Category Archives: Strike Situation Post-Mortem
Oh yeah: The history of Strike Situation
Here is the recounting of the (extremely short) history of Strike Situation. As beneficial as it is for us to document our beginnings, I hope it may add to the discussion on news start-ups and the future of online news.
Recently, I focused on the technological aspects and challenges of starting Strike Situation. This post will offer more context of how we launched and maintained the site.
In the beginning
On Nov. 4, Scott and I made preparations for launch. It was a Thursday and we had just decided that the next Monday would be lift-off.
Scoops, breaking news and the post-blog world: Maybe Mr. Denton’s on to something
I have my issues with Nick Denton, but I have to say one thing about the Gawker CEO: he knows a thing or two about online audiences.
Next to Her Highness, Ms. Huffington, Denton is the leading revolutionary in online news. His blog network might be the web equivalent of a supermarket magazine rack, but he’s running circles around traditional media.
His latest move is the Gawker redesign. The new site (still in beta testing) will display a single “top” story in a main panel while links to other stories sit in a feed on the right side.
Newsroom in a cloud
In a way, I was trained for this.
As a twenty-something, hyper-connected journalism student, I often find myself lumped in to whatever social stereotype classifies “our generation” these days. We’re the Youtube generation. We’re the Twitter, Facebook generation. We’re also the “me,” generation. Maybe we’re the Meme generation.
And yet, the biggest challenge we faced at strikesituation.com wasn’t talent or dedication, funds or manpower. It was communication.
When you’re building a newsroom in a cloud, you start to miss the connectivity of face-to-face news hounding.
I’ve worked in several newsrooms over the past four years, most of them physical, albeit antiquated, spaces.
The Project
So, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything here.
Truth is, I’ve been working on another project which has taken most of my time over the last couple weeks.
The project in question was Strike Situation, consisting of a group of Carleton journalism students coming together to cover the possibility of a strike at the university.
The project was interesting because we made heavy use of social media. We used tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, first to promote our project and then to bring news to students in a direct and interactive way.