Daniel Sato

Just over a week ago, the Delaware Department of Transportation went out to the Radnor Green neighborhood in Claymont and began removing basketball hoops that were planted in the parkway facing the street. Apparently, a resident in the neighborhood lodged a complaint after his car was hit by an errant basketball, and the hoops were found to be in violation of a 2005 “clear zone” law that requires the area adjacent to pavements in residential developments to be free of obstructions such as basketball hoops and bushes.

One resident apparently was not having any of it, and climbed her basketball pole in protest, causing DelDOT and the police presence that arrived in response to leave one pole shy of their goal. The photographer on scene shot some great photos of her pole protest, but we did not have a staff videographer on site (though a freelancer did arrive later and shoot an interview).

I strolled into the office three hours later and was told to head back out, see if any state troopers were still around and basically feel out the situation. Not knowing exactly what the freelancer shot, I thought I would conduct an interview just to cover my bases (after all, there must have been some reason they sent me back out). As luck would have it, the Delaware State Police and DelDOT returned to retrieve the last pole during the middle of my interview, affording me the chance to film the drama as it unfolded.

While I’m sure the video would have gotten some play on Libertarian sites just because of the general theme of government taking away from private citizens, the video because a plain-clothed officer informed the homeowner he could keep his basketball hoop one minute, and then seemingly did a 180, telling him that it would be taken away the next.

The story hit the frontpage of Reddit two times, was listed on Youtube’s main page and was featured on a few prominent national blogs. Of course, as with any news organization, the first thing some editors thought was, “How can we capitalize on/emulate this?” Whenever something brings in a large amount of traffic, even if it is a one off, it becomes the next hot thing and everyone tries to recreate the same numbers. In St. Cloud, they found success in posting photo galleries from parades and graduations, and we would bend over backwards to ensure that not a single one went uncovered. In Des Moines, prom season was especially hectic and you could always find a Metromix gallery on the frontpage.

At The News Journal, the video’s initial success meant that Mr. McCafferty was our life for the next week. From following him to a meeting with the state police, to accompanying him to pick up his hoop. I will admit, while we did have our doubts as we waited outside of the New Castle County Public Works building for over an hour just to talk to Mr. McCafferty about filing a complaint, the story and accompanying video did generate far more page views than other daily content.

Lessons learned:

• Keep shooting (if it helps, turn off your tally light)
• Don’t underestimate the power of social sites such as Reddit and YouTube (far more views came from these two sources than any other … I’m still surprised more news sites don’t regularly submit things to Reddit. It’s not like this is a new phenomena, Digg has come and gone and Slashdot before it)
• Arrive early and stay late (It was always taught to me in j-school, yet I am constantly surprised at how many journalists show up late to assignments)
• If something works, be prepared for someone to try and milk it

In between the grind of pumping out daily video at The News Journal, we also try and fit in special projects and a few video series. One such series if 50 Who Matter, which focuses on individuals throughout the state of Delaware who are working to improve their communities. The series can be hit or miss at times, depending on how soon/late they decide who they will feature. Recently though, we have had two that I think are worth sharing.

Mary Hampson

Mary Hampson was unique for many reasons, the most obvious being her age. Most of the people we feature in the 50 Who Matter series are middle-aged, but Hampson began volunteering with the Freedom Outreach program at 17, and became its director at 21. She is also unique because she works directly in areas that are often skeptical of people from outside the community. One such area is Southbridge, which we focused on during a project on poverty and crime. Mary has been more than welcomed into Southbridge and Riverside, she is practically a member of everyone’s family. She checks up on schoolwork, knows when family members are in the hospital, drives kids to and from basketball practice and bakes and delivers over 100 birthday cakes a year.

Dolores Finger Wright

Dolores Finger Wright is an associate professor of social work at Delaware State University. Back when Ms. Finger Wright was attending Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C., she helped to plan and organize the Greensboro sit-ins which were a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights movement. In speaking with her she reminded me of how different life was for her growing up as compared to the youth today, and explained how she tries to instill the same passion for social change in her students today that she had as a college student.

Clip of the recently aired piece on the Santa Anita racetrack, which served as an assembly center for Japanese American internees during World War II.

Last Wednesday I took part in a chat on Twitter about web journalism. One thing that became clear early on, even within “web journalism” many roles and responsibilities are highly specialized. Answers to questions regarding what a web journalist is, what responsibilities people have, and what titles people hold varied greatly depending on their role in their organization. There were back-end tech people who manage databases and work with code, reporters who were starting to use Twitter and still cameras, editors who help to produce packages and train staff, etc.

This may have been the reality for many of last week’s participants (working in dedicated, albeit small, web/online teams) but it is not mine, and I doubt it is the reality for other Web editors in many small market, rural areas. So what do I do on a typical day at work?

From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. my day usually involves pagination and copy editing.

Copy editing: The aspect of my work most foreign to me, I will typically read through all of the days stories at some point in the day for content and/or for grammar/spelling.

Pagination: This usually involves paginating two local pages and, at times, two or three wire pages.

After 1 p.m. (we are an afternoon paper) my days usually involves a mix of posting content to the Web, blogging/social media management, training, podcasts, a mix of either shooting stills, creating audio slideshows or video, and the ever-present meeting.

Posting to Web: Fairly straightforward and not much different than any other CMS I’ve used it in the past whether it be College Publisher, WordPress or SaxoTech. The new AP Marketplace does add a slight hiccup to my workflow and, on the off chance that some other Web editor reads this, if you know of a way to publish select content to Marketplace without auto publishing everything, but also without having to enter each field manually, I would love to hear it.

Blogging/Social Media Management: Upkeep of the Telegram’s photo blog (soon to be multimedia blog as soon as I finish this post). Keeping content fresh and interacting with users on Twitter, Facebook and our SWKTalk forums.

Training: Weekly new media training for reporters and photographers. I also maintain www.danielsato.com/gctelegram, where I recap our training sessions and provide links to other tutorials and examples.

Podcasts: I have even gotten in to the podcast world, hosting “Talk of the Town,” where I discuss some topic that is pertinent either to Garden City or southwest Kansas each Wednesday afternoon at our local coffee house.

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Stephanie Cole, of the Kansas Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, discusses the organization’s view on the 895-megawatt coal-fired power plant that is proposed to be built in Holcomb.

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Dave Sjeklocha, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at the Haskell County Animal Hospital, discusses the use of antibiotics in feed animals.

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USD 457 Board of Education president Mike Utz and board member Gloria Hopkins discuss the recent decision to join Schools for Fair Funding, which is considering the idea of suing the state for funding promised to schools. Schools for Fair Funding has since decided to proceed in its lawsuit with the state.

Photos, slideshows and video: Every now and again, I also get to go and play outside of the office.

The potential upside the amount and variety of work I do: I have experience in 9 of the top ten areas of expertise sought after by online media, and 17 of the 23 skills listed. Mark Shaver, who maintains the blog Depth Reporting, mentioned that his areas of expertise, computer programming and database management, were well down on the list, though I imagine they have gone up in demand since Serena Carpenter’s 2008 study, which the rankings originated from.