by Karen Kleiss
With the blogs moving to the new WordPress platform this weekend I thought it would be useful to put together a collection of eight very basic WordPress How-To Videos.
Click on the links below to go to WordPress TV, or just scroll down to see the embedded versions. The videos are more pleasant to watch (and easier to understand) if you click the HD button and watch in full screen.
They are all under two minutes!
Want more? Check out WordPressTV.com.
1. How to create a new post
2. How to save draft posts and return to them later
3. How to embed pictures, videos and audio
4. How to embed a YouTube video
5. How to add categories and tags to your post
6. How to publish your post at a later date
7. How to use the "More" tag
8. Understanding and organizing your Dashboard
Here are the videos themselves. Again, they are much easier to see and understand if you watch the full screen in HD.
1. How to create a new post
2. How to save draft posts and return to finish them later
3. How to embed pictures, video and audio
4. How to embed a YouTube video (so easy!)
5. How to add categories and tags to your post
6. How to publish you post at a later date
7. How to use the "More" tag
8. Understanding and organizing your Dashboard
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Friday, November 19, 2010
Free tools that might be useful for bloggers
So, Keith and I have been tweeting and blogging down here at the leg, and as a new blogger I've been digging around for tools I can use to make my life easier. Here are a few I've found:
SoundCloud
This free website lets you upload audio, which you can link to in Twitter and embed in your blog, which I did today on our rumour killing blog post about Zwozdesky. I started using SoundCloud two weeks ago and people have listened to my tracks 340 times since then. The interview in which MLA Carl Benito blames his wife for failing to pay his taxes has been listened to 218 times so far. It's really funny:
Benito by Karen Kleiss
Media.io
This free website will allow you to convert one kind of audio file into another. This is helpful when you record something in .wma format, but you want to upload it into SoundCloud, which doesn't take .wma. It's easy, fast and free.
Scribd
A free site that lets you make your documents public and embed them in your blog or link to them in your twitter posts. An absolutely crucial tool. I've uploaded 99 documents in the past two months, they have been viewed nearly 5,000 times by readers. We can also put the documents on the website like this:
Stelmach
Box.net
Box is like Scribd, except you can keep your documents private if you want to. I plan to use it mostly for sending stuff back and forth to the office.
I'll post more when I have the time, but these are the best I've found so far.
SoundCloud
This free website lets you upload audio, which you can link to in Twitter and embed in your blog, which I did today on our rumour killing blog post about Zwozdesky. I started using SoundCloud two weeks ago and people have listened to my tracks 340 times since then. The interview in which MLA Carl Benito blames his wife for failing to pay his taxes has been listened to 218 times so far. It's really funny:
Benito by Karen Kleiss
Media.io
This free website will allow you to convert one kind of audio file into another. This is helpful when you record something in .wma format, but you want to upload it into SoundCloud, which doesn't take .wma. It's easy, fast and free.
Scribd
A free site that lets you make your documents public and embed them in your blog or link to them in your twitter posts. An absolutely crucial tool. I've uploaded 99 documents in the past two months, they have been viewed nearly 5,000 times by readers. We can also put the documents on the website like this:
Stelmach
Box.net
Box is like Scribd, except you can keep your documents private if you want to. I plan to use it mostly for sending stuff back and forth to the office.
I'll post more when I have the time, but these are the best I've found so far.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Amazing free timeline-building software
By Karen Kleiss
Check out this Detroit Free Press timeline made using free software called Capzles. The square in the bottom left corner makes it full-size and the experience is even better.
Check out this Detroit Free Press timeline made using free software called Capzles. The square in the bottom left corner makes it full-size and the experience is even better.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Ten Writing Tips from Walt Bogdanich and Jim Neff
By Ben Gelinas
New York Times heavyweight and three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Walt Bogdanich held a seminar on writing with Seattle Times editor Jim Neff at this year's IRE Conference in Vegas. Some of these tips are going to seem obvious, but sometimes it's good to be reminded of the obvious. :)
1. When you're ready to write: "Get into a place where you are lonely and no one else is around." Bogdanich often writes on the subway or in a library. He says it is especially important to disconnect from the Internet.
2. Show your work to other people (not your editor) before you turn it in. Don't tell your editor you've done this.
3. Writing a good story is like painting a house, Bogdanich says. You need to prepare before you start or you're going to have to go back and waste time cleaning up the spills and redoing sections.
4. Describe your story regularly to quiet people and watch their eyes. If what you're telling them makes their eyes glaze over, you're probably not on the right track.
5. You'll know it's time to write when you can summarize your story (no matter how big) in 25 words or less. "When I get stuck, it's usually because I need to do more reporting," says Bogdanich.
6. Timelines are key for developing a narrative. Do one before you start writing.
7. Create summaries of your best quotes, sorted by topic, so you can grab them quickly when you need them.
8. Before you write the full story, put away your notebook and write what you know, spelling mistakes and all. Then go back with your notebook open and build upon what you've written. (Rick will tell you to do this too).
9. To organize a bigger story by breaking it into chapters, even if the final product lacks chapters. Each should be its own, self-contained story, with ledes.
10. If you have a good narrative going and need to find a place to insert some somewhat dry facts, put the dry facts between a cliffhanger in the narrative to build suspense and keep 'em reading.
11. Special Bonus Tip!
A good kicker's almost as important as a good lede. "You want it to kind of haunt them afterward," Neff says.
Investigative Reporters and Editors Annual Conference, June 2010
Session: Writing the in-depth story
Presenters: Walt Bogdanich, The New York Times, and Jim Neff, The Seattle Times
New York Times heavyweight and three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Walt Bogdanich held a seminar on writing with Seattle Times editor Jim Neff at this year's IRE Conference in Vegas. Some of these tips are going to seem obvious, but sometimes it's good to be reminded of the obvious. :)
1. When you're ready to write: "Get into a place where you are lonely and no one else is around." Bogdanich often writes on the subway or in a library. He says it is especially important to disconnect from the Internet.
2. Show your work to other people (not your editor) before you turn it in. Don't tell your editor you've done this.
3. Writing a good story is like painting a house, Bogdanich says. You need to prepare before you start or you're going to have to go back and waste time cleaning up the spills and redoing sections.
4. Describe your story regularly to quiet people and watch their eyes. If what you're telling them makes their eyes glaze over, you're probably not on the right track.
5. You'll know it's time to write when you can summarize your story (no matter how big) in 25 words or less. "When I get stuck, it's usually because I need to do more reporting," says Bogdanich.
6. Timelines are key for developing a narrative. Do one before you start writing.
7. Create summaries of your best quotes, sorted by topic, so you can grab them quickly when you need them.
8. Before you write the full story, put away your notebook and write what you know, spelling mistakes and all. Then go back with your notebook open and build upon what you've written. (Rick will tell you to do this too).
9. To organize a bigger story by breaking it into chapters, even if the final product lacks chapters. Each should be its own, self-contained story, with ledes.
10. If you have a good narrative going and need to find a place to insert some somewhat dry facts, put the dry facts between a cliffhanger in the narrative to build suspense and keep 'em reading.
11. Special Bonus Tip!
A good kicker's almost as important as a good lede. "You want it to kind of haunt them afterward," Neff says.
Investigative Reporters and Editors Annual Conference, June 2010
Session: Writing the in-depth story
Presenters: Walt Bogdanich, The New York Times, and Jim Neff, The Seattle Times
Investigating Breaking News
By Ben Gelinas
The Seattle Times won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage this year for their exhaustive work on the shooting deaths of four police officers last November. The paper had an action plan for covering such a big story. It happened on a weekend and the newsroom was bare. But as the news broke, numerous reporters and editors dropped their plans and came in to help. Breaking off into groups with specific goals, they flooded their website with new information as it was confirmed, and all met regularly to make sure they weren't stepping on each others' toes. They broke the name of the alleged shooter online while police still searched for him. A photographer staking out an apparent stand-off with the man live-tweeted the whole affair.
Click here to see the Seattle Times' work on the day of and in the months that followed. Note the sidebar: "Coverage from the days following the Lakewood shootings."
Attached is a tipsheet for covering big stories like this, drafted by Seattle Times editor Suki Dardarian and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editor Greg Borowski. The latter paper won the 2010 Pulitzer for local reporting.
INVESTIGATIVE BREAKING NEWS TIPSHEET
By Greg Borowski and Suki Dardarian
Before News Breaks: Get tools, technology and training
Databases: Build databases and provide access to information services (like Accusearch) not just for long-term investigations but breaking news. Your goal is to track down people, their property, businesses, vital statistics, friends and relatives, voting records, court records.
Technology: Make sure your breaking news reporters and photographers have smart phones or other tools with web access, the ability to take photos and send back information to the newsroom quickly via text, tweet, e-mail, etc.
Social connections: Reporters and editors should have Twitter accounts or access to your company accounts, along with any other social networking tools. Use them regularly to know their advantages, limitations, and importantly, to build followers.
Virtual reporting hub: Inside your system or ina protected place outside your system, establish a sport to store information (databases, documents, notes) so it's accessible by the staff. (Ben's note: this is especially important when news is breaking and one person is writing from multiple reporter files).
Physical hub: Is your newsroom able to accommodate a vast influx of reporters and editors? Are there open desks where reporters can drag their laptops and work?
Training: Do it regularly, across the staff, to stay proficient in all these tools.
Practice: Use smaller breaking-news events as practice opportunities. Build and change based on successes and failures. A good plan gives you a jump well before news breaks.
When News Breaks: Engage the team; collaborate
Flood the zone and clearly define roles: Get bodies deployed in and then out of the office. Assign all taskes; define all roles. Don't leave any meeting with key questions unanswered or key decisions unmade. Assign lead writers for print and online.
Delegate/break up into triage teams: Find themes around which to organize mini teams: The event; the suspect; the victims; the system. If themes don't work, try location-based teams: in-office research, scene teams, etc.
Share everything: Keep talking/e-mailing during the day. Everyone should empty notebooks into central files all have access to. A witness who seems unimportant on Day One may turn out to be critical later. Check it frequently, to spot information that is suddenly relevant. Organize it so it's easy to follow.
Huddle/meet regularly: It may be a 10-minute stand-up meeting among editors and key reporters, or a more formal meeting to sketch out assignments and strategies. Collective knowledge is more valuable, and powerful, than individual knowledge. Stay focused on the key unanswered questions -- they provide a road map for pursuing the story.
Start a timeline: As you know key facts and details, put them in a timeline format. Save it in a public spot, so others can add to it. This can help reporters visualize what happened, minimize errors in stories and can be adapted for print and online publication.
Think presentation: You're reporting for online and print. Get a running conversation going about needs and ideas. Should pieces be broken into sidebars? Interactive maps? Get all departments - photo, graphics, design - involved early.
Search public records: Keep some reporters back from the scene. Start identifying key documents on the Internet, or by going to government offices. Make formal requests - inspection reports, license applications, audits, (parole documents, land titles) - early, before your competitors.
Use social media: To push your stories and information out, certainly. But social media is not just a megaphone. It's a listening device as well, a way to share information, monitor what others and saying and often to get first-hand accounts of what is happening.
Expand your source lists: Identify outside experts on a topic. Check your e-mail regularly for tips. Readers with a deep interest or knowledge in a topic are often itching to share information. And keep an eye out for ideas and tips made in comments sections on stories, posts on Twitter and Facebook and elsewhere.
Make community a priority: What information - or social connections - do your readers need? How are you serving those needs?
Reinforcements: Make your colleagues a priority, too. Supply lots of healthy food and drink. Pace yourself and your team. Send people home and tell them specifically when to return.
As the dust starts to settle: Be strategic; develop a vision
Start over: Huddle; review all the information you've gathered, identify questions left to answer. be sure everyone knows what they're supposed to start on the next morning.
Keep meeting: Don't let the steam go out of a good story; keep meeting, and make specific assignments. Use records and sources to advance the story, push it beyond the news conference updates and official word.
Think Sunday: Consider if there is merit in re-telling the story - or a slice of it - in a narrative form. Is there a new perspective to offer, a step-back piece? What will readers need most after days of breaking news stories? If you can, begin to make sense of the story - but don't overshoot your reporting.
Build a plan: Look even further down the road. Does the story point to underlying issues with systems, government or business? Build a strategy to pursue those stories and questions of rthe coming months - and years. If a reform took place, check in at six months to see if it's working as promised. Editors should make clear decisions about the level of commitment to following the story, including when to scale back coverage. Set benchmarks for periodic check-ins.
Investigative Reporters and Editors Annual Conference, June 2010
Session: Investigating Breaking News
Presenters: Greg Borowski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Suki Dardarian, The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage this year for their exhaustive work on the shooting deaths of four police officers last November. The paper had an action plan for covering such a big story. It happened on a weekend and the newsroom was bare. But as the news broke, numerous reporters and editors dropped their plans and came in to help. Breaking off into groups with specific goals, they flooded their website with new information as it was confirmed, and all met regularly to make sure they weren't stepping on each others' toes. They broke the name of the alleged shooter online while police still searched for him. A photographer staking out an apparent stand-off with the man live-tweeted the whole affair.
Click here to see the Seattle Times' work on the day of and in the months that followed. Note the sidebar: "Coverage from the days following the Lakewood shootings."
Attached is a tipsheet for covering big stories like this, drafted by Seattle Times editor Suki Dardarian and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editor Greg Borowski. The latter paper won the 2010 Pulitzer for local reporting.
INVESTIGATIVE BREAKING NEWS TIPSHEET
By Greg Borowski and Suki Dardarian
Before News Breaks: Get tools, technology and training
Databases: Build databases and provide access to information services (like Accusearch) not just for long-term investigations but breaking news. Your goal is to track down people, their property, businesses, vital statistics, friends and relatives, voting records, court records.
Technology: Make sure your breaking news reporters and photographers have smart phones or other tools with web access, the ability to take photos and send back information to the newsroom quickly via text, tweet, e-mail, etc.
Social connections: Reporters and editors should have Twitter accounts or access to your company accounts, along with any other social networking tools. Use them regularly to know their advantages, limitations, and importantly, to build followers.
Virtual reporting hub: Inside your system or ina protected place outside your system, establish a sport to store information (databases, documents, notes) so it's accessible by the staff. (Ben's note: this is especially important when news is breaking and one person is writing from multiple reporter files).
Physical hub: Is your newsroom able to accommodate a vast influx of reporters and editors? Are there open desks where reporters can drag their laptops and work?
Training: Do it regularly, across the staff, to stay proficient in all these tools.
Practice: Use smaller breaking-news events as practice opportunities. Build and change based on successes and failures. A good plan gives you a jump well before news breaks.
When News Breaks: Engage the team; collaborate
Flood the zone and clearly define roles: Get bodies deployed in and then out of the office. Assign all taskes; define all roles. Don't leave any meeting with key questions unanswered or key decisions unmade. Assign lead writers for print and online.
Delegate/break up into triage teams: Find themes around which to organize mini teams: The event; the suspect; the victims; the system. If themes don't work, try location-based teams: in-office research, scene teams, etc.
Share everything: Keep talking/e-mailing during the day. Everyone should empty notebooks into central files all have access to. A witness who seems unimportant on Day One may turn out to be critical later. Check it frequently, to spot information that is suddenly relevant. Organize it so it's easy to follow.
Huddle/meet regularly: It may be a 10-minute stand-up meeting among editors and key reporters, or a more formal meeting to sketch out assignments and strategies. Collective knowledge is more valuable, and powerful, than individual knowledge. Stay focused on the key unanswered questions -- they provide a road map for pursuing the story.
Start a timeline: As you know key facts and details, put them in a timeline format. Save it in a public spot, so others can add to it. This can help reporters visualize what happened, minimize errors in stories and can be adapted for print and online publication.
Think presentation: You're reporting for online and print. Get a running conversation going about needs and ideas. Should pieces be broken into sidebars? Interactive maps? Get all departments - photo, graphics, design - involved early.
Search public records: Keep some reporters back from the scene. Start identifying key documents on the Internet, or by going to government offices. Make formal requests - inspection reports, license applications, audits, (parole documents, land titles) - early, before your competitors.
Use social media: To push your stories and information out, certainly. But social media is not just a megaphone. It's a listening device as well, a way to share information, monitor what others and saying and often to get first-hand accounts of what is happening.
Expand your source lists: Identify outside experts on a topic. Check your e-mail regularly for tips. Readers with a deep interest or knowledge in a topic are often itching to share information. And keep an eye out for ideas and tips made in comments sections on stories, posts on Twitter and Facebook and elsewhere.
Make community a priority: What information - or social connections - do your readers need? How are you serving those needs?
Reinforcements: Make your colleagues a priority, too. Supply lots of healthy food and drink. Pace yourself and your team. Send people home and tell them specifically when to return.
As the dust starts to settle: Be strategic; develop a vision
Start over: Huddle; review all the information you've gathered, identify questions left to answer. be sure everyone knows what they're supposed to start on the next morning.
Keep meeting: Don't let the steam go out of a good story; keep meeting, and make specific assignments. Use records and sources to advance the story, push it beyond the news conference updates and official word.
Think Sunday: Consider if there is merit in re-telling the story - or a slice of it - in a narrative form. Is there a new perspective to offer, a step-back piece? What will readers need most after days of breaking news stories? If you can, begin to make sense of the story - but don't overshoot your reporting.
Build a plan: Look even further down the road. Does the story point to underlying issues with systems, government or business? Build a strategy to pursue those stories and questions of rthe coming months - and years. If a reform took place, check in at six months to see if it's working as promised. Editors should make clear decisions about the level of commitment to following the story, including when to scale back coverage. Set benchmarks for periodic check-ins.
Investigative Reporters and Editors Annual Conference, June 2010
Session: Investigating Breaking News
Presenters: Greg Borowski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Suki Dardarian, The Seattle Times
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Social Network Analysis for Journalists
by Karen Kleiss
In a presentation called Social network analysis: Tracking the paths of power, David Donald of the Center for Public Integrity and Robert Anglen of The Arizona Republic talked about using social network analysis in journalism. Don't confuse this with social networking on Twitter or Facebook; think more along the lines of social scientists tracking the relationships between people in a newly discovered Amazonian tribe, or between Ed Stelmach and the people on various oil sands-related committees.
Some really neat American sites that do this are muckety.com, theyrule.net, and Analyze the U.S.. Donald and Anglen said journalists who do this type of work typically use software called UCINET and, increasingly, a program called NodeXL, which works with the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program that comes installed in most computers.
This session was interesting, but social network analysis is complicated and is definitely a specialty within journalism. If you're really keen, there's an awesome primer on the IRE website. To see what social networking can do, read Anglen's piece, Perfectly Legal ,in the Arizona Republic.
I'd also highly recommend the book Precision Journalism, but that's just me.
Investigative Reporters and Editors Annual Conference, June 2010
Session: Social Network Analysis: Tracking the paths of power
Presenters: Robert Anglen, The Arizona Republic, and David Donald, Centre for Public Integrity
In a presentation called Social network analysis: Tracking the paths of power, David Donald of the Center for Public Integrity and Robert Anglen of The Arizona Republic talked about using social network analysis in journalism. Don't confuse this with social networking on Twitter or Facebook; think more along the lines of social scientists tracking the relationships between people in a newly discovered Amazonian tribe, or between Ed Stelmach and the people on various oil sands-related committees.
Some really neat American sites that do this are muckety.com, theyrule.net, and Analyze the U.S.. Donald and Anglen said journalists who do this type of work typically use software called UCINET and, increasingly, a program called NodeXL, which works with the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program that comes installed in most computers.
This session was interesting, but social network analysis is complicated and is definitely a specialty within journalism. If you're really keen, there's an awesome primer on the IRE website. To see what social networking can do, read Anglen's piece, Perfectly Legal ,in the Arizona Republic.
I'd also highly recommend the book Precision Journalism, but that's just me.
Investigative Reporters and Editors Annual Conference, June 2010
Session: Social Network Analysis: Tracking the paths of power
Presenters: Robert Anglen, The Arizona Republic, and David Donald, Centre for Public Integrity
20 Databases All Newsrooms Should Have or Use
by Karen Kleiss
David Donald of the Center for Public Integrity and Ron Nixon of the New York Times say these are the 20 databases all newsrooms should have or use. It's a very American list; in most cases I don't know whether there are Canadian equivalents or if we can get them. That said, I think it's a great list to peruse if you're looking to get ideas.
Session: Data for investigations locally and around the world
Presenters: Ron Nixon, New York Times and David Donald, Centre for Public Integrity
David Donald of the Center for Public Integrity and Ron Nixon of the New York Times say these are the 20 databases all newsrooms should have or use. It's a very American list; in most cases I don't know whether there are Canadian equivalents or if we can get them. That said, I think it's a great list to peruse if you're looking to get ideas.
- Census data (federal and state-level).
- State finance departments. Shows budgets for each year.
- Single audit databases. In the U.S., any non-profit that gets more than $300,000 from the federal government must be audited. This database tracks the agencies, how much they get, and the audit results.
- Check Register for Vendors. Shows who the government holds contracts with. Donald says this database is frequently compared with election contribution data to identify "pay to play" trends and other forms of pork-barelling.
- Property Assessments. Reporters typically check for liens and high-profile delinquencies, and they look at assessments for politicians' homes, often finding lower-than-average assessments. American newspapers also use these to find the names and contact information for people who live in homes where crimes happen.
- Non-elected committee members. This database is often compared with lobby registries to see who is lobbying and sitting on a committee at the same time.
- Government Employee Salaries. Updated annually, this data is always a big hit with taxpayers. I put in a request for this information after I read Gary Lamphier's column last month.
- Election campaign finance reports.
- Campaign contribution reports for individuals.
- Financial disclosure reports for judges. I think they have these in Canada, too.
- Voter registration databases.
- Election results.
- Crime statistics.
- Sexual predators. We can't get this in Canada.
- Business demographics. Typically collected at the state and municipal level, similar to census statistics.
- SEC10K Data. In the U.S., this database tracks reports from public companies. This information is available online, as well, in a database the government calls EDGAR.
- 990s. In the U.S., these are the non-profit tax filings. These are searchable online in Canada on the CRA's website.
- EPA Enforcement Data. Water safety information is available in the U.S. at the EPA's website.
- Foreign Agencies Registration Database. Maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice, the FARA database tracks people from foreign countries working the the U.S.
- Lobbying database. The U.S., the federal data is here.
Session: Data for investigations locally and around the world
Presenters: Ron Nixon, New York Times and David Donald, Centre for Public Integrity
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