course for the newspaper marketing people, the eReader might a special delivery device for profiled advertisements and sales of related products (review plus an excerpt of the book) and perhaps for a personal newspaper a la Ohmynews. So it might take out the expensive distribution link and add profiled advertisements and sales, but the eReader will not add to the journalistic process.

On May 29, 2008 the publisher of the NRC Handelsblad ePaper, Gert Jan Oelderik, will give a presentation. I am eager to hear his figures, but also his opinion whether the eReader brings added value to journalism.

After the presentation a team of future journalists recorded a video of an interview; however the interview is in Dutch.


Untitled from HUmedia.nl on Vimeo.

Blog Posting Number: 1092

Tags: newspaper, eReader, e-Book, digital paper newspaper, eReader, eBook, digital paper,