Des Moines Register
05-09-06
U of I student newspaper leads multimedia trend
The Daily Iowans adds television broadcasts to its print and online coverage.
Iowa City, Ia. — Podcasts, MP3s, slide shows and blogs: Not only do student
journalists know what they are, but they know how to use them.
That's why college newspapers such as the University of Iowa's Daily Iowan are
leading the way when it comes to offering a variety of media formats for news
and entertainment, industry leaders and journalism professors said.
"In many ways, student journalists are far ahead of major content providers and
online publishers, who are still working through their strategies to reach young
readers," said Paul Pennelli, director of Web products for College Publisher,
which provides an online network for more than 400 college newspapers.
The Daily Iowan, which has been publishing on weekdays since 1901, recently
won College Publisher's Cutting Edge Media Award for combining newspaper,
Internet and television. The Daily Iowan launched DITV last fall, and the station
now airs 10-minute newscasts Sunday through Thursday nights.
"We're really excited to do a daily newscast on campus," said Becky Bereiter, 22,
a U of I senior and producer of DITV.
Television and print reporters work together to gather news in words, photos, and
audio and video clips for the paper, its Web site, www .dailyiowan.com, and
DITV.
The Web site also includes local-music clips, staff blogs and photo galleries. A
series of photos of the April 13 tornado in Iowa City had more than 30,000 hits in
the days following the storm, staff said.
"We don't want to be a TV station and newspaper, we want to be a newspaper
that publishes on the Web and TV," said Bill Casey, who has been the Daily
Iowan's publisher for 30 years.
Casey and several Daily Iowan editors were inspired after attending a seminar
last summer about the novel news approach of the Lawrence (Kansas) JournalWorld, which combines newspaper, online and cable television.
Casey persuaded the U of I's Department of Journalism and Mass
Communications to pay $50,000 a year for three years to launch DITV.
The Daily Iowan, which has a staff of 136 and newspaper circulation of 19,500
during the academic year, is a model for other college media, said Mark
Witherspoon, adviser of the Iowa State Daily newspaper at Iowa State
University.
"Bill Casey and the students over there have done a wonderful job," he said.
"They are probably one of the leading student newspapers in doing the online
thing."
Journalism graduates who can move among newspaper, Internet and television
will be top hires, professors said. The newspaper industry is definitely watching.
"You're already doing some things I'm going to learn from," said Neil Brown,
executive editor and vice president of the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. Brown,
a U of I graduate and former Daily Iowan editor, raved about the paper's online
coverage during a visit last month to Iowa City.
"The caliber of what you're doing is absolutely competitive with any paper of your
size in this country," he said.
The average U of I student is not as tuned in. Several undergraduates said they
had never seen DITV, either on cable television or the Web.
"I knew there was a University of Iowa station, but not DITV," said Julia Frey, 20,
a U of I junior from Des Moines.
The Daily Iowan's $2.3 million budget is supported mostly by advertising, Casey
said. The paper gets $300,000 from student fees for delivery and raises money
for scholarships, he said. For DITV to survive, the Daily Iowan staff must find
ways to support it in the future, he said.
The Daily Iowan faces other challenges. Casey put two editors on paid leave last
week pending an investigation of insufficient attribution in a column earlier this
month.
But excitement remains high at the Daily Iowan, Bereiter said. "We want to make
the newspaper writers and the television reporters work together to tell a better
story," she said.