Web Only:Taking the Newspaper

Online(Everything I’ve learned in the last 6 months)

Steve Matson, adviser

The Academy Times, Crossings

Charles Wright Academy, Tacoma

Northwest Regional Director, JEA

Why did YOU choose this session?

Welcome & Introductions

The Academy Times has been in print since 1988

Tabloid Newspaper of 8-24 pages (1988–2003)

8 x 10 color News Magazine of 8-48 pages (2004–2009)

Web Only Newspaper (since Jan. 6, 2010)

BACKGROUNDto the CONVERSION my studentsrecently made of their newspaper

The root causes for the following problems is the

subject for another talk, but they are familiar to

advisers: schedule competition for AP and college

prep classes, administrative hostility to a free

student press, the economy and budget cuts, etc.

PROBLEMSthat led to conversion from print

Small staff of six.

Trouble generating enough good stories to meet minimum of 8 pages.

Even if we published 8 paper pages, the result was unsatisfying for staff

and readers. The quality remained good, but the issue was too thin.

If we delayed publication until we had more stories to fill an issue or

make an issue longer, stories became old and stale. We found ourselves

publishing old news or choosing to ignore spot news in favor of non-

timely feature stories.

Then budget cuts eroded our ability to print in color.

Then the school began cutting credits for journalism.

We felt like we were in a death spiral.

Problems Staying in Print

Feb. 2009

December 2010

For years, we considered making a Web site to accompany our print

publication. Didn’t happen. Lately, I advocated becoming a print-only

publication as a way to modernize and cope with difficulties.

But the staff did not want to do this, and the AT editor makes the final

decision on such matters.

Staff liked having the paper publication in their hands and they

believed students did too.

They did not think students would go to their site if it was not on paper.

Even if readers did visit the AT online, the staff would not have the

satisfaction of seeing it read on campus.

The staff liked laying out with InDesign and didn’t want to give it up.

STAFF RESISTANCEto Going Online

As a long-time Adobe shop, we assumed that the

application we should use for a Web site would be whatever

Adobe makes. This turns out to be Dreamweaver, along

with companion products Flash and Fireworks. So we

bought the Dreamweaver CS4. I sent two staff members to

a summer camp in Iowa to learn Dreamweaver. We bought

some extra training manuals, and we watched some

training videos. We decided to build an online-only Web site

in Dreamweaver.

Online ConversionOur initial mistake

My students decided they would do one more semester—Fall, 2009—as a print publication while they built their online site. Then in November I had a momentous conversation with an expert in scholastic journalism Web sites. His name is Aaron Manfull, and he is my colleague on the JEA Board of Directors. He is chair of JEA’s Digital Media Committee.

When I asked him for advice in going online, he asked me about our progress. I said we had just bought Dreamweaver CS4 and were trying to learn how to use it.

He said: “Dang! I’ve got to write and post that article!” I said “What article?” He said, the one entitled,“Don’t Buy Dreamweaver—You’re Making a Huge Mistake!”

Instead, use a

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Work in the CLOUD!

So, if not Dreamweaver,WHAT?

Content Management System software is used to create and manage the

content for a Web site in a collaborative environment. It provides for the

storage, maintenance and retrieval of HTML and XML documents and all related

image, audio and video files.

A CMS is typically dependent on a database, which stores content, allowing it to

be easily rearranged and reorganized in categories, modules, or pages on a

Web site.

A CMS will usually provide all the programs necessary for Web site

development, but it may also include or accept plug-ins that provide banner

advertising, shopping carts, blogs, wikis, newsletters, opinion polls, chat rooms

and forums. The computer languages used to code a CMS are: PHP, CSS, HTML,

and Javascript.

CMS Defined

Allows for a large number of people to contribute to and

share stored data

Controls access to data, based on user roles.

User roles define what information each user can view or

edit

Aids in easy storage and retrieval of data

Reduces repetitive duplicate input

Improves the ease of analysis/report writing

Improves communication between users

Benefits of a CMS

The following are all free, full-featured CMS systems. Their code can be manually

edited and are also customizable with widgets and plug-ins.

Wordpress: current version 2.9.2, started in 2003 as blogging software [web log].

It is the most popular CMS, and probably the most author-friendly and reader

friendly.

Drupal: is particularly customizable, adaptable, and powerful if you know how to

write and edit computer code languages, such as PHP (hypertext processor), CSS

(cascading style sheets) , Javascript, and HTML (hypertext markup language).

Drupal is probably the least user-friendly of the big three.

Joomla: also gives code editors the ability to flexibly customize a Web site by

manually entering code; it is more user-friendly than Drupal; it is less user-friendly

than Wordpress.

Examples of Open Source CMS

Others:

Movable Type, Typepad, Vox, Blogger, Tumblr, Silverstripe,

Clear Content, SquareSpace

Commercial CMS: are more technical and specific CMS; sold

and serviced by a company to other companies.

Proprietary CMS: When a company commissions experts to

create a CMS specifically for its own company, who then owns

and controls everything about it.

High School Journalism. Org: The CMS system, domain

name, and host site are all arranged for you—for free! This is a

public service of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Examples (continued)

Tentatively choose a CMS (but don’t download it right away).

Some of the next steps may be influenced by what CMS you choose.

Get a Domain Name. Ours was obtained through our site provider.

See next step.

Determine a SITE to host your site: a computer in your classroom, a

school server, a remote computer at a commercial site? We chose a

third-party, commercial remote site called SiteGround: $48 per year,

includes domain name, installation of Wordpress, some tutorials and

support. Many other good ones exist.

Steps for Going Online

Choose a theme, template, or skin: Free or Premium?

Many templates are absolutely free. Premium themes sold by third-party

vendors cost from $30 to $100. Our premium Wordpress theme cost $60 from

an online company (in Belgium!). Some vendors that sell premium themes

will also arrange hosting, domain names, and various levels of technical

support in a deluxe package price. They will give you tutorials, email support,

phone support, or do it for you. The more you want, the more expensive the

package will cost.

Install your CMS on your site. SiteGround installed ours for us when we

signed up for site hosting. Other host sites will do the same.

Install your theme, template, or skin. After paying, we downloaded the

theme we purchased to our computer, then uploaded it to our site on

SiteGround. Not hard. Follow directions. We used Fetch (an FTP application

free to schools) to do this.

Steps (continued)

Post content right away.

*THIS MAY BE THE BEST TIP OF THIS TALK*

We made the mistake of trying to customize an empty site, and we wasted a lot of

time. We tried to make Wordpress do things it wasn’t designed to do, and it seemed

to us that things “didn’t work.” This was not the case. You will be more able to

change settings, customize the theme, and “design” the site if you FIRST

post lots of stories, photos, and ads into the database of the CMS.

THEN start to personalize the site.

To help us, we read FAQs and tutorials on the Wordpress site, watched video

tutorials, emailed questions to our premium theme provider, and read information

on JEADigitalMedia.org. We also read tech books from the local bookstore.

Keep Posting! Several posts per week, some short, some long.

Every post should have a graphic.

Keep Tinkering with design and setting. Trial and Error. After the creation of your

site, set a goal of doing two or three new things per month.

Steps (continued)

The Good More spot news

More news the readers can use

You will take and publish more photos

Greater timeliness. Publish every week, sometimes many times

Immediate gratification for an author motivates staff to be more productive

Publishing new kinds of content: Polls. Videos and podcasts to come soon. Possible links

with Facebook and Twitter

Immediate feedback in the form of blog comments

Automated measuring of the site’s traffic with Google Analytics (and others)

Parents and alumni have found our publication and like seeing it

Staff are learning 21st Century Technology and Journalism

Going Web Only Will Change theWay You Practice Journalism

The Not-So-Good

Staff do miss seeing students read a paper publication.

Some former readers haven’t crossed over to reading online.

Less control over graphics. You have to size and edit photos to fit a

specific size or pixel density.

Students are doing less design than when they used InDesign to make

a print publication.

It takes a concerted, deliberate promotional campaign to get readers to

view your work. And this never really ends. Must continue.

Not everyone has Internet access, or they don’t “carry” it around with

them.

“Old-Fashioned People” don’t know how to read us.

Posters around school

Announcements at assemblies

Contests!

Links from/to other sites

Facebook and Twitter

Publicize Your Web Site