The long road ahead: Reflections from ICPA 2008

I have been the online editor for the Decaturian since December 2006. Many things have changed since then, including the ability for this very blog to exist. It just wasn’t possible when I was hired for this position, and now it is. That alone is a world of difference.

However, I have come to notice that even the world of difference is just a step in the right direction.

This weekend (Feb. 22 & 23) was the annual Illinois College Press Association (hereafter ICPA) conference, held at the Chicago City Centre in downtown Chicago (formerly the Holiday Inn, soon to be a Doubletree). It’s always a fun event where our staff gets to enjoy some time together away from Decatur and bond by mass criticism of other schools’ papers. A good time is had by all.

The theme this year was so-called “new media” - and by that, they really meant news on the web. At a session specifically on new media, I got to hear the words that every online editor wants to hear: Journalists need to be more involved in online media.

[Sidenote: I was very amused at ICPA’s emphasis on new media, which I found a touch ironic. Case in point: One of the board members said at the awards luncheon that the website would be updated with award winners, and both editor-in-chief Chris Linden and I reacted as such: “You mean they’ll actually update the site?” It hasn’t been updated since roughly 2006 or so, by my estimation - they still have info for the 2007 convention up. Oops! Practice what you preach, ICPA.]

While my insides performed a celebratory gymnastics routine, I was busy writing down everything that the speaker, Bryan Murley, was telling us about what online media should be doing; Murley is involved with Eastern Illinois University’s paper and is director of innovation at The Center for Innovation in College Media. Some of it was good advice, and I could pat myself on the back for already putting some of it into place (such as blogs, of course). I left that session with a page and a half of notes (written on Chicago City Centre stationery) and a whole lot of excitement. I mean, I’ve always been aware of online media being important, but this was different: Murley was telling my fellow staff members to get involved!

Today (Saturday the 23rd) was a web critique session, and although I didn’t get the opportunity to have the Sun-Times online media guy check out our lovely built-from-scratch site (because all of the big schools got to show off their College Publisher sites - no, I’m not bitter or anything), there was a lot of useful information that came from that.

We also won 9 awards, including Honorable Mention in General Excellence. But I don’t consider the awards the best part of the trip.

Here is what The Dec Online needs to do to start making our online media more of what it should be:

• Multimedia, multimedia, multimedia. Tons of it. More graphics, photos, videos, audio/podcasts - we need it. Unfortunately, our main obstacle here is manpower, ability, and equipment; if anyone reading this likes to create and edit any of the above, E-mail me now. Space and functionality aren’t huge issues; there’s even a Flash streaming media converter available free through our hosting that would make integration a lot easier.
• More, more, and still more exclusive online content. This has improved immensely in my tenure, but most of our exclusive online content doesn’t fall between issues. In reality, we have extra content that can’t make it into the print version for space constraints, and it goes online so that it does get published. Occasionally, I will get pieces from the few journalism classes Millikin offers, and I’ll generally put those up as long as they’re salvageable (and I don’t think I’ve really come across many of those). However, this content doesn’t always have to be a formal article, which brings me to the next point:
• Blogs! Obviously, we’ve got this going with this blog and the Election 2008 blog, but that’s not a whole lot, and neither are updated frequently. In the works: a possible fashion blog and an arts & entertainment blog. Also, to facilitate reading of this, an RSS aggregator is in order: both to display new entries on the front page of the DO and to have an easy way for those with RSS readers to follow the feeds more readily. (Of course, full content won’t be available to readers - we’ve got to pull in traffic somehow!)

There are a number of other things, but it’s been a long weekend (I drove to Chicago and back, so I’m fairly exhausted) and my notes from the convention are still in my car. Suffice it to say that I think The Dec Online - and our print brethren, the Decaturian - has come a long way, but there is still a long road ahead.

Come and make the trip with us.