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I'm Lauren Rae Orsini, a graduate student, journalist, infographic designer, anime convention reporter, and documentarian. Welcome.
30 December 2009
Things I learned about journalism in 2009
Filed Under Achievement Unlocked, School and Work | 8 Comments
Me at the Newseum. Photo by Andy Medici.
It’s been a long year for the journalism field. As newspapers crumbled around us and thousands lost their jobs, we began to lose hope. But out of the ashes, we began to see glimmers of hope: new technologies, new ways to read the news, new ways of connecting with the audience.
This year, I’ve learned a lot about journalism, both personally and about the field in general. I’d like to share a few of those discoveries with you.
1. The city is where the opportunities are. One of my professors, Dr. W. Joseph Campbell, would argue this is nothing new. According to his book, The Year That Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms, this has been the case since the turn of the century, when hundreds of would-be reporters flocked to New York City. Still, it’s something I’m just figuring out.
I guess I should have expected this one, but I’d never lived in a big city until this year. Before August of 2009, the largest place I’ve ever reported in was Fredericksburg, Virginia, when I worked for my school paper and then interned for the Free Lance-Star. When I applied for the internship, it was extremely competitive, since the Star was basically the only media outlet in town, and they only had two positions for interns! I was lucky to get that opportunity at all. Flash forward to my life in D.C. – my professors are constantly sending out internship opportunities, sometimes two or three times a week.
On the other hand, in the city there are also far more journalism students to compete for positions. When the pool of applicants is so much bigger, I’ve had to learn new ways to differentiate myself from the pack. But while the setbacks are frequent, the successes are better than ever. I had to work harder than ever to get here, but it makes me positively glow to say that I’m an intern at the Newseum.
My new business cards, which have been a useful networking tool.
2. Networking is a must. A wise woman (aka my mom) once told me, “It’s who you know, not what you know.” I used to disagree; studying hard guaranteed A’s in high school, not buddying up with my teachers. But after attending my first journalism conference, Public Media Camp D.C., I realized that with so many talented journalists in the field, getting to know people was a good idea. Aside from school, the tips I’ve gotten about opportunities have all come from professional journalists I’ve been lucky enough to get to know. And, I realized, it isn’t just about standing out in the competition for jobs. Befriending other journalists can lead to an engaging exchange of ideas, feedback on journalism work and collaboration possibilities.
This year, the most successful ways I’ve found to network are in person by exchanging business cards and using Twitter. As I’ve written before, I didn’t even have business cards until 2009. While I used to have to write my name and email on a piece of paper to hand out if a potential professional contact asked, now I can just easily hand them a card. And as for Twitter…
3. Social media is not just a diversion. I admit it, I used to be a breakfast tweeter. I would tweet the details of my morning Pop-Tart, how my hair looked, or whether or not I was bored. But after I exchanged Twitter names with plenty of people at PubCamp, I started to see the benefits of tweeting with other journalists. It’s not that Twitter has become all business for me; it’s still lots of fun and I often still tweet about my life or weird stuff I’ve found while surfing the net. However, it’s also become a tool for me to share journalism related links and read those that others have posted, crowd source when I’m working on a project (for my Anime USA documentary, I asked my followers if they knew what Pocky was), and let people know when I’ve updated this blog. As I’m writing this, it’s actually my one year anniversary of the month I first started using Twitter (first day was Dec. 20, 2008). In that time, I’ve tweeted almost 2,000 times! But as I progress, I hope they are becoming more and more useful and less about the menial details of my life.
Finally, I can answer e-mails wherever I am.
4. Technology is your ally. Investing in a smart phone turned out to be, fittingly, a very smart choice. The workweek is getting longer, especially for journalists. There is less and less of a divide between professional and personal life. Meaning I have to check my email every five minutes, weekday or no. Maybe this is a nice way of saying I’m obsessed with my Motorola Droid.
Seriously though, my new phone has allowed me to join the ranks of the constantly connected. A few weeks ago, the Metro was very slow and I was waiting in a crowd of people, wondering what was up. It used to be that I would be sitting there confused as everyone else. But a quick Google search on my phone revealed a person had been hit by the train a few stops away, delaying it (that person luckily ended up fine). In another example, I’m going on vacation next week, but you’d never know since I’ll still be posting here regularly, using Wordpress’ “schedule publication” tool and tweeting each post on my phone. In sum, my phone allows me both to receive and send news more quickly than ever before.
Never thought this program would become part of my journalism repertoire.
5. Learn how to do everything…But find your niche. Last year, when I was finishing up my English degree, I thought journalism would be all about writing. I’ve always been pretty good with spelling, grammar and memorizing new style guides (especially MLA for theses), so I thought journalism would be pretty familiar to me. While in the beginning, working for my college paper, my expectations were fulfilled. I mainly wrote print stories. But as time has passed, I’ve gone on to do things I wouldn’t have imagined as part of the job description. It started at the Free Lance-Star when I was sometimes asked to shoot photos to go alongside my stories. Sometimes I was asked to help copy edit other reporters’ stories. Then I was asked to insert basic HTML code to prep one of my stories for Web publication. Once I started graduate school, my list of tasks spiraled outward completely, from capturing audio, creating slide shows, editing images in PhotoShop, designing graphics, shooting film and even building Web sites. In this uncertain time for the journalism field, my professors think that knowing how to do everything will help us widen our potential post-graduate careers.
However, I’ve learned that in the limited time I have at school, I can’t expect to become an expert in every aspect of the field. So I’m honing in on the things I like most and think I’m best at, mainly Web production. It’s kind of wonderful that these two interests of mine, technology and journalism, have coincided — when I was in middle school, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a journalist or a programmer, and now I can do both. While I’m in school though, I hope to at least experiment with everything the field has to offer.
As for the term niche as it applies to journalism topics, that’s a different story. I’m still working on finding that. I admire my colleague Ladan for finding her niche perfectly in Middle Eastern relations. I love reporting about Japanese culture in America, but that’s definitely too narrow a subject for me to stick with forever.
6. Change is good. This one took me a while to realize. As newspapers realized (many too late) that they needed to innovate or die, the fourth estate was in constant transformation this year. I saw a lot of great journalists lose their jobs, and I was (and continue to be) concerned about getting a job once I’m out of school. But despite these short term setbacks, the big picture is that the revolution that is happening in journalism is a wonderful thing. By embracing the Internet, we’re able to get news to people faster than ever. Not only that, but people have a wider variety of news sites to go to instead of the general store approach of most newspapers. Best of all, these changes have shown that people still do need journalists to report the news. Journalism does have a future, though right now we’re not yet sure what it will look like. I hope to continue watching it evolve in 2010.
28 December 2009
For my design class final project, I decided to redesign The Centre View, my local newspaper. I spent some time on the phone with the head designer, Steven Mauren. Mauren told me that for the Centre View’s redesign in 2004, the designers planned to use more white space. But as the economy plummeted and newspapers were badly hit, the Centre View had to reduce the amount of paper it used, making white space impractical. With these suggestions, I decided to tighten up the design and make sure each area of the page had a purpose.
Here’s how it turned out– the page on top is before, the page on the bottom is after:
It doesn’t look like I changed that much. But in reality, I worked on this redesign for hours.
Instead of white space, I used gray boxes and 1 px black lines to separate stories. I kept the trademark red accents that characterize Centre View’s northern edition from the southern edition, but I created a taxonomy of story heads and subheads depending on the importance and placement of each story. Here’s the style guide I made to govern my design choices:
After looking at the style guide, it’s much easier to see that I didn’t just go around making arbitrary changes; I used this key to revamp the very skeletal system of the design. It’s amazing how much work goes into a redesign– and attempting one myself really sent it home.
I recently had the wonderful opportunity to talk to Real Simple’s executive editor, Sarah Humphrey after the magazine’s November redesign. Since its launch in 2000, Real Simple had remained cutting edge with crisp, innovative design that matched its name. Of all magazines, I wondered why this one decided it needed a redesign.
“We weren’t exactly screaming for a redesign,” she said. “We just wanted to do one. When Real Simple launched in 2000, it was this revolutionary way of thinking just as things were getting crazy. Now, 10 years later, there is a whole other level of stress with Blackberries and an increasingly digital world, so we need a new level for Real Simple to be able to address what’s going on.”
Humphreys said the redesign took roughly nine months to execute, and that was only after two years of brainstorming. Here’s what their publication looks like, before (left) and after (right):
Just like the redesign I did for class, it looks like only little things changed. However, the impact is unmistakable. I’m certain their style guide goes on for pages.
I’ve heard since September that the new catch-all solution for newspapers and magazines in a slump is to do a brand redesign. It worked for Real Simple; their ad sales are already up 12 percent. But when you think about the months and years they spent preparing, and the hours I spent just doing a fictional redesign for a school project, a redesign is no quick fix.
24 December 2009
Infographic eye candy roundup: geekdom
Filed Under Anime and Fandom, Design and Infographics | 3 Comments
I’m back from another jaunt around the internet and I have yet more gorgeous infographics to share! There are so many innovative and inspiring data visualizations out there that I’m thinking about making this a regularly occurring column. Today’s infographics center around a genre near and dear to me. Click the images to view the full visualizations on their original sites.
1. Diagram of Geek Culture. Via Neatorama. Created by Ibrahim Evsan.
2. Star Trek Pie Chart: Why It’s Finally Cool (Again). From Sci Fi Wire.
3. Geek Love (A tribute to Gary Gygax.) From The New York Times.
4. Movie Narrative Charts. By Randall Munroe of XKCD.
Other places to geek out over infographics:
- Web Designer Depot’s list of “25+ Useful Infographics for Web Designers.” I’m not sure how useful a map of the n00b sea or a battle strategy for the Microsoft Empire is, but these are all fun to look at.
- Make your own geeky infographic at Geek Chart! The best part is that the chart is live, so it updates in real time as your geek quotient grows. Happy chart-making and happy holidays!
23 December 2009
What’s wrong with video game journalism
Filed Under Journalism, Video Games | 9 Comments
Infographic from Kotaku, source material from Waggener Edstrom Worldwide.
When Kotaku revealed last week that “Word Of Mouth Sells The Most Video Games,” I was not surprised. I was even less shocked to see that only 15 percent of consumers are swayed by gaming reviews. For a long time, video game “journalism” has hardly deserved the title.
This is not my opinion. It’s the Federal Trade Commission’s opinion. As of October, the FTC is requiring all game journalists to reveal the payments they are receiving (how much and from whom) for reviews. Next time you see a generous endorsement for the next Halo game, it might include notes about the reviewer’s own endorsements. The truth is about to come out.
Not that nobody suspected the truth already. It’s no secret that one video game journalist was actually fired for writing a negative review about a site advertiser. And even that story was hushed up; reported as a rumor until Penny Arcade decided to do a strip on it. That’s right, gamers are turning to webcomics to get the most accurate video game news.
In short, from rampant bias to allowing advertising to dictate content, game journalism is a microcosm of everything that can go wrong in the journalism field. All leading up to the fact that people would sooner trust word of mouth or a comic strip than game journalists.
Mainstream journalists (if they, in our increasingly niche world, even exist anymore) can learn a lot from the state of game journalism. Don’t write reviews if you’re ethically compromised. Support fellow journalists who’ve been fired for sticking to ethics, and make sure to report it heavily. Even if money is tight, don’t pander to advertisers unless we want to risk losing credibility. But mainly this: if journalists get lax on reporting the facts, people won’t even trust the news as much as gossip they’ve heard from a friend.
21 December 2009
Happy birthday to me
Filed Under Achievement Unlocked | 3 Comments
Photo from Flickr user clevercupcakes, Creative Commons.
I’ve stressed that this is my professional blog, but a personal milestone as big as my 23rd birthday is too important to miss. I’ve made a lot of accomplishments this year. I’ve graduated from college, gotten accepted into graduate school, been accepted to (and completed one of) two journalism internships. I’m even well on my way to checking off 10,000 Words’ advice list for journalism grads. I’m proud to be right where I expected to be by this time in my life.
This year, I want to set bigger goals. By this time next year, I want to:
- Double my portfolio, in amount of work and in variety of mediums. I want to become a true multiplatform storyteller.
- Get published. A lot. At least 50 more times and in at least 4 publications. Those are not just arbitrary numbers I just made up– they’re based on how often I was published this year (about 30 times) in how many publications (two).
- Update this blog more – every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’ve been preparing for this one already by writing some pieces in advance.
- Be employed. I really, really hope I can make this one happen. And if I don’t find a job, I vow to find a way to work for myself freelancing. After all, an economic downturn is the best time to start your own business.
Thank you, reader, for checking out my site every now and then- it’s a fantastic birthday present. In return, I’ll do my best to post original, interesting posts for you to ponder. I won’t forget about these goals either; I’ll update you on my progress achieving them every few months. I even made a new category for that kind of post– “Achievement Unlocked.” Watch for it.
18 December 2009
Why newsrooms need librarians, part II
Filed Under Future of News, Journalism | 2 Comments
II. “Infonauts” and the new role of the news librarian
After my talk with former USA Today librarian, Bruce Rosenstein, I went to the head librarian at American University, Bill Mayer, to help me answer my lingering question: if librarians are so essential, why are newsrooms laying them off?
It turned out that in order to answer this question, I needed to see how the roles of librarians are changing in general.
According to Mayer, librarians as we know them are rapidly evolving. Far from the finger-shushing bookkeepers we canonize in pop culture, modern librarians act as gatekeepers for thousands of digital databases the average person might not otherwise know about.
“Today’s librarians are information shepherds,” he said. “Or, to go with the cliche of the astronaut, ‘Infonauts.’ People who go into the cloud of information and make sense of it.”
In the information overload that is the Internet, ‘Infonauts’ are the kind of librarians we need most. As I pointed out in part I, there are more databases available to the citizen researcher than ever before. While this has its positives, the downside is that all this information takes time to sort through and discern what is actually useful.
“Lots of electronic goodness is proprietary behind a paywall. Some databases are available only to a small subset of the world at large. American University students have more info than the rest of the public, but have to pay for it,” he said.
I’ll also add, as an American University student myself, that some of us don’t know how to navigate the databases without help.
With this in mind, Mayer likens research to buying wine. If you don’t care about the quality of the product, you might as well go to a general store to buy it. It might be fine, but it might be terrible. As in, you could just Google something and see what comes up.
However, if you’re more discerning in your tastes, you will want to go to a professional (in this metaphor, a wine curator) to make sure you’re getting the right product. As in, you’ll ask a librarian to assist with your research or use a database that costs money.
“Self service isn’t enough for people,” said Mayer. “People become better researchers just by working with a librarian for an hour.”
The metaphor makes us face this fact: librarians are NOT essential in a newsroom. Reporters can simply Google their research or use databases. They can function without librarian assistance. If news organizations choose, they can continue to lay off librarians and still produce the news.
However, the quality of the research, Mayer’s metaphor implies, might be the difference between Dom Perignon and Bud Light.
16 December 2009
Why newsrooms need librarians, part I
Filed Under Future of News, Journalism | 2 Comments
I. Why is USA Today’s library shut down such a bad thing and why should journalists, not just librarians, care?
As of two weeks ago, USA Today got rid of their research library. Since 1987, that library and a team of 27 research librarians worked alongside reporters to comb databases for hard-to-find but necessary information. I recently got a chance to interview Bruce Rosenstein, a former librarian for USA Today who was laid off shortly before the library was shut down for good, about the situation.
“The library grew up with USA Today,” said Rosenstein. “It was really part of the company’s success– this is a tragedy.”
A tragedy to be sure, and not just for Rosenstein and his fellow librarians. When news organizations shut down their libraries, journalists suffer, too.
This isn’t an isolated instance. Recently, Rosenstein told me, the Newseum Freedom Forum shaved down its staff to just one librarian. As the media continues to suffer in this economy, librarians are being let go first.
However, Rosenstein thinks that, at a time when people’s trust in the media has hit a new low, news organizations should be focusing their efforts toward deeper and more accurate news research.
“What’s going on in the media is a survival situation and, ironically, librarians are being seen as expendable,” he said. “I would have never guessed 22 years ago [when I began working at USA Today] that research would become totally devalued.”
But today, more research databases (Lexis-Nexis is an example of what I’m talking about) are available to any citizen researcher than ever before. Why should news organizations have librarians help them research when reporters can use databases to do it themselves?
Rosenstein argues that librarians, with their Masters’ in Library Science, are quicker and more accurate researchers than laypeople. Also, since reporters were hired to report, not to research, spending hours scrolling through databases without any librarian guidance would be a poor use of their time. Instead, he suggested having an embedded librarian (exactly what it sounds like: a librarian who works in the newsroom alongside journalists) to oversee database use and training.
“Why have the users spending their time researching instead of doing their jobs?” he said.
In today’s information overload that is the Internet, newsrooms require research librarians more than ever before. Unfortunately, the future of media librarians does not seem to be boding well, and the economic situation is not helping.
“You have to hope there are solutions out there. Libraries being closed and research in organizations being devalued. It’s rough out there but if there are some bright people who can figure it out, that’s fantastic.”
Stay tuned for when I talk to one of these “bright people” in part II: “Infonauts” and the new role of the news librarian
10 December 2009
Infographic eye candy roundup
Filed Under Design and Infographics | 2 Comments
Visualization via Information is Beautiful. Click on the image to see the full infographic.
Lately I’ve been working on some visualizations for the Investigative Reporting Workshop, a project affiliated with university. It’s my first design project for a client instead of just for a grade, so it’s been an exciting (and sometimes nerve wracking) endeavor.
In order to improve and find inspiration for my own designs, I have been haunting the internet for infographics. As a result, I have found some mindblowing infographic design sites. If you get as excited about good design as I do, I’ve prepared a list of web sites I found inspiring and a visualization that stood out to me on each:
1. Information is Beautiful. This is the portfolio site of David McCandless, a writer and designer from London. He repeatedly validates his site title by taking huge and newsworthy sets of data– about everything from h1N1 to the number of global emissions by country– and turning them into clear, innovative designs. What I like best about McCandless’ design style is his use of bold color and unusual, abstract shapes to convey data. I think any of his pieces would look just as good hanging on my wall as in a news publication.
Best for: Fine art fans.
Infographic to check out first: The Billion Pound O Gram.
2. Flowing Data. This site covers a broader range of visualizations from numerous publications and designers. Aside from showing off some nice infographics, Flowing Data acts more like an aggregate to gather roundups of good visuals and visual related articles from different corners of the web. It als0 provides tutorials and suggestions for aspiring infographic designers which I definitely want to start attempting this weekend. As a beginning designer, I’ve especially found the site forums to be helpful.
Best for: Beginners.
Infographic to check out first: Land Mass and Population by Country.
3. Simple Complexity. This site deals most consistently with the most enormous sets of data by far. Sponsored by InnovaTech, Inc., the site often features infographics that deal with data on a global level.I think this site has the widest range of chart variety, varying from a “natural language” visualization of Alan Ginsberg’s “Howl” (complete with a scale of how many times each word is used in the poem) to a heat map of the human body (showing where people like to be touched.) From a visualization of unemployment rates (via American Observer!) to a visual of Roomba motion while cleaning, this site spans the gamut from hard news to funny features.
Best for: The person who wants everything.
Infographic to check out first: The Boom of Social Sites.
4. Kelso’s Corner. This is the personal blog of Nathanial Vaughn Kelso, a graphic designer at The Washington Post. He blogs about a mix of his own graphics, inspiring or less than perfect graphics he finds elsewhere and some really handy tutorials. As a cartographer, many of Kelso’s visualizations focus on geographic elements. I’ve found his blog to be a great sneak peek at what one designer is doing behind the scenes at the Post.
Best for: Fans of The Washington Post.
Infographic to check out first: Tag Cloud: in their own words.
5. Swiss Miss. This is actually a general design blog that only posts infographics every week or so. However, those visualizations are worth the wait. (And if you’re impatient, just search the archives of the tag “data visualization” to see them all.) I’ve find that the infographics featured here put design first and readability second, so it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to try and emulate them. But who’s going to say that they are not a designer’s joy to behold?
Best for: Design buffs.
Infographic to check out first: Who lives here?
If you think I’ve neglected to mention a fantastic site, tell me about it in the comments. I’d love to hear!
7 December 2009
Second and third Anime USA videos are up
Filed Under Anime Conventions, Documentary and Film | 1 Comment
Sorry for the lack of posts lately, as I’ve been positively inundated with final exams. Regular posting should start up again next week. Until then, I’m happy to share my next two videos with you. Make sure to leave a comment: I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Special thanks to Abishai Israel and Diane, who didn’t give me her last name. This video portrays both a host club, a Japanese night club where attractive men, or “hosts,” serve women, and a maid cafe, also from Japan, where women dressed in maid costumes serve (usually male) customers. I tried to show the perspective of a host and a maid at their respective venues. I also got interviews with guests at both locations, but I left them out because a) they were stretching the video length and b) the interviews were awkward since they lacked b-roll. That’s something I’ll try to improve on next time.
Credit to Diana Garcia and Marshall Griffin for being great interviewees in this one. For the third video, I interviewed denizens of two major institutions of convention culture, the Dealer’s Room and Artist Alley. It’s not very clear in the video (once again, something to improve on) but the Dealer’s Room is where congoers can buy anime-inspired goods, usually imports from Japan, and Artist Alley is where artists sell their anime and game inspired artwork and crafts. This one was a little tricky since Diana used words that I’m familiar with, but a lot of my viewers probably won’t be. This was solved (with the help of my friend and video guru Alex Thompson) with a freeze frame and some handy definitions.
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