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KentNewsNet.com

Click the play button to view students telling us which they prefer - a paper or online news.

The need to get more content in more formats to more audiences, and to do it as quickly as possible, is a challenge every newsroom faces.
The fix - discussion of classrooms, conferences and professional newsroom meetings - is largely regarded to be the flexibility of the Web and a focus on blending the different forms of media.
KentNewsNet.com, the new outlet for Kent State’s student media is both the face and backbone of the school’s attempt to stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing industry.
“How many (young people) read a newspaper? How many go online to read their news?” said Gary Hanson, TV2’s adviser and an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Susan Zake, a former Beacon Journal multimedia managing editor and current Kent State graduate student who advised and designed the new Web site, said in the new digital age of media, people have to “adapt or die.”
“I think it can make or break your career,” she said.

Adapting to live
With the construction tape around Franklin Hall and convergence becoming a reality rather than just an idea, a Student Media Task Force formed to determine how Kent State would adapt.
Along with the configuration of the converged newsroom, the group worked out the format of a Web site that would handle all news content from Black Squirrel Radio, The Burr, The Daily Kent Stater and TV2.
Led by leaders of the various student media, the group came up with KentNewsNet.com.
The previous Web Sites of the Burr, the Stater and TV2 are uploading no new content. BSR is keeping their site for the musical side, but all news content goes to KentNewsNet.
The Stater was the first to add content to the new site; as the other student media outlets get running this semester their contributions to the site will increase.
Photo galleries and video featured on the main page “gives the user a lot more options,” Stater Web editor Kristen Russo said.
Soon, Russo said, it will also be possible to embed video and photo galleries into the individual print stories they accompany.

Staying ahead
Convergence, Carl Schierhorn, Stater adviser and associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said, is the way the business is going and it’s important to keep up.
Rory Geraghty, general manager of Black Squirrel Radio, too said staying on top of the changing media is crucial.
“It shows that JMC Kent State is at least looking in the right direction in taking steps to get ahead of the curve instead of following the curve,” he said.
Hanson said Kent State is a leg up on many other schools.
“I get the sense we’re miles ahead,” he said.
Still, both Schierhorn and Hanson said there are challenges.

Nailing it down
One of the dangers of collaboration, Hanson said, is not falling into just having the media together on the same Web site, with print still being print and broadcast still being broadcast.
Schierhorn, too, said the “work for the true collaboration” needs to continue.
Part of the problem has come from the Web site’s publisher, College Publisher, which Zake said has been cooperative, but has limited capabilities.
However, Zake still said there are plenty of possibilities with the converged Web site, including more video storytelling, which offers much more than print alone or even photographs.
“I can capture with video so much more of the essence of what a person is like for a viewer than what I can with still photographs,” she said.
And while Schierhorn said everything isn’t yet pinned down, things have came a long way.
“We can be very happy with what we’ve done in a year,” he said.

— Tyrel Linkhorn

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