The Internet provides journalists with many sources. To find your way among them, you need to monitor the news. This way you can extract useful news from the continuous news stream. There are many tools at your disposal on the Web. But they are quite time consuming, and as such should be used in moderation.
Working for the Web calls for flexible time management. There's no actual deadline. In theory, the Internet is actually infinite, both in space and time. Nevertheless, a newsroom still needs to pick stories and choose their treatment, if possible thanks to the help of web readers, every day or at least once a week.
Social network are quite useful to journalists. They grant you an access to breaking news, allow you to fact check them, and give you a means to call upon the general public for information. That's it, if you have an actual social media presence.
Writing well for the Web is not simply adding up the various techniques used on networks. Using a technique, whichever it is, must be justified by the informational added value it brings to your readership. Without this added value, technique is nothing.
HTML is to the Internet what the alphabet is to writing : it's a set of symbols giving indications about the meaning of contents, and also a classification system. Coding is therefore very useful to help improve referencing.
One of the Internet's major innovations is to turn web users into newsbringers. It grants him a new role and a new position in newsmaking. For the journalist it's an opportunity to forge news relationships with his readers.
On the Internet, the very definition of an article is different than on other media. From the simple tweet to the in-depth analysis, the online web article is a constantly evolving information process, that journalists must update all the time.
You don't read the same way on a computer screen than on paper. Besides being obvious, this fundamental input must be detailed. The goal : understanding how web users act when reading an online article and therefore being able to write for online reading.
Just like reading, web writing obeys very different rules than print writing. Short, simple, concrete and imaginative writing is a must. There are a few rules you need to master, starting by knowing how to work hypertext links.
After text, creating and using stills is the most common technique to illustrate news. There are many resources available online, but only some are free for use... and they're not necessarily free.
Audio is a tool that fits perfectly with the Internet's reactivity. A media of streams, the Internet is also a place where experiences are shared. It's got quite a lot in common with radio, where audience participation is a winning recipe.
Video storytelling is a tool that digital natives really love, but it's quite hard to do well. You'll need to work on it a while for it to be really efficient. Web vidéo storytelling is not TV storytelling.
Choosing a series of pictures and assembling them thanks to coherent and appropriate editing: there's an original way to rehabilitate photography in the digital age. The techniques used make it an easy, light and fun task.
A picture is worth a thousand words: when it comes to the Internet truer words were never spoken. Thanks to easy-to-use platforms, all positioning resources can be put to use for newsmaking. You don't even need to be an expert.
Is there an art of reporting inherent to the web ? A multimedia journalist is a reporter like the others, but he also needs to have a sense of live broadcasting and conversation, as these are essential to properly cover an event.
As everyone can bring the news, the journalist's role becomes more and more about sorting out, verifying and hierarchizing the amount of information constantly available on the web and on social networks : in a word, to be the conductor of the news orchestra.
Interactivity, proximity and audience involvement : these qualities linked to the web find their meaning in the exercise consisting in putting together journalists and web users. Live chats and participatory interview are fresh ways to do so.
A figurehead of web users on information websites, comments must be treated cautiously in web newsrooms. Moderating them allows creating and maintaining a community. They also bring information and expertise.
Though the number of a comments on a website gives you an insight into its liveliness, their quality should not be neglected. The bringers of news, testimonies or analysis, web users multiply news canals for journalists.
To develop a website you need to know your users: who are they? When do they visit? What are their favorite pages ? Nowadays different types of software can answer in-depth those questions.
In traditional medias, the web has often been looked down upon as a constraint, sometimes even a parasite that was going to cannibalize a loyal audience. Such prejudice has become obsolete. But you'll still need to manage the trading dynamics with the Internet.
Web media can't afford to do without social networks, as they're the sharing platforms web users spend the most time on. How should your build your presence on your networks? Should you moderate them ? Should you define an editorial line ?
In theory there are no rules for personal branding, besides basic marketing rules for Internet brand building. As you're not an expert in marketing but rather a journalist, you need to follow a few common sense rules, particularly on social networks.
There is a wide range of words used on the Internet. Some of them have life cycles as short as ephemeral plants ; others are here to stay. Here is a selection obviously subjective, but hopefully lasting.
