No more misquotes

Playback, listen, type, rewind, listen, pause, correct what you just typed, resume, listen, type more, rewind, listen, pause, correct, etc. — the exercise goes on and on. The simple yet tedious act of transcribing your audio recording from an interview or press conference. Now, imagine plugging your digital audio recorder into a USB port on your computer and having a software program automatically transcribe the file. I predict the fantasy is soon to become reality.

Google is making a voice recognition application available to iPhone users that is only a few steps away from being turned into a tool that I think will go from being only a journalist’s dream to a reality. Right now this software is being used by iPhones to locate services such as restaurants simply by asking “Where is the closest pizza restaurant?” According to a researcher at Carnegie Mellon quoted by The New York Times today, the technology is going to advance rapidly in the next three to six months. And according to the same story:

Several weeks ago Adobe added voice recognition technology developed by Autonomy, a British firm, to its Creative Suite software, allowing it to generate transcripts of video and audio recordings with a high degree of accuracy.

And there you have it: the ability to have your digital audio file of an interview automatically transcribed for you by voice recognition software. Yes, there is some software out there now that can do something similar, but it is far from foolproof and not worth the effort to train the software. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Google or Adobe come up with something soon that becomes a regular part of the journalist’s toolbox. What I don’t know is how good the Adobe feature already is. If anyone has some insight, please share!

Print proves its value with historic election

Based on what I’ve witnessed, read (here’s an AP story), and heard (nice piece on NPR this morning), Nov. 5 poses a strong argument for why we need to hang on to our print products in the news business. If you waited more than a couple of hours the morning after this historic election, you were hard pressed to find a copy of your local newspaper with photos and headlines declaring Barack Obama the new leader of the free world. Is anyone ready to to take a screen shot of the NY Times, Chicago Tribune or any other newspaper yesterday and frame that for posterity? I think not. Print is part of our history. We can’t get away from that. Personally, I hope it is a long time before we ever do.

New Advisers Workshop wraps

It’s a wrap. The New Advisers Workshop concludes today (June 25) in Nashville, Tennessee at the John Seigenthalter First Amendment Center.

The workshop, an annual event sponsored by CMA, provides intensive instruction to those who are newcomers, or relative newcomers, to the world of advising college media.

Participants were immersed in three days of intensive instruction that included introduction to adviser ethics and responsibilities, technology, advertising and financial concerns, legal matters, student mentoring, and impromptu discussions on a wide variety of topics related to advising duties at public and private colleges on both small campuses and large ones.

Gene Policinski, vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, guided the participants Tuesday on a tour of the impressive facilities and provided an overview of the mission and outreach of the center in promoting the core freedoms embodied by the First Amendment.

Next on CMA agenda will the Advising Today’s College Media, a workshop held in conjunction with the Associated Collegiate Press gathering in Washington, D.C. in August. This year’s ATCM topic in crime on campus and will explore the Cleary Act and efforts to create awareness on college campuses across the nation.

 

New Advisers Workshop

New advisers are working their way toward Nashville today in advance of the launch of three days of intensive training to help them achieve success in the college media operations on their campuses.

Fourteen advisers are registered. The workshop starts with a reception for the new advisers tonight.

The faculty for the training session includes David Levy or Wright College, Annette Forbes of Iowa State University, Ron Spielberger of the University of Memphis, Bill Neville of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Warrent Kozireski of Brockport College, James Tidwell of Eastern Illinois and Frank LoMonte of the Student Press Law Center.

The NAW will be held at the John Seigenthaler at the First AMendment Center adjacent to the campus of Vanderbilt University.

CMA board meeting in Nashville

The CMA board is holding its annual retreat in Nashville as it considers an agenda of activities for the upcoming fiscal year. Revised approach and policy towards CMA elections, convention planning, modification and approval of a balanced budget, the adviser advocacy program were among the items considered and acted on by the board.

Detailed information about board proceedings will follow soon.

Make it your business

Here is another contest for student reporters, this time for Business Reporting, sponsored by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. Entry deadline is Feb. 1, so the deadline is fast approaching.

The SABEW Best in Business (BIB) contest was started in 1995 to help set standards and recognize role models for outstanding business journalism.

The 2007 Best In Business Contest is for work published during calendar year 2007. The contest opens Dec. 14, 2007 and the entry deadline is Feb. 1, 2008.

BIB 2007 Student Contest Rules
To recognize the good work being done at many colleges interested in business journalism, in 2005 SABEW added a Student Contest to the annual Best in Business contest. SABEW invites students to submit their best work.

Not Wanted: A Helped Wanted Section

The Chicago Tribune has done away with its “help wanted” classifieds section on weekdays, and is repackaging the Sunday section. The initiative began on Monday. So what did they do with the help wanted ads?

They are all online, in the Tribune’s Careerbuilder.com section.

According to a Tribune spokeswoman in a story appearing in Editor and Publisher:

“Chicago Tribune and the rest of the newspaper industry face the same challenges with shifts in help wanted advertising, and we are taking the lead on reinventing the way we present our job listings.”

You can read the rest of the story here.

Does this have legs? Will more newspapers move to this format? Would a college newspaper ever consider this model?

At least one media blogger, The Media Drop, thinks it is a good idea:

I’m sorry to be catty about this, but it’s about damn time. Go around your office and ask 10 people when the last time they got a job from the Help Wanted section was.

I’ve seen some other comments on the web also hailing this as a smart idea.

Nothing ever happens on campus because …

Just as the fall semester was winding down for most of us, our CMA colleague at Hudson Valley Community College, Mathew Cantore, posted this bit of wisdom to the listserv. The result of a discussion between Mathew and his editor about why things weren’t getting covered on campus, this Top 10 List resonates with many of us. Mathew gave us permission to share. He’s posting this list in the newsroom at the Hudsonian. We encourage others to do the same.

Nothing ever happens on campus because…

1. Nothing ever happens on campus when you sit inside a pressroom with no windows and a closed door all day long.

2. Nothing ever happens on campus when you don’t seek out and read sources of information like our online daily campus news bulletin, Student Announcements, and the 14 regular newsletters put out by different departments on campus.

3. Nothing ever happens on campus when you’re not interested in it because it doesn’t affect you, it only affects 10,000 out of the other 13,000 students.

Chandler Award not for fans of “Friends” star Matthew Perry

It can be tough trying get recognition for religion coverage in your publication. Few contests offer such a specific category. But the Religion Newswriters Association does have a contest with a category specifically for Student Reporter of the Year. The first place award carries a $600 prize and up to $500 in travel to the RNA conference. Second place is $300 and third place is $150.

The award is called the Chandler Award and is…

awarded to the Student Writer of the Year for excellence in writing with emphasis on reporting skill and a grasp of religion issues that is fair, balanced and in accordance with journalistic standards. Named for Russell Chandler, former religion writer for The Los Angeles Times. This student contest is made possible through the Chandler Legacy Fund. Entry fee: $15. Deadline: May 1, 2008.

Full contest information and entry forms are available at the RNA website.

Washington student free press bill re-introduced

The Student Press Law Center is reporting that the Washington State Senate is going to again consider a bill protecting the free press rights of student journalists. Student press advocates fought to pass a similar bill last year to no avail. This bill is similar but caps the punitive damages students could have recovered from administrators. That seems to have been the main sticking point in the previous version.

Not only does the bill seek to protect student journalists, according to SPLC, it also contains this bit of news important to the media advisers:

The bill would forbid administrators at both high schools and colleges from firing, transferring or otherwise disciplining media advisers “for refusing to suppress the protected free expression rights of student journalists.”

The bill looks very similar to legislation passed in Illinois last year. Illinois is currently the only state with protection for media advisers, beginning June 1, 2008.

You can read the full story at SPLC.