Mira Lowe, senior editor for features at CNN Digital, joined #loweclass and directed discussion about the class's critiques of CNN's website last Wednesday. She opened casually.
"I don't want this to be a lecture," Lowe began. "I want it to be a discussion."
I enjoyed Lowe's visit because it felt very easy-going. She remained seated with us as she moved through each of her channels on CNN's website. She energetically explained that "T's" and "C's" referred to "top stories" and "center pieces" in her newsroom, and that CNN's home page is "the door to the house."
Hearing Lowe sift through her office's terminology made me smile. It was easy to tell that she loved her job and that she embraced her position managing her various "verticals" on the website.
Lowe also offered some interesting information that male viewership out-paced female viewership on all of CNN's sections, including Entertainment and Travel. It certainly surprised me. She suggested that this was probably due to the fact that the home page's viewership is dominated by males.
She also meandered through the site's different blogs and provided insight into what their specific functions were. She differentiated between the "This Just In" blog, which covers the latest news from around the nation, and the "CNN Trends" blog, which aggregates the most read stories not just from CNN but also from its competitors.
The Trends blog, provided through a partnership between CNN and Zite, is one of many pages that were added to the website in the past few years.
"The website is a work in progress," Lowe said. "We're always trying to find the next best way to tell a story."
Lowe gave us two recent examples of CNN Digital telling stories in a new way. The first was story called "The gift of Charles," which provided video and text content about a 15-year-old named Charles who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. The story was very moving and developed the characters in Charles' family.
The second story was a series which broke down the undecided voting block in the 2012 presidential election. The series was broken down into an interactive info-graphic which provided in-depth personal information about characters found in parts of the undecided, such as the millennials or the Catholics.
Both of these stories do the same thing. They attempt to adapt to a new online news environment in which audiences can dive into the personalities of the subjects of the stories.
"CNN is really trying to focus on the person's point of view," Lowe said.
It was a great opportunity to see these innovative, online methods of telling a story from a veteran editor. Lowe was able to provide great insight into professional journalism and I really appreciate her input to our class.
I am, however, disappointed with one aspect of our discussion of the class.
Only until I left the class did I realize that a large majority of our conversation was about the website. While its obviously a very important aspect of Lowe's job, we asked very few questions about the actual reporting process happening behind the info-graphics and blogs. As an experienced journalist, Lowe could have given us a lot of advice about her time gathering information and presenting it in an accurate and timely fashion.
Why did we not give very much attention to these basic details of Lowe's work?
This provides an excellent opportunity for me to return to a subject that was brought up in this class a week ago. Professor Lowe showed us a story called "Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?" which appeared on the cover of the March 31 issue of the New York Times Magazine.
While the story itself was about altruism in the workplace, our discussion was about a video that accompanied the article. The video was an illustration of workplace altruism provided by comedians Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. The video was not mentioned at all in the article. Its production was done by the New York Times' marketing firm with the intent to draw traffic to the site.
I understand the reason why the New York Times wanted to get celebrities on their website. Who would ever voluntarily read a 30-page article about workplace altruism? The question I am contemplating is whether this attempt to drive readers onto a site is now an integral part of journalism.
Is it now the job of reporters not only to develop great stories, but also large online audiences? And what are the acceptable strategies to do this?
Certainly, efforts to increase readership is nothing new to journalism. It's absolutely necessary for journalists to think about their audience when writing a story. Still, there is a solid line reporters cannot cross when attempting to build their readership. Reporters cannot sensationalize their content. They cannot make it more dramatic than it actually is.
The late 1800s saw journalism wane into a murky age as competing news agencies fought a tireless "media war." As a plethora of newspapers battled for readership with flashy headlines and terrifying front page images, news quality suffered. "Yellow journalism" emerged.
Today the web encounters a similar problem. Hundreds of news sources fight for the attention of web browsers who lazily wander through the endless sea of information. It would make sense that best way to grab people's attention is by posting a quick and funny video of comedians doing silly things. It does not matter that the video does not enhance the story or add any value to the written material.
We have to wonder: Is this cheapening the standard by which we build audiences online?
I am very much engaged in the conversation of building great material on the Internet. I am happy we got the chance to speak to a professional online editor for a major news corporation. I am only disappointed that we did not aim for the heart of journalism – searching for the truth and reporting it accurately. I hope that the next time we have visitors in our classes, we seek out reporting experiences, not just online production experience.
"I don't want this to be a lecture," Lowe began. "I want it to be a discussion."
I enjoyed Lowe's visit because it felt very easy-going. She remained seated with us as she moved through each of her channels on CNN's website. She energetically explained that "T's" and "C's" referred to "top stories" and "center pieces" in her newsroom, and that CNN's home page is "the door to the house."
Hearing Lowe sift through her office's terminology made me smile. It was easy to tell that she loved her job and that she embraced her position managing her various "verticals" on the website.
Lowe also offered some interesting information that male viewership out-paced female viewership on all of CNN's sections, including Entertainment and Travel. It certainly surprised me. She suggested that this was probably due to the fact that the home page's viewership is dominated by males.
She also meandered through the site's different blogs and provided insight into what their specific functions were. She differentiated between the "This Just In" blog, which covers the latest news from around the nation, and the "CNN Trends" blog, which aggregates the most read stories not just from CNN but also from its competitors.
The Trends blog, provided through a partnership between CNN and Zite, is one of many pages that were added to the website in the past few years.
"The website is a work in progress," Lowe said. "We're always trying to find the next best way to tell a story."
Lowe gave us two recent examples of CNN Digital telling stories in a new way. The first was story called "The gift of Charles," which provided video and text content about a 15-year-old named Charles who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. The story was very moving and developed the characters in Charles' family.
The second story was a series which broke down the undecided voting block in the 2012 presidential election. The series was broken down into an interactive info-graphic which provided in-depth personal information about characters found in parts of the undecided, such as the millennials or the Catholics.
Both of these stories do the same thing. They attempt to adapt to a new online news environment in which audiences can dive into the personalities of the subjects of the stories.
"CNN is really trying to focus on the person's point of view," Lowe said.
It was a great opportunity to see these innovative, online methods of telling a story from a veteran editor. Lowe was able to provide great insight into professional journalism and I really appreciate her input to our class.
I am, however, disappointed with one aspect of our discussion of the class.
Only until I left the class did I realize that a large majority of our conversation was about the website. While its obviously a very important aspect of Lowe's job, we asked very few questions about the actual reporting process happening behind the info-graphics and blogs. As an experienced journalist, Lowe could have given us a lot of advice about her time gathering information and presenting it in an accurate and timely fashion.
Why did we not give very much attention to these basic details of Lowe's work?
This provides an excellent opportunity for me to return to a subject that was brought up in this class a week ago. Professor Lowe showed us a story called "Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?" which appeared on the cover of the March 31 issue of the New York Times Magazine.
While the story itself was about altruism in the workplace, our discussion was about a video that accompanied the article. The video was an illustration of workplace altruism provided by comedians Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. The video was not mentioned at all in the article. Its production was done by the New York Times' marketing firm with the intent to draw traffic to the site.
I understand the reason why the New York Times wanted to get celebrities on their website. Who would ever voluntarily read a 30-page article about workplace altruism? The question I am contemplating is whether this attempt to drive readers onto a site is now an integral part of journalism.
Is it now the job of reporters not only to develop great stories, but also large online audiences? And what are the acceptable strategies to do this?
Certainly, efforts to increase readership is nothing new to journalism. It's absolutely necessary for journalists to think about their audience when writing a story. Still, there is a solid line reporters cannot cross when attempting to build their readership. Reporters cannot sensationalize their content. They cannot make it more dramatic than it actually is.
The late 1800s saw journalism wane into a murky age as competing news agencies fought a tireless "media war." As a plethora of newspapers battled for readership with flashy headlines and terrifying front page images, news quality suffered. "Yellow journalism" emerged.
Today the web encounters a similar problem. Hundreds of news sources fight for the attention of web browsers who lazily wander through the endless sea of information. It would make sense that best way to grab people's attention is by posting a quick and funny video of comedians doing silly things. It does not matter that the video does not enhance the story or add any value to the written material.
We have to wonder: Is this cheapening the standard by which we build audiences online?
I am very much engaged in the conversation of building great material on the Internet. I am happy we got the chance to speak to a professional online editor for a major news corporation. I am only disappointed that we did not aim for the heart of journalism – searching for the truth and reporting it accurately. I hope that the next time we have visitors in our classes, we seek out reporting experiences, not just online production experience.