Learning to JAM in 5 steps: New initiative reminds journalism students to archive their digital work

In the early days of computing, we used a phrase, “save early, save often.” Today’s digital content creators have more opportunities and more ways to save, but often forget this critical step.

To keep content from being lost forever, our students and faculty need to learn best practices.

I’m proud that our librarians, Ed McCain and Dorothy Carner, are launching an easy set of steps for digital storage. JAM — Journalism Archives Management — will set students and faculty on a path to preserving content long after it has been created.

— Linda Kraxberger, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies, Missouri School of Journalism

Digital preservation: Why is this important to me?

Journalists are dependent upon access to back files for research and context, but those back files may no longer be there. Almost all news content created in the U.S. today is digital, but digital content is even more fragile than print and might be scattered over a variety of media and storage systems. How long … Continued

Talk Story, Write Story demonstration project is a success story

I used my Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute fellowship this year to test my hunch that trained volunteers could successfully help financially challenged high school students write their way into college scholarships. If my theory was correct, others could do what I had loved doing, mostly alone, for nearly two decades. My Talk Story, Write … Continued

Team Recordly demonstrates its prize-winning interviewing tool at Silicon Valley tech firms

The winning team in the 2016 RJI Student Competition took full advantage of their grand prize trip to California last week, demonstrating their Apple Watch/iPhone interviewing tool in five key venues.   Recordly members John Gillis, Zolbayar Magsar, Anna Maikova,Yaryna Mykhyalyshyn and Sintia Radu began their tech tour at Apple world headquarters in Cupertino. They … Continued

How to make online news ‘brain friendly’

Online news can work with or against the brain. When RJI Fellows Alex Remington of The Washington Post and media researcher Paul Bolls applied brain science principles to news design, readers’ comprehension, recall and engagement increased. We interviewed the researchers (audio below) to learn how to make articles “brain friendly.” It’s all about the “reading path,” says Remington. “Classify the … Continued