While working on a story about President Sample’s resignation this week, I was trying to find community sources who would comment, and sent out a Facebook message asking for people who might be willing to talk.  Another journalism student who has covered the neighborhood councils extensively shared a list of her sources with me.  (I can post this if you want, but it’s literally just a list of names and phone numbers/emails).
I also participated (under my Twitter/Facebook handle) in a few online chats with experts from NPR and Pollster on the night of the Nov. 3 elections, and asked a question about the youth vote for a piece I’m working on, wondering whether the low level of under-30 voters meant that the high 2008 turnout was part of the Obama phenomenon and not a larger trend.

Michael McDonald, an Associate Professor of Government and Politics in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution responded:

Young people tend to vote at much lower rates in non-presidential election years.   For example, in citizens age 18-29 turn out rates according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey:

2004: 49.0%
2006: 25.5%
2008: 51.0%

We would expect this same pattern in an odd-numbered year election.   I would not read too much into the lower turnout among younger people as a failure  of Obama’s (in some ways over-hyped) mobilization machine.

 

1. The Los Angeles Times

Twitter:

The LA Times has a substantial Twitter presence.  A few of the sites:

Flagship LATimes is largely confined to breaking news and links to the LA Times site.  Well-updated and with apparent draw, but no interactivity, and little playfulness.  Taking advantage of the new lists feature to compile alternative sources for breaking stories, e.g. http://twitter.com/LATimes/fort-hood-shootings\

Followers: 44,021

Following: 19, 548

Typical Tweet: “Breaking: At least 7 people were killed and 12 wounded in a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, today, MSNBC reports. More soon at www.latimes.com“

LATimestweets unites the various LA Times feeds and makes good use of the new Lists feature to link to its crowd of “tweeple,” but unfortunately falls squarely under the “links to headlines” category mentioned above – and although they occasional attempt to be racy, they’re posted far too infrequently – only 6 tweets over the course of the last week.  No re-tweets or responses.

Followers: 945

Following: 191

Typical Tweet: “Lindsay Lohan’s latest topless photo is very disappointing http://bit.ly/4EjqiA“

My personal favorite, LATimescityDesk (note the improbable capitalization) has a slightly more human touch, thanks to metro assignment editor  Nita Lelyveld, who occasionally throws in an RT to a good story or replies to a question.  Still, mostly boilerplate stuff – it was fun when a slightly more eager co-worker took over during a vacation and consistently answered readers’ tweets.

Followers: 7,627

Following: 4,147

Typical Tweet: “RT @katerbee Literal Pasadena fork in the road. Awesomeness. http://bit.ly/39I2dk“

Facebook:

Updated with the same breaking stories as the Twitter, with added feature (read: bug) of seemingly unmoderated user comments.  Info page reads like something sent out to shareholders – videos, photos, message boards and events pages are all in use, but seem to be token efforts. Telling comment: “Nice feature, LA Times. I hope you stay in business.”

Fans: 4,695

Typical Post:

 

Legoland gets an OK to build hotel

Source: bit.ly

Visitors to Legoland in Carlsbad view a scaled-down version of the U.S. Capitol with marching band. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)”

Like?: Eh.

2. CNN

Twitter:

CNN may have lost in its race against Ashton Kutcher for a million followers, but it’s the closest thing  Twitter has to a standard news source, attracting (perhaps by default) a massive number of eyeballs.  Nothing terribly innovative – a lot of breaking news – but they’re masters of the format, and not afraid to throw in plenty of RTs to quirkier contributers to spice things up a little.  Interactive features include links to the “CNN Challenge” (“select your favorite anchor as your host”).  Unusual in that they’ll sometimes tweet the news, wire-style, without waiting for links to the story.

Followers: 622,336

Following: 209

Typical Tweet: “RT @KingsThings: CNN has been all over this Ft. Hood story. We’ll of course cover this tonight on LKL.”

Facebook:

Slick landing page image features snazzy logo, searchlights, serious-looking Anderson Cooper.  Prominent privacy policy agreement suggests the page was enough of an effort to attract Legal’s attention.  Mission statement is wisely replaced with trivia.  Beyond the breaking news and invitations to comment, extras include weekly “fan notes,” discussion boards VERY open to the public (enlightening topics include “Holocaust VS Slavary,” “Why do all the canadian talk about american poltics,” and “CNN can go to hell!”) plus the occasional free t-shirt contest.

Fans: 643,144

Typical Post:

“The FTC approves ban on pre-recorded calls. Exceptions include political calls, “informational” calls and bank calls. http://bit.ly/jx703 Do you agree with the exceptions?”

Like?:  Sure, as long as you’re cool with the virtual version of a massive, dumbed-down episode of Crossfire.

3. Yahoo! News

Twitter:

Different medium, same aggregating function – it’s easy to imagine the utterly no-nonsense YahooNews feed being run by some early form of sentient AI.  If you really, really like AP, Reuters, and AFP, this is the source for you.  Not that much more to say – which explains the anemic following.

Followers: 4,347

Following: 366

Typical Tweet: “AP Sources: Dem Health bill to get AARP backing (AP) http://bit.ly/1YqnRD“

Facebook:

Unless you want to celebrate the good engineering folks behind the site, or join the 74 monthly users of a somewhat nebulous application, you’re out of luck.

Like?:  Not much here to talk about.

4. Slate

Twitter:

Touted as “What Slate is reading and discussing,” Slate has the advantage of a nice, catchy name,  but the emag early adopter doesn’t seem to be doing anything terribly groundbreaking here.  The mix of breaking news with tongue-and-cheek features, gee whiz stories, links to outside sources and the occasional smattering of first person makes reading feel like eavesdropping by the newsroom water cooler.  An insular one, though – few RTs, and almost no responses.

Followers: 22,060

Following: 56

Typical Tweet: “There *is* something Roland Emmerich won’t blow up http://bit.ly/3s2xrI“

Facebook:

Did you want the store?  The musician?  The Official Slate Bushisms Generator (6 monthly users)?  The Hillary Clinton Deathwatch (1 monthly user – we see you, Sarah Palin)?  Oh, the magazine?  The group, run by a fan, is sixth down on the list.  The official page, also way down in the search results, has a video player and at one point featured some good posts, so it’s too bad no one is going to find it.  Last official update was two months ago.

Fans: 357

Typical Post:

“Dear Prudence: Creepy Twin Co-Workers

Like?:  No one wants to visit an Internet ghost town.

5. LA Observed

Twitter:

Mostly linkbacks to its eponymous blog, LAObserved throws in a few RTs and links to other notable stories.  More than a little dry inside-baseball, but if you’re reading it, you’re probably looking for that kind of thing.  A few missteps (content of entire tweet: “Ann Powers”) suggest someone not entirely comfortable with the medium.

Followers: 3,030

Following: 475

Typical Tweet: “Bill Boyarsky column on a worthwhile investigative effort by ex-journalist now union gumshoe at SEIU. http://bit.ly/2G5JP2“

Facebook:

Nada.  Shocking, right?  There’s something to be said for the value of knowing your audience.

So for today, we’ll be taking a quick survey of some content providers with layouts that work – and a few that really, really don’t (less of the latter, simply because I don’t tend to visit them all that often.)

In no particular order:

The Good

1. The New York Times

For a newspaper that famously held out on refusing to print color photos, the Gray Lady is at the forefront of crisp, clean newspaper design.  It especially shines in its incorporation of multimedia content into stories – like in the above image, which combines commentary on an politician’s affair with searchable copies of supporting documentation.

2. Rough & Tumble

Living up to its name, this quick-n’-dirty Cali political roundup compiles worthwhile articles, sorts them by topic, and compresses them into a title, a blurb, and, natch, a byline (let’s hear it for journalists covering journalists).  A quick skim is the equivalent of flipping through ten morning papers, without all of the dead tree pulp and increasingly desperate re-subscription ads.

3. The Page

Speaking of inside baseball – Mark Halperin’s quick-firing blog is the essence of love-it-or-hate-it, a picture and headline heavy mainstream political cousin of Perez and his ilk.  No judgment calls, fact-finding or editorializing here, just up-to-the-minute links to developing stories across the Web.  Not quite as compelling of a read now that election season is over.

4. Slate

No surprise that this early-adopter mag is smartly stylish.  The text-on-image  style ledes avoid the pitfall of looking like advertisements, while the slide-show format shows off an array of top stories.  Small pictures and links below are organized, intuitive, and not overwhelming.

5. Newsvine

I read it through the newsvine?  This people-powered behemoth combines a dazzling plethora of sources, from MSNBC and the LA Times to wire headlines, weather stats, and amateur columnists into a surprisingly readable one-stop shopping experience.  Ads aren’t overwhelming, either.  As befits as sit beholden to social media, everything can be voted up or down, or commented on with the click of a button.

6. C-SPAN

Who said public affairs had to be stodgy?  Videos are easily organized by topic, with links to relevant sites.  Sharing your righteous outrage by Facebook or Twitter is only a quick click away.  The best part?  Absolutely no ads.

The Needing Improvement

1. Talking Points Memo

It almost pains me to say anything negative about this impressive blog, part of the small but proud vanguard of new media sites actually willing to do independent research and reporting (and do it excellently) rather than relying on links and snarky comments.  But the now-2 column, now-5 column, now-something in between layout is counter-intuitive and migraine-inducing, lending little clue to the relevance or topicality of all but the main stories, and the ads are too similar to editorial images.  Sister sites like TPMCafe and TPM Muckraker are nearly entirely separate.

2. Google News

Anything containing the phrase “all 3,227 news articles” surely violates the Don’t Be Evil motto.  As comprehensive as all of Google’s efforts, this page reads like a particularly vituperative Bing commercial, driving even the most devoted news junkie to the brink of information overload.
“Related articles” are sometimes identical, sometimes completely different.  This works fine as a search engine, but none too well as a casual browser.

3. Newsweek

The magazine redesign?  Smart, stylish, and fun to read.  The website?  Still a work in progress.  It’s not terrible, but sort of a haphazard mash of blogs, articles, videos, and ads, seemingly unorganized by chronology, importance, genre, or anything else.  The very bottom of the page, a neat row of blurbs sortable by subject and date, is much more appealing, but not many readers are likely to make it to the bottom.

The Ugly

1. The Studio City Sun

My ultra-local weekly’s website was nothing to write home about even when it was just a PDF of the issues with a few helpful links for would-be readers and advertisers.  But in a day and age where just about everything is online, it’s hard to imagine anything less professional than voiding your name and space to a blandly generic domain holding space.  (If there is, it’s the message now appearing on its sister site, the Sherman Oaks Sun, which asks for login information, turned-off pop up blockers, and makes mention of credit card statements).  Apparently, someone hasn’t paid the bills on time.  Wonder if I missed a few more newsroom cuts?

Watch Here until I figure out how to embed video.

You can listen to him share how he aspires to bring the clarity of Ernest Hemingway’s wartime writing to his own, more local reporting.

Unedited 5 minute interview

Edited Soundbite

I am,  I suspect, putting myself in the same boat with many others interested in the field of journalism when I say that I’m not entirely sure what my future holds, but as long as I can look forward to being involved with the news in some way, I’m happy.

Fun fact about myself: I am absolutely terrible at thinking up fun facts about myself.  I consider myself both a fun and a factual person.  They just somehow don’t go together.

Sites I will be following for this course:

1) Traditional print site: the Los Angeles Times

2) Traditional broadcast site: CNN

3) Non-traditional news sites: Yahoo! News, Slate, LA Observed