Is your news website still living in the shadow of your print edition? Learn how a dynamic news website and an "online first" philosophy can transform and reinvigorate your coverage of your school community.
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State of many high school news websites
• They’re a repository for printed stories.
• They’re where the bad stories are published.
• They’re a storage place for print PDFs.
• They’re only occasionally thought about.
• Big stories are published only after the “big reveal” in print.
• They don’t live up to their potential.
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What if it didn’t have to be that way?
• What if you didn’t have to wait until the next issue?
• What if you needed to reach your audience instantly,
no matter where they were?
• What if your audience wasn’t just your school?
• What if you have real news to report?
It can be different.
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Online first gives you new opportunities.
• Breaking news and emergencies
• Developing stories
• Sports game coverage
• Movie and music reviews
• Opinions
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Your publication is no longer a newspaper.
• It’s a news program.
• It’s news beyond the paper.
• It’s time to change your language.
• Issues/Editions
• Archives
• Section Names
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Your audience expands beyond school walls
• Students
• Teachers and school staff
• Parents
• Community
• The World
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What do you need to do to be online first?
• Commit.
• Build the audience.
• Have a writing/editing/classroom structure.
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You’re committed.
You know what is
needed.
So how do you do it?
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Build the audience.
• Establish a reputation: Be the #1 news source in your school.
• Deliver relevant content. Timeliness makes content relevant.
• How do readers know you’ve posted a new story?
• Browsing
• Email updates/RSS
• Social media
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Engage with readers via social media.
• Build your social media networks.
• Post to social media. Avoid the auto-post plugin.
• Time your posts.
• Get readers to distribute content they like or want to
promote.
• Listen to your readers with social media.
• Find sources and story ideas on social media.
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Start looking at design differently
• Story page design is consistent, putting focus on content.
• Contextual linking
• Embeddable elements
• Multiple photos and video
• Rethink your home page. Rethink the carousel.
• Design and structure can vary to fit the circumstances
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5 things to think about and address:
• Day-to-day activities
• Leadership structures
• Coverage decisions
• Grading
• Fun
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Students will be in
different points of the
production schedule daily.
And that’s OK.
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Rethink the story cycle
• With an online-first attitude, there is no “cycle.”
• You can make every day a story idea day.
• You can make every day a publication day.
• A story might take three weeks or three hours to produce.
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Day-to-day Activities
• You can bring order to the chaos.
• Review. What was published yesterday? Did it get read?
• Brainstorm and plan stories. What’s happening today? What
do readers need to know?
• Teach lessons. Large-group, mini-lessons, ad hoc.
• Set a priority for the day. If it’s the print edition, spend time on
design, editing.
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Day-to-day Activities, continued
• Communicate beyond classroom. Develop a method to
facilitate organization and communication.
• One-on-one checkins. These add accountability and
opportunity to redirect student efforts.
• Story groups. Pull writer, editor, & photographer together.
• Down time. It’s OK.
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Leadership structures
• Accommodate the online-first philosophy by revising student
leadership positions and descriptions.
• Have an online editor-in-chief.
• Roles for managing editor (assignment editor) and
photographers/photo editors must be expanded.
• Also consider a social media coordinator.
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Leadership roles
• Empower editors to own their positions
• to keep up with story ideas.
• to keep the audience informed.
• to keep up with the editing.
• to make decisions responsibly.
• Plan for when big news happens.
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Coverage: Timeline and deadlines
• Determine the best platform. Some stories are told better in
print, while some are told better online.
• Don’t just use the general deadline for a print issue.
• What deadline makes sense? What deadline is realistic?
• Set up an editing process that allows for students to finish
stories successfully. Individualize.
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Use a collaborative writing tool
• You need a tool that allows you to collaborate in real time to
speed up the editing process.
• Google Drive (Apps/Docs) is great for this.
• Share a folder rather than a Doc
• Have a master planning spreadsheet/plan
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Grading: What to consider
• Assignments will have many forms. How do you
accommodate this in grading?
• What happens when students slack off, flake out or just don’t
produce?
• Set up a checklist of requirements to earn grades.
• Determine competency levels and grade based on level.
• Establish production quota for quarter/semester.
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Make time for fun
• The production cycle doesn’t have the same ebb and flow as
each printed paper, so you will need to build in time to
celebrate, evaluate, bond and grow.
• Incorporate Web milestones (analytics, hits, likes, retweets)
into the celebration list.
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Take advantage of what the Web offers
• Publishing is instantaneous.
• Stories can be published when they are ready —
not when the print cycle dictates.
• Content can be the length that is appropriate —
not cut or expanded to fit space.
• Storage is not an issue — lots of photos or multimedia.
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Take advantage (continued)
• Stories can be updated or corrected easily as new information
is gathered.
• A story can be a springboard for exploration with links to
additional content and related stories.
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QUESTIONS? Let’s hear ’em.
• Contact us at contact@snosites.com or @schoolnewspaper
• School Newspapers Online
• Visit our table in the exhibitor area of a convention