events 2008

Lauren Hertel lectures at the Journalists Syndicate

Three Questions for U.S. Multimedia Journalist and Trainer Lauren Hertel

April 22, 2008

Multimedia journalism trainer from the Department of Telecommunication at the University of Florida Lauren Hertel came to Prague April 7-11 to discuss various topics of the new trends in online media with Czech audiences, especially Czech students and journalists.

Interview with Lauren Hertel

1) How do you think media will look in 2020?
I think that the information we receive from media will look about the same, but we’ll be receiving more of it on mobile devices and platforms we haven’t even imagined yet.  My students think it’s funny when I tell them I didn’t have email in college— but then I tell them their kids will think the same thing about how they are tied to desktop computers and learn in physical classrooms!  I think media (and information in general) will continue to permeate our lives in new ways.  Some of them will be useful, some of them will be obtrusive, and some of them will completely transform the way we create and consume news.

2) Will paper newspaper disappear completely?
I am not as interested in what happens to individual platforms (print, television, radio, etc.) as I am in how the old media companies will transform themselves to fit the new digital world.  I think newspapers serve an important need (to be able to have portable news than can be read easily by the human eye), but I’m not sure there will be enough people interested in this function to support today’s newspaper companies.  Will newspapers adapt?  I think it’s too early to day.  But I think they have to if they’re going to remain relevant.

3) From blogger.com to reddit.com, there is a vast array of free online
services today. If you should name the five most essential services for
an online journalist, what would they be?

1.  Caspio Bridge: Data and search are two of the most important developments on the internet in the past ten years.  Now journalists can take their stories to the next level and build searchable databases at the click of the mouse.  Users can then hunt through massive data sets on their own and discover the answers to questions that interest them most.

2.  FMAtlas, Wayfaring, or another easy interactive map creation tool:  Google Maps mashups are very cool right now, but they take some programming knowledge to build.  These other services allow journalists to create mapped datasets quickly and easily, and should be part of any online journalist’s toolkit.

3.  RSS readers like Bloglines and Google Reader: Journalists need to use every tool at their disposal to do their work quickly and accurately.  RSS feeds can save a lot of time and bring customized information to journalists as they develop and work their beats.

4.  Second Life: Even if SL never becomes a mainstream platform for collecting and delivering news content, journalists need to understand what is cutting edge online. 

5.  Various training organizations: Journalists need to learn how to further train themselves in their craft and develop new skills without traveling great distances to workshops. There are a lot of organizations out there that can help with this, many sponsored by the Knight Foundation.  Journalists should take advantage of online training where possible and always be learning and exploring new tools and techniques.