Intertesting website revelation today: YLakeland

This website is focused specifically on events and things to do for college students and 20-somethings!! I'm super pumped about it- the YLakeland website describes themselves as:

""YLakeland" is an initiative of the Lakeland Economic Development Council, aka LEDC. Young, educated, talented, creative, and sometimes zany professionals are an essential component of a healthy community. YLakeland connects high school and college students to what is happening in Lakeland and what opportunities our community offers beyond school."

The Social Network

October 1, 2010 released The Social Network, a film about the creation of the top grossing social networking website, Facebook.

When seeing the preview of this movie, I was more than skeptical about what it's content would be and if we have really come to this place where we are so engrossed with this website that Hollywood has pulled it's origins together to tell it's story.

I was so wrong. I saw The Social Network and it was impressive, yet interesting to me that most of it was fictional. Many accounts, including Mark Zukkerburg's (creator of Facebook and main character of the story), that share the differences of the movie and reality- much of which was included for the purpose of selling a movie.

Publicity Photos & Graphics- Picking the Best.

So, let me ask you a question:

Who doesn't like picture books? I don't think I can name one.. not even one.. person who does not like picture books- at least when they were kids.

Every kid likes picture books.

Well, photos and graphics within an article is for the picture book loving kid inside of each of us. By adding a photo, readers are automatically become attracted to the article.

Basically, majority of readers prefer to see a story told through a photo rather than reading the text in print. Even if they don't remember exactly what the article said, they will always remember the photo that accompanied it.

What makes a photo good, you might ask?

Always submit only high resolution images with good contrast and sharp details. A pixilated photo will never make it. Just throwing that out there- you can take it, or you can throw it right back.

Some things to consider before submitting:

• Show perspective- zoom in or out so that readers get an idea of true size, etc...
• Show action- avoid posey posey pictures (think journalism not Olan Mills).
• Show the main idea- too many people in a photo can come off tacky or distracting.
• Show a caption to include that explains the image.
• Show faces when possible- backs and sunglasses are more for the witness protection situations.

Some things to consider when writing captions:

• A caption should introduce the people in the picture and give an idea to what is going on in the photo.
• They are usually two to four sentences long.
• When introducing the people in the photo, include Name (first and last) and age.

All these notes are from Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques by Dennis L. Wilcox.

Feature News Stories and Op-Eds

Who knew that "op-ed" actually stands for "opposite the editorial page".

Well, not me.

Along with that, here are a few other interesting "something to think about" this-n-thats when it comes to feature news stories and op-eds.

Approaches to take when writing for features:

• Distribute a general story to a variety of publications for more opportunity to get published. There are websites to help with this type of approach, such as prnewswire.
• Interest a freelancer or reporter in writing a story- there are plenty of people looking for some extra cash.
• Write an exclusive feature for one publication- unlike the first, this approach will have less chance of mass publication, but also hold more value because every news outlet longs for exclusivity, just like a little kid anxious for the tooth fairy- just one of those things.
• Post features online- this approach is easy to produce and easily accepted because to print online doesn't take printing, etc..

Now, there are many different types of feature stories to write about. Here are some good choices to get started with:

• case study- article about a specific case or situation where a service or product effected someone.
• application study- kind of like the case study, this story details how consumers can benefit from a featured product. This type focuses on the product, the case study focuses on the consumer.
• research study- researches an aspect of lifestyle or common life situation.
• backgrounder- commonly focuses on historical material which draws human interest.
• personality profile- features a celebrity or top employee of a company, in order to bring them into a more common light and not as patronized.
• historical feature- tells about a major event or anniversary in the community.

Golden tip of the day (I won't even charge for this one): Feature stories and pretty common, so to be a successful feature writer, look for a niche or unique view of an event- a way to stand out from all the other feature writers who are sending in stories about the same day and possibly the same event.

Feature stories are formatted just like news releases (which we talked about a couple of weeks ago). Photos and graphics are also a great way to draw attention from readers, as well as editors.

So, pick your type and viewpoint for an article- throw in a grand amount of quotes, examples, facts, and story telling skills in order to deliver an entertaining and interesting story.

However, Op-Eds are a tad-bit different. These are only about 400-700 words and contain more facts than creativity. It is basically an opinion based article that provides facts of an event to support the particular opinion of the author.

All this jazz was taken from Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques by Dennis L. Wilcox.

Slow and Painful- Is Print Dying?

With such a cultural transition right now, I often wonder what 10 years will look like- if we will finally have flying cars- and if print will still be a primary media at all?

It is already very apparent that digital media has begun to reign in media sources across the globe. On one hand I would like to be able to say that print media will always hold a place in our hearts-there’s just something about pen on paper that I tend to like for journaling, etc... On the other hand, however, I see concrete situations where print media is just nothing to write home about- it’s not as easy, convenient or light weight. It takes a lot of space to carry the notebook, the book, the pen, paper, highlighter and whatever else you plan on using, rather than just an ipad which does it all.

I am seeing these PR ads, printed by the top players in the print industry, such as Conde Nast, and I'm wondering if this is clearly one last attempt to reassure readers that they're not going anywhere- while ferociously creating magazine apps and such, of course, to go along with these ads (just in case, ya know).

There is a full article about this campaign, printed by PRNewswire.

SIX, worthy.

Newsworthy-ness will make or break if an article goes to press.


Period.

As discussed in Chapter 6, there are a few key components to making an article newsworthy. That chapter review said all kinds of jazz about it, but the main 5 points discussed are:


Timeliness
Unusualness
Human interest
Proximity
Prominence


which basically breaks down like this: timeliness refers to when the article is released- you don't want to release too early or too late.

Unusualness is reporting things that are weird or different or "unusual"- imagine that!

Human interest is finding the story within a story. For example, during the 9/11 attacks, the human interest story would be the one spotlighting the one fireman who saved 3 people who were far away from the masses, etc. Highlighting a detailed story out of the big picture.

Proximity is all about location, location, location- where the event takes place in relation to where the readers if the publication are located- what is cool in Nebraska isn't necessarily cool in Florida.

Last is prominence- the rich and famous always draw a crowd!

The end.

Week FIVE, Don't Fake it...

Plagiarism is tricky.

There are those times where a writer just forgot to add quotation marks and other times where the writer just liked the words of another and wanted them as their own. In the latter, plagiarism is absolutely not ok, and will probably get you kicked out of school or fired or wherever your writing is headed.

Let me ask you this, would you steal a movie? ok then, same thing.

Purdue University helped out a lot with some extra tips, beyond what I wrote about for the chapter review. A great resource overall, but see what they had to say about plagiarism.