Celebrating 10 Years! Happy B-day, BUnow!

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Many hundreds of students, faculty, staff, friends and organizations are true celebrants in BUnow’s Tenth Anniversary. While it’s impossible to name them all, all are remembered. We are forever grateful for your support and friendship. BUnow Family This article was originally published on BUnow.com  in May 2018. Copyright 2018 Richard Ganahl

Hey, Dr. Ganahl, is BUnow really 10-years old?
Imagine creating, capturing, and storing in real time every word, graphic, picture, video, comment, and all shared moments of more than 1,000 collegiate content creators.
Then, imagine being able to instantly access, share, and react to all this textual, audio and video content in real time from anywhere in the world on your phone, tablet, laptop and desktop devices.
Finally, imagine this explosion of media innovation originating in 2008 from Bloomsburg, Pa., and then radiating to all corners of the globe through April 2018.
If you can imagine all this, then you know BUnow, a student-managed, fully independent, stand alone, multi-platform, pure play news site really is 10-years old.

So, what is BUnow?
Most specifically, BUnow is the almost 4,000 multi-media stories, the 22,000 pictures, and nearly 200 videos all stored off-campus that have been created by over 900 collegiate content creators since 2008. Nearly one million visitors from over 135 countries have engaged with almost two million pages since 2008.
Further still, BUnow is more than its three social media accounts and their 4.000 followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And, most certainly BUnow is even more than the 35-50 students across all colleges engaged with BUnow throughout the year in multiple capacities since 2008.
On the grandest of levels, BUnow is that ‘here-and-now’ space on the collegiate timeline that starts just after high school’s ‘good old days’ and ends at the adult’s “real world’ which starts just after college ends. These collegiate content creators are digital natives of all ages, genders, races, orientations and affiliations. They live in BUnow’s ‘here and now’ space, and they have created their very own form of storytelling that is immediate, fierce, deeply personal, and unbounded by the traditional limits of privacy.

When was BUnow born?
Remember the 2007-08 media scape? It seems pretty dreary by today’s standards. Land line telephone were ubiquitous, texting was the new and expensive rage, CDs and radios battled iPods, iPhones were scarce, Facebook had just opened to everyone, few knew about Twitter, and even fewer trusted Internet commerce.
With ‘my ear down to the ground,’ I knew seismic changes were under way. These forces of innovation were undeniable. Compelled to engage my students, I approached BU Vice-President of Technology Wayne Mohr in fall 2007 with the idea of starting an ‘Internet site to publish content’ in all formats. He was immediately supportive and enlisted the assistance of Sam Josuweit, BU’s manager of network services.
I initiated our first meetings in early spring 2008 with several students including Shannon Hoffman, Dan Tallarico, and Neil Young, along with Mass Communications Professor Sharon Santus. Immediately things began to happen. Neil suggested the name BU Now, Dan presciently suggested the blog platform WordPress over Dreamweaver, and Shannon began organizing the site with Mike Nacko, a computer sciences major from Sam’s office. We organized BU Now as a CGA-recognized student organization, and adopted the slogan, ‘BU Now: Faster Than Today!’
‘Revolutionary!’ is how Editor-in-Chief Shannon Hoffman described BU Now in its premier post on April 18, 2008. While acknowledging other campus media’s contributions, Shannon declared BU Now’s uniqueness will be ‘convergence and immediacy’ through ‘printed words, video, photos and podcasts…distributed as soon as a staff member…make(s) it to a computer.’

BU Now’s first two years are explosive.
More than 75,000 visitors from 123 countries recorded nearly 166,000 ‘page views’ of the more than 600 student-authored, multi-media stories published by April 2010.
Ashley Scioli and Katie Taylor served as co-editor-in-chiefs during BUnow’s second year. On the site’s second anniversary, my post titled ‘GANAHL ON MEDIA: Happy B-day BU Now!’ and dated April 18, 2010 celebrated BU Now’s editorial milestones, and summarized the findings of 23 e-interviews that I conducted with the campus media’s advisors and student journalists (now archived on BUnow). While the promise of ‘convergence and immediacy’ had been largely met, the interviews described a growing frustration with media turf wars nurtured by other campus media advisors and journalists.
The editorial milestones were impressive in their breadth of coverage and viewer engagement. Three major news topics emerged among the 600 stories published by 2010.
First, the successful media convergence partnership among BU Now, the campus newspaper and an independent local blog covered the 2008 election of President Obama through 71 multi-media stories that attracted 26,600 viewers. The coverage includes a 13-minute video titled ‘Ecstatic Obama Crowd Marches’ published on Nov. 6, 2008 and hosted on Vimeo. The video records the spontaneous eruption of the students’ euphoria at the announcement of Barack’s historical victory as they stream from their dormitories and parade down College Hill through downtown to celebrate at the Town Fountain.
Next, this same media convergence partnership covered the controversy of BU’s 2008 Homecoming marred by racism through nine-stories, three videos, and two editorials. BU Now was the first to publish a complete copy of the final report ‘Panel to Investigate Campus Climate and Security’ released on Feb. 2009. The coverage engaged more than 13,300 visitors on BU Now.
Finally, BU Now organized a ‘Campus Block Party Information Session’ that included the mayor, the campus and town police chiefs, and other BU staff and student representatives as part of its Block Party 2009 coverage. Other coverage included 10 stories, four videos and pictures, and a ‘gonzo style,’ on-the-scene blog report that attracted 10,800 visitors.
Still, even though the experiment in media convergence resulted in nearly 100 stories posted by the campus newspaper, many students mentioned in the e-interviews the ‘perceived tension between BU Now and some faculty members…(and) the lack of support and even criticism…(and that) the clash between certain faculty hindered (BU Now’s) growth.’ While BU Now’s influence grew, the dream of convergence dimmed and was eventually extinguished. It remains extinguished today.
BU Now’s media pioneers were undeterred. ‘Our future is almost something unimaginable,’ one student claimed. ‘BU Now WILL be multi-billion-dollar website,’ another promised, ‘because BU Now is the very model of Media Convergence.’

How BU Now became BUnow
The four-year cycle that defines college life is both a bane and a boon for collegiate media. The cycle’s downside is the continuous student turnover that demands a perpetual training cycle. Conversely, the upside to this continuous turnover is the steady stream of new faces with new ideas, new talents and an impatience with the ‘way things have always been done.’
This steady stream of fresh, digital natives works especially well in BU Now’s ‘here and now’ space. At BU Now students constantly challenge the ‘way things have always been done.’ Living in the ‘now’ means there is less reverence for the ‘then.’ And, Now is the ultimate expression of immediacy.
Such was the case when Dave Stanwick visited BU Now’s recruitment table at the Activities Fair in August 2010. His earlier Internet entrepreneurial successes bolstered his confidence to explore the emerging world of online media. His jaunty exuberance was infectious and encouraged a spirit of experimentation among BU Now’s staff. 
As Editor-in-Chief Dave and BU Now’s growing staff embarked on a cycle of continous innovation that created a new name, a new logo, and a new WordPress format. And, that’s when BU Now became BUnow.

BUnow becomes an online innovation incubator.
Things began to happen quickly. BUnow grew a social media presence that reached more than 4,000 followers across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The PR and social media teams developed engagement strategies that built awareness and branding campaigns for BUnow, site traffic, and non-profit events sponsored by BUnow.
Soon, BUnow was promoting week-long contests that utilized site-based, interactive brackets and offered $100 cash cards to the winners. The first of these contests was Pizza Madness. Contestants picked the winner among 16 area pizza places via an online bracket during the multi-week campaign culminating in a video of the pizza finals. These online contests expanded to include wing madness, hoagie madness, late night madness, and NCAA March Madness over the years.
The launch of the BUnowTV channel on Google’s YouTube in 2011 extended BUnow’s video digital footprint. Students quickly experimented with multiple studio-based programs including news, interviews, sports, fashions, and special contest shows. Field packages of events, news stories and student interviews were also produced. Today nearly 45,000 viewers have watched the almost 50 videos on BUnowTV.
When Bloomsburg’s Flood of the Century literally turned off the lights and water in the town and the university, BUnow singularly updated the community through live Tweets, on-the-spot videos, stories and multiple-picture slideshows of the devastation.

BUnow adopts dot com domain.
The story’s headline shocked both me and the student I was advising that Friday morning. It read, ‘Lock Haven shutting down. Students to be transferred to Bloomsburg.’ It was posted by Dave, BUnow’s editor-in-chief. The story reported the governor and PASSHE decided to close Lock Haven as a solution to PA’s budget crisis, and move some 3,500 students to BU. It suggested a local sewage plant might purchase the soon-to-be-shuttered campus, and that BU may proceed with its plans to build a bowling alley underneath the quad.
The public’s reaction to the headline was swift. BUnow’s social media metrics reported that more than 1,000 had shared the story on Facebook by noon. Apparently, Lock Haven’s switch board was overwhelmed by worried students and parents.
But wait! Hadn’t the readers read the story’s last line: ‘Wait…Is today April 1^st?’ Surely this was an April Fool’s day college media prank. Maybe so, but Lock Haven’s leadership wasn’t laughing.

Lock Haven published a two-line, yellow-highlighted headline across the top of its website, ‘An April Fools prank has involved a rumor that LHU is closing. This is false information.’ And, apparently, LSU’s leadership threatened legal action if our site was not ‘taken down’ immediately. And so, by late Friday afternoon the university had ‘taken down’ BUnow.
While college media are notorious for April Fool’s Day pranks, these pranks are still protected by the First Amendment. And that was the message Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, relayed to BU’s administration within an hour of the site’s take down: BUnow was protected by the First Amendment.
BUnow was back in full operation within two hours of its shut down. And within seven months in November 2011, BUnow and all its content from its launch in April 2008 was moved to off-site servers. BUnow’s relationship with BU and its dot edu domain had been immensely beneficial for all. And while our relationship with the university remains productive, BUnow is now a dot com.

BUnow pioneers a state-wide media summit.
Students responded dramatically to BUnow’s editorial projects and campus events, and quickly it was standing-room-only at the year’s opening meeting. The students were energetic, their talents and interests were varied, and they started organizing into groups including an editorial team, a fledgling video team, and a PR team that included promotions and social media. The year’s calendar filled fast.
Traditionally, BUnow’s leadership rises from its ranks. Students start as staff writers, videographers or PR folks and ‘work up the ladder.’ The editorial leaders during 2012-2013 were Editor-in-Chief Carl ‘CJ’ Shultz and Managing Editor Justin McDonald. The two were friends (and remain so) and complemented each other. CJ emphasized the editorial aspects, and Justin was able to galvanize the various teams around a particular project.
BUnow’s editorial output had grown significantly. Over 400 stories were published in 2012, and more than 500 were published in 2013 based on the nine-month academic calendar.  Regular editorial departments included entertainment, fashion, music, news and politics, on campus, and opinion and editorial. The BUnowTV channel debuted on YouTube were a wide range of shows including Dear Bloom Fashion Police, a nascent studio news show, and various student interviews on Uncovering BU Talent.
Everything was in place for a really big event.
At a meeting of campus media with the State System’s media relations director, BUnow proposed a media gathering of the state’s ‘future media moguls.’ Soon, the 2012 Collegiate Media Summ
it was a reality with significant support from the State System, PSEC
U, the College of Liberal Arts at Bloomsburg University and BUnow. Over 200 collegiate media practitioners from 14 state campuses met with more than 40

media professionals duringthe two-day Media Summit. Five years later, the 2017 Collegiate Media Summit returned to BU. And BUnow remained a sponsor.

BUnow Rebrands and Launches After Dark
Five years in, and BUnow’s new leadership team was ready for something new. Soon, there was talk about a new look, a new logo, a new slogan and a new editorial section. What was BUnow? Who were its visitors? How can we graphically capture this essence? Would a site redesign better engage our visitors? Managing Editor Zoe Baldwin and Editor-in-Chief Kristen Rinaldi initiated discussions to answer these questions.
The quest to re-imagine BUnow was exclusively a student enterprise, and it ultimately resulted in a visual transformation of BUnow’s promise. The team agreed that at its core BUnow openly challenged its visitors to ‘Open Your World’ and “Be You.’ A stylized version of the name BUnow incorporated two colors and a type-size globe to graphically depict this challenge. The name BUnow was superimposed over a larger globe, and the slogan ‘Open Your World’ was tucked underneath NOW reinforcing the sense of immediacy.
BUnow’s challenge to ‘open your world and become you’ was expanded to include the whole you…your daytime you and your night time you. And so, BUnow’s After Dark editorial section went live. An editorial ‘section devoted entirely to the students’ exploits as the sun goes down.’ Because ‘what happens after dark is a major factor of the students’ life.’
The section’s new logo visually challenged the readers to ‘be you after dark.’ BUnow’s home page, day-light globe morphed into the night time version of the world, and ‘After Dark’ replaced the daytime tag ‘Open Your World.’
The After Dark section has grown tremendously over the years, and now includes 86 stories with over 130,000 page views.

Soon, BUnow reaches its sweet spot.
The newly launched Facebook and Twitter skyrocketed in popularity and drove page views to all-time highs. And BUnow’s growing editorial team continually created content for its voracious readers. Nearly 600 stories were produced in 2014 and nearly 500 stories were produced in 2015. Clearly BUnow had found its groove.
Editor-in-Chief Kristen Rinaldi and Managing Editor Frankie Stokes were friends when they joined BUnow in their first year at Bloom. Their friendship, which continues today, grew deeper through their media participation. They had a thorough understanding of what made BUnow work, and became close friends with the whole team. They streamlined the editorial process and solidified the organizational structure during their tenure.
The dawn of mega-view-stories came of age. The stories were big, and the number of viewers huge: Husky Update, Finals Week, Mo’ne Davis video interview, Block Party…are all stories with more than 10,000 views. Regularly stories racked up 2-7,000 viewers. The End of Block Party as We Know It topped the list with more than 35,000 page views!
BUnow’s PR team professionalized its special event activities, and initiated a tradition of partnering with other campus organizations’ fund raising campaigns. These partnerships remain in full force today. BUnow became a full-time partner by helping raise more than $20 thousand for various community organizations including Make-A-Wish, Ronald McDonald Camp Dost, the Special Olympics, the Women’s Center, the EOS Riding Center, Camp Victory, and Students Against Hunger.

BUnow Launches Magazine
 By 2015 the BUnow team had experimented with a wide range of media innovations including multi-platform text-based stories; studio and field video packages; podcasts and BUnowRadio; live Twitter, Facebook and Google social media events; interactive bracket-based contests; a live, indie-rock-band fund raiser; state-wide media events; and multi-picture slideshows.
Now, the BUnow team was anxious to experiment with the magazine format.
The staff, led by Editor-in-Chief Monica Grater and Managing Editor Cailley Breckinridge, decided the magazine’s premiere issue should incorporate BUnow’s online content rather than generate original, magazine-only content. This first issue would be a review of the leading online stories published that year.
The BUnow Magazine: 2015: A Year In Review editorial team reviewed all 500 articles published in 2015 across the eight editorial departments: On Campus, Music, Fashion, Opinion & Editorial, Sports, U.S. & World News, After Dark, and Entertainment. The editors analyzed the stories, chose the top two stories from each section with a combined total online viewership over 65,000, and published the full color, 36-page magazine in May 2016.
Editor-in-Chief Cindy Johnston and Managing Editor Matt Mastrogiovanni published BUnow’s second edition magazine in Spring 2017. This second edition, titled The Strike Edition, includes 15 stories, four videos and dozens of pictures originally published on BUnow of the first-ever, state-wide, faculty strike in October 2016 by APSCUF, the faculty union. Nicole Keiser was the chief designer of the full color, 24-page magazine.
The third edition, titled the Anniversary Edition: Celebrating 10 Years, is published by Editor-in-Chief Morgan Mickavicz, Managing Editor Dallas Kriebel, and Special Projects Editor Kyla Smith-Brown at BUnow Mag and includes 13 significant stories, 10 awesome videos and reflections on, and memories of, BUnow’s first ten years. Sarah Gottschalk is the chief designer of the full color, 32-page magazine.
All three editions of BUnow’s magazine are published at BUnow Mag on ISSUU.com.

BUnow’s Future is ‘Almost Something Unimaginable’
Eight years ago, a BUnow editor predicted, ‘Our future is almost something unimaginable.’ Her prediction became reality, and remains true of today’s future.
Looking back, it was impossible to imagine BUnow’s journey to the here and now. Looking forward, it’s equally impossible to speculate on what is ahead.
BUnow is not bound by the limits of legacy media and the traditional rules of storytelling. It is not constrained by print media’s time and space limitations, nor is it restricted to traditional broadcasting’s time boundaries. BUnow’s method of communication is intuitive, immediate, interactive, and authentic.
BUnow will remain a state of mind, and a place of being. Its exuberant quest of continuous collaboration and constant experimentation will endure. BUnow will endlessly reimagine itself. New and energized media pioneers will perpetually reinvent BUnow.
Of course, BUnow’s future will be fraught with frequent and formidable obstacles.Recruiting innovative storytellers and keeping them involved will always be a challenge.
Creating compelling content in ever-evolving formats that is relevant to our followers will remain BUnow’s absolute standard of judgement.
Maintaining our role as a responsible community partner, while inspiring our members to become their absolute best will remain our mission.
But most importantly, BUnow’s future will be fun and filled with unlimited opportunities. And, it will remain, always, a time and place to, “Be You, NOW!

 

 

 

RIP: Prolific Essayist & Provocateur Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

Forever the contrarian and provocateur, Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens died at 62 on December 15, 2011. The first of his family to attend the university, British-born Hitchens ferociously defended humanity from what he considered were the 'atrocities of religion.' Get to know him and you'll ultimately be forced to know more about yourself. This Washington Post obitiuary is an excellent primer. RIP Mr. Hitchens!

GANAHL ON MEDIA: College Media Pioneers

While BU Now’s student staff is excited by a future one student editor describes as “unimaginable,” some college media pioneers involved in the site’s launch seem surprised by apparently aggressive challenges to its development from several faculty and campus media since its launch in April 2008.

BU Now is an independent, multi-media, student-managed, blog and news site that is a student organization recognized by the student government. Visitor traffic to BU Now in its first two years of operation has surprised the staff. “I thought BU Now would only reach a small audience,” is how one editor expressed his initial expectations of the site. 

But Google Analytics has recorded nearly 166,000 page views from almost 75,000 visitors in 123 countries since the site’s launch. Please see related graphic for a summary of visitor traffic to BU Now.  

Launched two-years ago this month, BU Now may be unique among the country’s growing number of college digital media for several reasons. First, it is a student-edited blog and news site hosted on a university server that accepts both on and off campus postings that are student-moderated. Secondly, it ‘stands alone,’ and is independent of other student media. Thirdly, it sought to build from its inception cooperative and converged editorial relationships within the media ecosystem.

As BU Now approaches its second anniversary, I thought it important to capture the thoughts of the college media pioneers involved in or familiar with BU Now’s creation. I conducted a series of e-interviews (published at this link) with these campus media pioneers in February 2010. Nearly 90%, or 23 of 26, responded to my e-interview requests (In the interest of disclosure, I serve as BU Now’s founding faculty advisor).  

The interview questions range from the media pioneers’ initial expectations of BU Now and thoughts about the nature of media convergence, to reflections on those conditions that helped or hindered BU Now’s development and their future hopes for the site  

So, what do these media pioneers think of their BU Now experience two years after its launch?  

Initially, the media pioneers had “no idea what to expect…we were starting from scratch (and) didn’t have a firm enough grasp…to know what (we were) getting into.” Some “wondered if anyone would take notice of it,” while one print media editor, “was initially concerned about how BU Now was going to impact college media” on campus. A student broadcast editor asked, “Why step on someone else’s toes?” when commenting on the site’s launch.  

Undaunted, the students responded with ”tremendous energy and enthusiasm,” as they prepared to cover the 2008 presidential election during the first semester of operation. “We set up an election-central newsroom…had instant coverage of returns…and were there with on-the-spot video coverage of the spontaneous celebration in downtown,” recalls one media advisor/staff.  

The election effort created a multi-platform partnership involving BU Now, the Voice newspaper and BloomUtoday.com that produced 71 stories about the 2008 Election that have attracted over 26,600 visitors to BU Now. The multi-media election coverage includes stories, podcasts, slideshows and videos.  

Similar multi-platform partnerships between BU Now, and the campus paper and community website covered both the Homecoming 2008 dance controversy and the Block Party 2009. The complete converged-media coverage of Homecoming 2008 includes 9 stories, three videos, two editorials, pictures and the posting of a complete copy of the Panel to Investigate Campus Climate and Security final report released in February 2009. The combined coverage has attracted over 13,300 visitors to BU Now.  

Complete converged-media coverage of the Block Party 2009 includes 10 stories, four videos, pictures, an editorial and a ‘gonzo-style’ first-person report of the day’s events. This editorial coverage has attracted over 10,800 visitors to BU Now.  

Included in this coverage is the Campus Block Party Information Session hosted by BU Now. Forum panelists included the town mayor, the town and campus police chiefs, the university’s student affairs vice-president and student representatives of Greek and residence life. The event received front-page coverage by the community’s daily newspaper the Press-Enterprise.  
Election Night 2008 on Bloomsburg University's campus from BU Now on Vimeo. 

This year BU Now has solidified its staff structure, utilized social media sites such as Facebook and its group BU Now Editors in editorial promotional strategies, and expanded its participation in the national College Media Association. Six students were sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts to make two presentations at CMA’s national spring convention in NYC.  

It has also expanded relations with the university’s Office of Communications and campus organizations. As one broadcast editor explains, “BU Now has…allowed organizations and other campus media to promote and report events…which in turn gives BU Now a great standing with competing media, as well as, helps promote the site even more.”  

A campus media student editor says, "I realized it was something much different and was actually very innovative...it allow(s) all students on campus to become involved in campus media without having to necessarily join the staff of one."  

The college media pioneers credit several factors that assisted in BU Now’s rapid development. “By far the most supportive entity has been its human resources-its dedicated staff and their faculty advisors,” concludes one student now graduated that served as editor for both the newspaper and BU Now.  

Other students credit the university’s support. One student commented, “(the university) as a whole seemed to be very supportive of the project…and (its) technology (support) definitely helped the site.”  Another student “was impressed with how easy the school gave us a domain name, and we have had great help with the set-up and design…as well.”  

The initially supportive role of the campus newspaper is acknowledged by several students.”(We) made sure that both of our organizations could work together and at the same time not try to swallow each other,” explains a former print editor, “some of the (paper’s) writers contributed to the site.” One student said, “The strongest relationship…BU Now has is with the campus newspaper.”  

In contrast to factors supporting its development, students noted several factors that hindered BU Now’s initial development. “I think the main thing would be the fact that they do not have their own office. College students…need to feel that they are really a part of something,” explained an editor of another campus media. BU Now still has no dedicated office space. Much of the editorial work is done on the students’ computers in their own homes or apartments.  

Secondly, others think the relationships between BU Now and some campus media eventually hindered its initial development. One former student involved in several campus media concludes, “For some reason I feel that the campus media tend to be very defensive of their turf and staff,” when commenting on recruitment challenges. An editor of another campus media remembers, “BU Now was kind enough to add a tab for the paper…(to post) articles on the web. Unfortunately the paper dropped the ball in returning the favor.
”  
BU block party info session from Connor Showalter on Vimeo. 

One former site editor notes the, “bickering between BU Now and the (newspaper) was definitely counterproductive,” while a current site editor describes the relationship between the two media as, ”a good relationship that turned sour.”  

Thirdly, one student thinks BU Now’s very nature as a blog-news site may have hindered its development. It “was hard to communicate to the campus…It is a concept that students outside of the mass communications field might not be familiar with.” Another commenting on this aspect said, “the technology of blogs and forms of multimedia to relay news was something that was not widely utilized or familiar to the campus as well as others during the (launch) time.”  

More than one student commented on the perceived tension between BU Now and some faculty members. “Admittedly, we were a young publication, still finding our way…(but) a lack of support – even criticism – was never going to encourage our staff,” is how one former editor characterized the reactions of several faculty. Another student simply said, “I think that the clash between certain faculty hindered (our) growth.”  

But today, no student seems focused on the past, and almost all believe in a future that could be “something unimaginable.” All believe ‘technology is on their side.’ As one claims, “BU Now WILL be a multi-billion dollar website!!” because as another says BU Now is the, “very model of Media Convergence.”  

For these media pioneers the future is one where the, “top columnists upload one or two articles a week…(while others)…upload daily bite-size blogs about the teams they are covering…and weekly video interviews…and original videos from students or campus groups…(and) short films or skits to promote…or entertain…(are included with) podcasts hosted,” by radio show DJ’s.  

This is the future for these media pioneers. A future that includes “investigative journalism,” and a, “full, diverse staff of writers, videographers, reporters, graphic artists, information tech students, business and marketing students.”  

Admittedly, “these are dreams of course.” But at BU Now…dreams are allowed…even encouraged.  

Charge!

GANAHL ON MEDIA: Hype In Hyper Local?

Even as the legacy media business model implodes and dozens of media outlets and thousands of journalists disappear, many pin some of their hopes for media’s future on hyper local news sites. But, are they ready to do media’s heavy lifting?

Hyper local sites deliver original and aggregated content about specific geographical areas. They rely on multiple content sources ranging from government databases to professional and citizen journalists. Many, such as The Voice of San Diego, The New Haven Independent, and the MinnPost are rightfully recognized for their innovations.

However, the revenue streams of some remain undeveloped forcing them to rely on grants from foundations such as the Knight Foundation for much of their revenue. The Knight Foundation has funded over 50 projects related to community information projects.

A recent study of how news happens in a major city raises serious questions about the capacities of both hyper local sites and legacy media.

The study titled How News Happens: A Study of the News Ecosystem of One American City is by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, and it analyzes all the news reported by 53 news outlets in Baltimore, Maryland during one week in July 2009. The research is based on a “minute-by-minute” analysis of “every piece of content” produced by the 53 news outlets during 3 days of the studied week.

Frankly, its conclusion: “that what the public learns is still overwhelmingly gathered, synthesized, and framed by traditional media-particularly now much-diminished local newspapers,” seems obvious Just think about your own news habits: how often do you rely on hyper local websites for information?

What is surprising is what the study says about the content redundancy built into news reporting. Nearly 83% of the 715 different stories produced during the studied week contained no new information and was basically repetitive. Traditional media, mostly newspapers, generated 95% of the 121 stories with original content. New media’s productions are only 4%, or less than 6 stories.

Even more surprising is media’s reliance on official sources for story ideas. The study documents that government triggered nearly 3 out of 5 stories, and that the press initiated only 14% of the stories. Pew reports, “press releases appeared verbatim…though often not cited as such.” It also reports “instances of plagiarism-reposting stories without attribution.”

But most surprising is how “much-diminished’ the legacy media truly are. For example, the number of stories produced in 2009 by the Baltimore Sun has plummeted to 23,668 stories, a decrease of 73% since 1991 when more than 86,000 news stories were produced. Even more telling is the fact that the Sun supported two competing newsrooms in 1991 when it published both a morning and evening paper.

Quite a news ecosystem, wouldn’t you say? Is Pew documenting the extinction of a news ecosystem? Are legacy media on their deathbed? Do hyper local news sites lay stillborn on the delivery table?

Media pundit and educator Jeff Jarvis shouts not so fast: “We must (remember) we are at the dawn; the very beginning of the new news ecosystem.” He trashes The New York Times’ story, and claims the Pew study merely allows legacy media to validate their own self-reported importance while ignoring the uniqueness of hyper locals’ contributions. Jarvis insists hyper locals are redefining the very nature of news while pushing to new limits journalism’s entrepreneurial spirit.

Really? This is a new dawn? Maybe it’s just a false dawn, or the beginning of an excruciatingly protracted dusk.

Seriously. Not only are news producers in the current news ecosystem ‘greatly diminished,’ so are the consumers they attract and the revenues they generate. In an earlier column I wrote, “declines in newspaper circulation mirror (the industry’s) revenue declines.” Today’s newspaper circulation of 48.5 million equals 1945’s newspaper circulation of 48 million, and is a 23% decrease from the 1984 peak of 63.3 million. The New York Times reports similar losses in network TV news audiences that have decreased from 50 million in 1980 to 22 million in 2009.

This much is clear though: there are transformational changes in the news ecosystem and hyper local sites are struggling for position. The Pew study is just one data point in the national news ecosystem. It should be replicated across the country especially in those cities where hyper locals are more established.

Graphics Courtesy of Pew Research Center: How News Happens

GANAHL ON MEDIA: Let Google Fix It

What’s a column on media without media predictions for the upcoming year? Right now everybody is in the prediction business. A Google search for ‘2010 media predictions’ resulted in over 9 million hits in just 0.22 seconds, really! And why be bashful, because who keeps score anyway? Twelve months from now, I’ll be lucky to find this column, much less measure its predictive value! So, here’s my 2010 media predictions.  

1. Make Google Fix It: Yes, you read it right…Make Google Fix It. This year has been abysmal in almost every way for almost every media. Earlier columns document a media industry suffering from its largest-ever advertising revenue decline, unimaginable industry job losses, and stunted collegiate career aspirations. The solution? Make Google Fix It.  

Certainly President Obama and his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are no shrinking violets in the face of economic meltdowns. Look at their treatment of the automobile industry: forced dealership closures, forced bankruptcies, forced management changes, forced changes in union contracts: need I go on? 

Google is best positioned among the media titans for this type of operation: it’s profitable, it’s digital, it’s responsive and it has a corporate jet big enough to round up the industry’s limping moguls and dictate a solution.  

Wish I could be a fly on the wall when Eric, Sergey and Larry dress down Chicago’s Sam Zell, New York’s Aurthur Sulzberger and MySpace’s Rupert Murdoch!  

2. Apple and AP Launch iAP: a digital news app: This seems such a no brainer, I’m almost embarrassed to publish it under my byline! Steve Jobs, a.k.a. M3, or ‘micro-payment-music mogul’ redeemed Shawn Fanning's peer-to-peer music sharing model (yeah Boston’s Northeastern University!), pioneered a business model that distributes digital music files, and brought peace to the music industry’s many competing participants...all for 99 cents a song! Oh, and I almost forgot…iTunes controls almost 70% of the industry’s download business!  

AP, a non-profit news organization owned by its 1,500 daily newspaper members, argues it’s the world’s largest news organization with almost 5,000 journalists. It distributes worldwide multi-platform content through its global news bureaus network to 1,700 newspapers and over 5,000 radio and television stations. AP CEO Thomas Curley was weaned on legacy media having conducted the initial feasibility study for USA Today founder Al Neutharth.  

So what’s the hook? Easy…AP dominates global content creation, and Apple dominates global digital distribution. As an added bonus, Shawn Fanning gets the job as the joint venture’s VP of Technological Innovation!  

3. AP Bets Content Is King And Announces IPO: Nearly 170 years ago, The Associated Press launched as a cooperative news service that merged a network of daring overland riders, high-speed ponies, and telegraph wires to bring news about the Mexican War 700 miles to four New York City newspapers. Today, it boasts of the world’s largest newsroom with almost 5,000 journalists that distribute content across all platforms to 1,700 newspapers and more than 5,000 radio and television stations. 

Impressive enough, but its business model is threatened by the free digital distribution of content through Internet aggregators such as Google, AOL, Yahoo! and millions of other sites. In announcing its IPO, AP CEO Thomas Curley may say, “The market is stabilizing and the Street’s major investment houses seem poised to rebound. We are a content business, like Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal. This model works for them, and we think it will work for AP.” Be careful about holding this stock for the long haul. I rate it as a buy and a quick sell!  

4. While Content Is Free It’ll Be Harder To Find: The major content producers cling to, and whine about their outdated business model through 2010. As they watch revenues decline (or stagnate at best) they hide content from search engines or behind pay walls. Murdoch’s threat to with hold content from Google reported in Newsweek offers a hint of what will come. Don’t worry, Wikipedia gets in the daily news business and launches the Wiki Daily!  

5. Michelle Obama Premieres Talk Show On Oprah Channel: In 2010 Michelle grows weary of the ‘White House Mom’ dream. Inspired by Hillary Clinton’s life-after-the-White-House-Mom model, Michelle partners with Oprah on a cable talk show that goes head to head against ABC’s The View. The Clinton’s and the Obama’s battle to re-capture the White House! “If it worked for the Bush pop and son team, it will work for our husband and wife team,” Michelle may challenge.  

6. Comcast Partners With Philadelphia’s Tierney In Newspaper Venture: Still pumped from his NBC purchase, tri-athlete and Comcast CEO Michael Roberts grows weary and suspicious of the New York media elite (after all he’s a Philadelphia cheese steak kind of guy!). Enamored by media impresario and Philadelphia Inquirer publisher Brian Tierney’s plea to ‘keep it at home,’ Roberts buys 52% of the Inquirer. “After all, I love the PI’s sports section,” Roberts may claim.  

7. !!GABANG!! Challenges Social Media Giants: Fearing irrelevance, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Jerry Yang launch !!GABANG!!, a social media site for angst-ridden Baby Boomers. “Hey we believe in this thing,” Ballmer may yell, “that’s why we have four…count them…four exclamation marks! Our names are riding on this!’ !!GABANG!! cleverly (!) uses two letters from each of the founder’s last name. It’s rumored Microsoft founder Paul Allen is composing !!GABANG!!’s musical jingle.  

8. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube Share Nobel Peace Prize: Sweden’s Nobel Foundation awarded this year’s Nobel Peace to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube for their contributions to Iran’s regime change. The Nobel Foundation praised the social media sites for their work in mobilization and communication. “We’re sorry Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has cancelled his personal accounts with the sites,” a foundation spokesperson may explain, “but in the long run he’ll renew, he was an avid Twitterer!”  

9. Dreamers Rule and Innovation Rocks The Next Decade: Dream-driven young people have fueled this media revolution. Berners-Lee, Gates, Allen, Jobs, Wozniak, Case, Dell, Waitt, Andreesen, Bezos, Omidyar, Fanning, Brin, Page, Anderson, DeWolf, Zuckerberg, Hughes, Hurley, Chen, Karim and thousands of others rocked our status quo. Armed with, and bound by nothing these dreamers changed our world. The Next Decade belongs to them and those like them. Dreamers Rule!

Photo Credits: Official White House Portrait of Michelle Obama; Bill Gates and Paul Allen by
Doug Wilson/Corbis

GANAHL ON MEDIA: The J-Grad Job Crisis

QUESTION: What are the odds of finding meaningful careers in journalism and mass communications (J&MC) for the more than 50,000 students graduating in 2009-10 from the country’s 480 plus schools with 4-year communication programs?

ANSWER: While it’s impossible to be precise, history may guide us. The authors of the annual graduate report conclude that 2008 graduates in “journalism and mass communications programs found themselves in a disastrous job market” according to the Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communications Graduates.

And the authors should know: this is the survey’s 23rd year. The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and a number of media, media associations and educational institutions sponsor the survey, which is conducted by the Grady College of J & MC at the University of Georgia. The Cox Research Center director is Dr. Lee B. Becker.

The survey results are based on a sample of 2,542 undergraduate and graduate students, and represent a 32% return rate of the initial 9,526 surveys mailed. The sample error for the undergraduate sample is 2.0% (N=2,360), and 7.3% for the graduate sample (N=182). Surveys were collected from October 2008 to March 2009.

So, just how disastrous was the career market for 2008 J&MC graduates? More importantly, what career strategies does this suggest for the 2009-2010 graduate?

Overall 60% of the 2008 graduates found full-time employment six to eight months after graduation, and “only half of the graduates had full-time work in the field of communication.” A year earlier, 70% of the 2007 graduates found full-time employment. The unemployment rate for the 2008 graduates was 17.5% compared to 13% for 2007 graduates.

It’s worth noting that the rate of full-time employment among the various curriculum specialties in the 2008 survey ranges from 56% for broadcasting, to 59% for print journalism, to 65% for advertising and 71% for public relations.

The median starting salary reported in the 2008 survey for those finding full-time employment was $30,000 for undergraduate degrees and $38,000 for graduate degrees. Becker notes this is “the same average salary” reported in the 2007 survey, and compares to the $49,224 average starting salary offer for all 2008 college graduates reported by the National Association of Colleges and employers (NACE). The median annual salaries among the various degree specialties varies considerably, and ranges from $24,000 for television, to $26,000 for weekly newspapers, to $29,000 for daily newspapers, to $31,000 for public relations, to $33,800 for cable television.

So, what kind of future does this survey suggest?

Trends in the national unemployment rate suggest 2009 graduates will face even more hostile conditions. Unemployment rates during the 2008 survey time period ranged from 6.6% in October 2008 to 8.5% in March 2009. In just a year the unemployment rate has soared nearly 60% to 10.2% in October 2009. Business Week noted there was little evidence that the more than 18% unemployment rate for 16-to-24-year-olds would change anytime soon “potentially creating a kind of ‘lost generation.’” Please see graphic published on October 19, 2009 by Business Week.

And, what can the 2009 J&MC graduate do?

First, knowledge is power. Simply by reading this column you are being proactive. Immerse yourself in current changes related to your field, and become an expert in understanding the forces and trends shaping your future. Arm yourself with the currency of relevant and timely information.

Second, diversify your career aspirations and cross-train among the various media platforms. Write often, take many pictures, shoot much video and record multiple interviews. Specialize in multi-media story telling. Lead your colleagues in the march to the Internet, and join the vanguard of digital innovators.

Third, become a content area expert. Grow passion for your favorite subject and promote yourself relentlessly. The New York Times’ recent profile of Bill Simmons and his rise from “an obscure online sports commentator” to “perhaps America’s most famous sports columnist” as the ESPN Sports Guy is both inspiring and telling. The digital highway holds the promise of many career paths.

Is the career goblet half empty or half full for the 2009 J&MC graduate ?

You decide.

GANAHL ON MEDIA: A Fed Bailout?

Want to start an argument with a journalist? Easy. Demand their reporting notes, insist they reveal the names of confidential sources, or suggest they seek government funding to keep their legacy media afloat. And that’s the controversial suggestion Leonard Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson make in their report The Reconstruction of American Journalism commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School.

The two are no strangers to the practice and study of media. Downie, a former executive editor of The Washington Post teaches at Arizona State University, and Schudson is a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. The Columbia Journalism Review published a 35-page summary (which I have read) of the complete 100-page October report (which I have not read) on media’s current condition and strategies to salvage the legacy.

Reactions to the report have been widespread and range from CJR’s digitally published comments to media columnists such at The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, to even Twitter where the debate can be followed as #columbiajreport. An ironical footnote to the report’s release is it occurred in the same week The New York Times announced plans to reduce its newsroom by 100 positions, and the Audit Bureau of Circulation reported newspaper circulation declined almost 11% in 2009. Please see the accompanying table published in The New York Times.


So, how did Downie and Schudson incite this debate?

They conclude, “Fewer journalists are reporting less news in fewer pages, and the hegemony that near-monopoly metropolitan newspapers enjoyed during the last third of the twentieth century, even as their primary audience eroded, is ending.” They remind us that the number of newspaper editorial employees has dropped 33% from 60,000 in 1992 to 40,000 today.

But, you might ask, aren’t all things, including the business models of media moguls, shaped by evolution? Isn’t survival of the fittest a business world imperative? Not necessarily.

The duo quotes a Knight Foundation commission that suggests independent reporting “is as vital to the healthy functioning of communities as clean air, safe streets, good schools, and public health.” In fact, it is this reporting, or accountability journalism as they call it, which “undergirds democracy” as it performs the press’ watchdog function. They believe that only legacy media and their outsized newsrooms can sustain this type of reporting.

While they celebrate the plethora of online news operations launched by entrepreneurs, philanthropists and universities, they conclude, “it is unlikely that any but the smallest of these news organizations can be supported” by current online revenue.

Given the enormity of responsibility the pair ascribes to legacy media, namely the perpetuation of democracy, their six strategies to save newspapers seem almost simplistic. These strategies include reduced taxes through nonprofit status, increased philanthropic donations, university-supported reporting, wider access to public databases, heightened pressure on public broadcasters to provide local news, and government funding of editorial functions.

Certainly, it’s highly unlikely the government will appoint a media czar to restructure an industry already well on its way to being reinvented by its more innovative practitioners and experimental consumers. Still, the report is a provocative analysis of media’s traditions, foibles and best practices. And it should be studied because it may inspire novel and enduring changes.