The conference will be at the John Seigenthaler First Amendment Center on the campus of Vanderbilt University.

The form for registering for the conference can be found at http://bit.ly/ICONN4registration, or use the form on this page. The registration fee is $25 for all attendees.

The conference will feature a wide variety of sessions about campus journalism, starting a campus news website, and online journalism education. The featured speaker for the Friday lunch is Mike Keith, voice of the Tennessee Titans.

Space at the conference is limited, so those who wish to attend should register as soon as possible. The deadline for completing the registration process is March 23, 2012.

Information on conference arrangements — hotels, directions, parking, etc. — is forthcoming.

Intercollegiate Online News Network
Fourth Annual Conference
March 29-30, 2012
First Amendment Center, Nashville

Conference theme: Breaking News: Getting it Right Away

Schedule (tentative)

Thursday, March 29

Points and Clicks is the administrator’s newsletter for the Intercollegiate Online News Network. The Points are things you should consider to improve your news website. The Clicks are good things that are happening with members of the network.

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Points

Pay attention to excerpts

The excerpt is WordPress’ word for summaries. Every post should have one. Summaries show up as text under the headline on the home page and section pages. A well-written excerpt is an excellent supplement to the headline and can give readers lots of information — and a good reason to click on the link to the story.

Need help writing summaries? Take a look at this JPROF page on writing summaries.

Multimedia editing

We’ve put together a list of items that our ICONN NewsStream editors should consider when they pick up a story from a member website and enhance it for the news stream. It’s actually a pretty good list of things for your students to do if you are trying to teach multimedia editing. You might want to take a look. This is a work in progress, so if you have any suggestions, let us know.

Workshops: One down and three to go

We just completed our first online mini-workshop this week. Lisa Gary did an excellent job in leading the participants through a good session on Feature Writing. We still have three more to go, and there are spaces remaining in each:

• Managing Your News Website, Oct. 23-27
• Basics of Photojournalism, Nov. 6-9
• Teaching Sports Reporting, Nov. 13-17

You can find out more — and find a link to the registration page — here on the JN-21.com website.

Questions about JeffersonNet

We now have a community forum where you can post questions about JeffersonNet and many other topics that we deal with at ICONN. Just register (all we ask for is a username and password) and join the discussion.

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Clicks

Welcome to the network

Two new sites have joined the network this week: — TheVentureOnline at the University of Houston and DatelineAlabama at the University of Alabama.

The Venture, according to the About page, is ”the only multi-university collegiate newspaper for Latinos, has a circulation of 4,000 and publishes monthly during the academic year. The newspaper dates back to 2009 when it began as a news website under the name uhelgato.com. Months after it was launched, the website was nominated by the Associated Collegiate Press for Online Newspaper of the Year. . . .” The administrator of the site is Ray Ruiz.

DatelineAlabama is the news website of the Department of Journalism at the University of Alabama. It dates back to the year 2000, making it one of the oldest collegiate news websites around. Its administrators are Chip Brantley and George Daniels.

Welcome to both sites.

ICONN NewsStream

The ICONN NewsStream has been launched with Chris Thomas leading a set of editors at the University of Tennessee. The hope is that they will be joined by editors from other campuses soon.

• The ICONN NewsStream will provide fresh, relevant content to ICONN news websites on a regular basis.

• The NewsStream provides a way for a student’s work to appear on sites all around the network.

• NewsStream editors are currently located at the University of Tennessee and the University of Georgia.

The ICONN NewsStream, the news service of the Intercollegiate Online News Network, is now in operation and will be giving ICONN news website members a steady diet of fresh content and many new opportunities for collegiate journalists.

Go to the ICONN NewsStream

The NewsStream is based on the idea that all of the sites in the ICONN network have agreed to share their originally-produced content (stories, pictures, audio and video) with each other as long as appropriate credit is given to the originating stie.

Editors of the NewsStream will regularly survey ICONN sites to see what content is available that is appropriate to send out on the NewsStream and to place on the NewsStream website. They will pick up that content and enhance it according to a set of multimedia editing guidelines that the NewsStream staff is developing.

The edited content will then be placed on the NewsStream site and in some cases will be sent directly to ICONN news website. In other cases, administrators and editors of ICONN sites will receive an email informing them that the content is available for use on their sites. They can then go to the ICONN NewsStream site and copy and paste it onto their own sites.

The NewsStream will offer two immediate benefits to ICONN members, according to Jim Stovall, executive director of ICONN:

• The NewsStream provides fresh, relevant content to ICONN member sites on a regular basis.
• It gives reporters and writers for ICONN member sites the chance to have their work appear on sites all around the network.

“These two benefits are just the beginning,” Stovall said. “We believe the NewsStream will open up many new opportunities for ICONN members and for collegiate journalism in general.

The NewsStream is operated by a team of students at the University of Tennessee and the University of Georgia.

“We have a set of very intelligent, highly motivated students who are working with the NewsStream at the moment,” Stovall said. “We will be looking at expanding that team to other colleges and universities very soon.”

The Intercollegiate Online News Network (ICONN) is a set of individuals, academic programs, and professional organizations dedicated to connecting campus web journalists and campus news websites and to advancing education in web and online journalism at the collegiate level.

The network includes the Interscholastic Online News Network (ISONN) and is a non-profit (501-c-3) organization.

Getting started with online journalism has never been easier.

That’s just one of the things you’ll learn at the Going Online workshop for journalism instructors on Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at Tennessee State University in Nashville.

By the end of the day, you’ll have the following:

• a news website that your students can use to learn and practice online journalism

• knowledge of the principles and techniques of online journalism

• understanding of the differences between online journalism and the journalism you have been teaching

• the skills to manage your website efficiently

• full membership in the Intercollegiate Online News Network (ICONN) or the Interscholastic Online News Network (ISONN)

Cost of the workshop is $25, which includes parking and lunch.

The workshop will be in 140 of the Performing Arts Center on the campus of Tennessee State University in Nashville. It will begin at 10 a.m. and last until about 4 p.m. Parking is available, and lunch (Dutch treat) will be on campus.

Participants can register for the workshop at http://bit.ly/GoingOnlineregistration

“If you are a collegiate or high school journalism instructor and feel the need to change the direction of your journalism program, we want to help,” Jim Stovall, a UT journalism professor and director of the workshop, said.

Stovall said the workshop is designed for those who want to shift from print to the web in their approach to journalism education.

“That shift can seem daunting,” he said. “We want to make it easy.”

The Intercollegiate Online News Network (ICONN) is a set of individuals, academic programs and professional organizations dedicated connecting student web journalists and campus news websites and to advancing education in web and online journalism. It is based at the University of Tennessee. Its web site is http://intercollegiatenews.com. A part of ICONN is the Interscholastic Online News Network (ISONN).

Tentative workshop schedule

9:30 – 10 a.m. Registration

10 – 10:50 a.m. Teaching online journalism
different medium, different thinking, different teaching

10:50 a.m. – 11 a.m. Break

11 a.m. – noon Managing a news website
using JeffersonNet content management system

noon – 1:30 p.m. Lunch

1 – 2 p.m. JeffersonNet basics
operating a JeffersonNet site

2:15 – 4 p.m. Hands-on
one-on-one, practice, questions and answers

“Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son” is the latest installment of the Big Momma saga, which is about a man cross-dressing as a larger, older black woman with a whole lot of attitude.

The film, which premeired Feb. 18,  features FBI agent Malcolm Turner and his teenage stepson Trent going undercover as Big Momma and Charmaine at an all girls boarding school after witnessing a murder.

Martin Lawrence and Brandon T. Jackson play cross-dressing FBI agent and stepson in “Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son.” Photo provided by 20th Century Fox.

Martin Lawrence plays Malcolm, and his comedic alter ego. To solve the case, Big Momma has to be the house-mother to a rowdy group of teen girls, find a missing flash drive, and of course, watch out for the murderers.

Brandon T. Jackson plays Trent. Jackson got his first big break with a major role in the movie “Roll Bounce” as the best friend of Bow Wow. The role won him the 2006 Black Reel Award for breakthrough performance. In “Big Mommas,” Trent is a hopeful up and coming rapper who has a shot at getting a record deal, if he can only prove to Malcolm that he should go on tour instead of starting college. This is Trent’s first undercover job, and it isn’t very easy for him.

Jessica Lucas is Haley, the female lead in “Big Mommas.” She is a classmate of Charmaine and also Trent’s crush. Lucas stars in the NBC comedy “Friends with Benefits” and has had roles in movies such as “Cloverfield” and “She’s the Man.”  Lucas seems to be a bit newer to the comedy scene but she does a good job playing off of Jackson. Haley is one of the most popular girls, and she befriends Charmaine before anyone else does and helps her to fit in.

“Big Mommas” is definitely not one of Lawrence’s funnier movies. While the whole issue of men going around dressed as women in dresses and wigs is not a new idea, it still often proves to be funny in some movies, such as the film “White Chicks” or even when Amanda Bynes impersonates her brother in the movie “She’s the Man.”

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But it might be time for Big Momma to retire permanently. There are a few redeeming moments in the movie: Kurtis Kool (Faizon Love) plays an employee at the school who develops an interest in Big Momma which leads to a few too close encounters and an awkward but hilarious game of Twister. There is also the case of a kidnapped rooster, a high speed chase with an awry mailman, and of course, the struggles of a 17-year-old boy trying to walk around in high heels.

Lawrence and Jackson make a good father and son team, Jackson and Lucas are both talented young actors and the musical talent in the movie was a nice surprise as well.

Many sequels should have been left alone, and “Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son” would fall under that category. Just because it was funny the first time, it doesn’t normally get funnier the second time and it really isn’t funny the third time. “Big Momma’s House” was funny, but “Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son” is like the same joke that keeps getting told over and over again. Without that element of novel comedy, this movie is left with a bleak story line. Even Martin Lawrence, a generally hilarious man, could not make this movie funny.

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Speakeasy Rating: C-

“Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son”

Starring Martin Lawrence, Brandon T. Jackson, Jessica Lucas

Rated PG-13 for some sexual humor and brief violence

ICONN NewsStream

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Recently, several WCU students gathered to listen to Mark Sterner, a brother of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, who had quite a tragic story to tell.

After every seat was filled in the UC Grandroom, Sterner showed his authentic home video of himself and his fraternity brothers, which was intended to be a reflection of all of their spring break fun. Sterner had already mentioned that he was responsible for killing three of his brothers, which quickly dampened the mood and filled the audience with gloom.

As Sterner addressed the students after sharing his spring break video, you could have heard a pin drop. It is only on a rare occasion that you can convince 500 students to all turn off their cell phones, stop chatting and really listen to someone speak. Sterner’s message really struck a chord with students and the way he told his story was very powerful.

The Western Carolina Journalist

“I saw Mark Sterner when I was an undergraduate student at Western Illinois University,” said Assistant Director for Greek Life, Michele Peterson. “I still remember the impact it had on me and my fellow students to this day.”

“His story is a great message, and it’s timely. We wanted to have something to be impactful before spring break,” said Coordinator for the Department of Student Community Ethics and advisor of Greeks Advocating the Mature Management of Alcohol, Miles Komuves. “We want to make sure everyone is safe.”

It surprised many to see so many members of Greek Life in attendance, including some of the sponsors who are also involved with Greek Life. They also have high hopes that the Sterner’s message got across and made an impact.

“I was thrilled – the Greek Life turnout was awesome. I’ve never seen Greek students be that silent ever, which really means they were listening,” said Komuves. “I hope it was effective from keeping people from driving drunk and I hope people don’t continue to think ‘it wont happen to me.’”

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Greek Life is typically stereotyped to have more of a problem with alcohol, which made all the Greeks in attendance to the event all that more meaningful.

“Greek students are a high risk population. Some parts of Greek Life have official DD systems, but we aren’t sure how organized they are,” said Komuves. “I wouldn’t say it’s more of a problem for Greeks, but I would recognize that they are a high risk group”

According to Peterson, Greek Life currently tries to combat the issue of drunk driving by having risk management policies that include sober monitors and designated drivers at various events. In addition, members of these value based organizations that promote brotherhood and sisterhood should be looking after one another so accidents like Sterner’s don’t happen again.

“I have had many students approach me about his presentation, explaining how much they enjoyed it and how his message really puts drinking and driving into perspective,” said Peterson. “I hope that all of our students keep his message in mind during our upcoming spring break, as well as throughout the entire year.”

Sterner didn’t preach or tell any students what to do, but instead put his own face into the tragic consequences of impaired driving. Sterner helped students realize that the simple choices they make, such as drinking and driving, can cause an everlasting impact on their friends, families and themselves

ICONN NewsStream

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This venue, home of the University of Georgia and ICONN member, the GradyJournal, is a change from Knoxville, Tenn., where the 2009 and 2010 conferences were held. Mark Johnson at UGA is hosting this year’s conference, so let’s make his life easy and register as soon as possible.

Joel Sucherman, who is heading up National Public Radio’s Argo project, will be the main speaker for the Thursday evening banquet. Argo is a local blogging network based inside several NPR stations around the country. You can read more about it here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/inside/2010/09/09/129755091/-argo-npr-s-blog-network-sets-sail.

We will also be introducing JeffersonNet, ICONN’s content management system. JeffersonNet is a fully-loaded, WordPress-based content management system. We have already established several sites with JeffersonNet and can have yours up and running at the conference if you wish.

And, in addition to two days of ICONN, the University of Georgia broadcasting department is hosting a day-long, hands-on training session on Saturday, March 26. ICONN participants are welcome to join in.

Use this registration form to register for the conference. Conference costs are $25 for non-students and $15 for students.

Travel info: Atlanta is the closest major airport. By car, it’s about a 90 minute drive. There is also a shuttle service (AAA Airport Express) that will bring you right to the Georgia Center from the airport, cost is $45 each way. Once you’re in Athens, you won’t need a car. The hotel is on the main bus route through campus and the downtown area is a 7-10 minute walk from Grady College.

So why should you come? Well, Athens is a great place in spring – especially if you’re coming from the north or midwest. The campus will be turning green all over the campus with pops of color here and there. Not to brag, but the University of Georgia campus is one of the most beautiful in America.The schedule is below, and you can register online for the cheap price of $25 for professionals and academics and $15 for students. We’ve reserved a block of rooms at the Georgia Center, which is right on campus and a (free) five minute bus ride from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, where all the sessions will be. (When you call the hotel at 800-884-1381, make sure you give them this code: 72592 for the discounted rate.) Included in your fee is a Thursday evening banquet and lunch on Friday.

And, as we announced, you should stick around for an extra day to attend the Bluejeans Workshop on Saturday. If you’re going to come all this way, why not hang out a little longer and get more knowledge, right?

SCHEDULE

Thursday, March 24

12:30-1:15 Registration1:30-2:00 Mark E. Johnson, University of Georgia: Fail Faster

How do we learn to learn when everything we know changes so fast? A welcoming note followed by a charge to fail. Fast. And then move on to the next possible option.

2:00-3:00 Victor Hernandez, CNN: Next Generation Journalism

Where is online journalism going? What do we need to know?

3:15-4:00 Steven Padgett, Troy University: Across Departments to a New Platform

At Troy University, the Journalism Department is working with the Computer Science Department to build an iPhone App.

4:15-5:00 Jim Stovall, University of Tennessee: Writing for the Web

The same, only different.

6:30 Joel Sucherman from NPR: The Argo Network

Tying together the resources of the 12 largest NPR affiliates, this project is designed to strengthen the role public media plays in journalism. (This will be a banquet dinner at the Georgia Center.)

Friday, March 25

8:15-9:00 Mark E. Johnson, University of Georgia: Multimedia on the Cheap

You want to teach this stuff, you want to learn this stuff, but how do you get past the cost barrier? Can you do it with low-cost hardware? And can you do it without taking over your entire curriculum?

9:00-9:45 Jim Stovall, University of Tennessee: JeffersonNet

The new platform for developing online news sites using WordPress.

10:00-10:45 Dean Littleton, WVLT-TV: Advertising and the Web

11:00-11:45 Dave Tulis, Athens Banner-Herald: Multimedia – What Worked, What Didn’t in 2010

Every wonder what multimedia pieces work and which don’t? A close look at one year’s worth of online efforts and reader responses to them.

11:45-1:00 Lunch & Geek Out

It’s campfire story time – we’re looking for six, five-minute presentations on some tool, technique or tip that helps you tell online stories. What do you know that we should know?

1:00-2:00 Mark Schlabach, ESPN and Steve Klein, George Mason University: Sports Journalism

Sports journalism has moved and morphed. It’s no longer enough to be a great writer or a great broadcaster or make a great connection with your audience. Now you need to do all of it. And faster.

There aren’t many people who can walk into a room and completely change the mood. Ana Perez does that and so much more.

The 20-year-old journalism major may sound familiar because she is the president of Panther Power at the Biscayne Bay Campus, director of Alternative Spring Break at BBC, Lead Team facilitator and a Campus Life and Orientation peer advisor and peer mentor for a year.

Her platform for Miss FIU is to extend Alternative Breaks to local high schools so that younger students will have a chance to feel its experience through direct service, global learning, self-esteem building and team building, as stated in her pageant application.

One of the main reasons for this platform is because in her junior year of high school she moved away to Arizona and was faced with a tough time in her life, she said.

“I thought I was going to drop out of school,” said Perez.

Her problems inspired her to create a program through which teenagers could learn valuable life skills.

Perez says “I got lucky because I’ve always been strong willed and I had help from a professor that would stay with me and talk to me.”

“I started thinking to myself what if there was something in school to help kids through rough times then a lot more of them would stay in school.”

Perez moved back to Miami and with no time wasted took her first step to what would become a plethora of social involvement at FIU.

Bronwen Bares, assistant director for the Center of Leadership and Service and full time staff member of the Women’s Center at the Modesto Maidique Campus, was Perez’s Freshman Experience teacher who promoted the Academy of Leaders in her class, which sparked Perez’s interest.

“Ever since I met [Perez] she really stood out as someone who had a lot of potential,” Bares said.

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It was after this weekend retreat that Perez says, that Sunday when she came back home she was super excited and told her mom she wanted to join everything on campus.

“I don’t think I would be who I really am without the Academy of Leaders,” Perez said.

Now holding the crown and an open window of opportunities to network, Perez plans on building up her platform for a high school program equivalent to aB to influence and mentor younger students for a brighter future.

Perez’s future goals are to attend the Peace Corps or Teach for America, and with graduation scheduled for Fall 2011, that future is closely at hand.

“I was put here to make a difference in peoples’ lives,” Perez said.

ICONN NewsStream

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by ZACH DILLARD

To duck the outcome of Aaron Murray’s ankle situation is to only get a crick in a journalist’s neck.

The Murray story that The Red & Black reported on Monday afternoon will not go away. It contained an inaccuracy — one that will not disappear.

And it should not disappear.

For those missing out on the story — by way of not having a Twitter account, a friend who is a Georgia Bulldogs fan or were simply lost in the festivities of President’s Day — the rundown is fairly simple.

At around 1 p.m. on Monday, The Red & Black broke the story that Murray, Georgia’s starting quarterback, had injured his ankle and was getting around campus on crutches and in a boot. The Red & Black broke how he injured the ankle, in an activity with teammates and friends (it came out later to be a pick-up soccer game). The Red & Black broke that he injured the ankle on Saturday.

No other publication had the information or the story, and the article sent the Georgia sports media and fans into a tailspin of hysteria trying to catch up on every detail of the injury.

The only problem with the article was that, in essence, The Red & Black “broke” the story — and I hold myself personally responsible for the information.

I knew of Murray’s injury within minutes of its occurrence, thanks to the moderntechnology we like to call the cell phone. I knew the what, when and how of the injury Saturday afternoon. Had I written the story right then, without any diagnosis as to the extent of the injury, it would have been an accurate account of the situation.  And as part of the advice I received following Monday’s hysteria, I learned that the initial, generic story would have been best to write.

But, mistakenly, I wanted more information before the story was published.

When I received word from a source that said Murray’s ankle had been diagnosed as broken on Saturday evening, I believed I had the information needed to go to print. Little did I know that Murray was being reevaluated Monday afternoon and that the outcome would be a sprain, or understood that the story still would have been breaking news without a diagnosis.

Whether my information on Saturday evening’s diagnosis of the ankle was accurate or inaccurate isn’t the point.

There was no need to publish that type of information without an announcement from the team’s medical staff.

And yes, the Red & Black could have waited on the team’s final diagnosis to be released Monday, which ended up taking an inordinate amount of time, but the demands of online journalism pushed the envelope. Not wanting other publications to get wind of the injury and find it already written on their blogs or Twitter accounts, we ran with the Murray story — all details included.

Red and Black

Within minutes, the online world was in a rush for information, confirming, denying or exaggerating the initial report. Some said it was nothing serious, some said it was worse, many reported their sources said it was actually a foot injury … and all of the conflicting reports made me wish I had simply reported that it was an ankle injury in the first place.

Two words — broken instead of injured — changed a lot Monday.

The Red & Black does not regret running with the story as early as we did, because, under similar circumstances, it is an effort all publications must make to be first on a story in this digital age. Breaking the story was a route any other publication would have taken, although they would have had the experience to know not to attempt to be so specific in the initial article.

The only regret, my only regret, is those two words — broken and injured — that made all the difference between a completely accurate breaking news story and being shunned for “yellow journalism.”

There was no exaggeration or misguidance meant by the story Monday. I came across the information, researched and checked with some sources and reported it, and for its inaccuracy I sincerely apologize.

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Were there mistakes made? Absolutely, and those have been clearly outlined. But being student journalist is a learning process, and anyone who tells you different is simply wrong.

And that fact won’t ever go away, either.

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MORE: I was asked to explain the process of how this story came about — partly because we did not want to ignore our previous story which broke the news inaccurately — but at the same time I offered to accept the responsibility and apologize for the inaccuracy.

I accept full responsibility for yesterday’s outcome and the inaccurate report.

Who cares if the article was right in any way, shape or form? No one. So I do apologize for the inaccuracy, in full. And I hope everyone can find a way to accept that.

ICONN NewsStream

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In the 53rd running of the Daytona 500 on Sunday, Knoxville native Trevor Bayne won the biggest race of his young NASCAR career.

The 20-year-old became the youngest driver ever to win the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway just one day after his birthday. Bayne won the race by holding off Carl Edwards as they came to the checkered flag during the second attempt at a green-white-checkered finish.

Tennessee Journalist

It was the first Sprint Cup victory in Bayne’s second career start.

Bayne pulled off the upset in a car owned by the famous Wood Brothers who had been struggling in the past couple of decades. They had not won a race since the 2001 season. It all turned around for them on Sunday.

Unlike past Daytona races, cars were lining up in two-by-two drafts instead of all the cars bunched together in a draft. This new technique helped Bayne as he was able to push cars to the front and he kept himself there all day.

Bayne, who was running near the front all race, avoided wrecks and kept himself in it as other contenders saw their days end early either by crashing out or by mechanical issues.

On the first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish, David Ragan was leading the race, but on the restart he was flagged for changing lanes early. A caution came out and that set up a historic finish for Bayne.

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On the second green-white-checkered attempt Bayne and his No. 21 Motorcraft Ford restarted in the top spot. Instead of pushing like he had done all day, Bayne was being pushed by Bobby Labonte. Bayne held off Edwards coming out of turn four for the final time to win the Daytona 500 by .118 second.

Bayne was so shocked by his victory that he passed up the one place where all 43 drivers were trying to get to: the Daytona victory lane. He eventually found his way there to celebrate the biggest victory of his young career.

ICONN NewsStream

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