Online Journalism Blog

Mark Stencel’s journalism career began around 1995 where he worked at the Washington Post for 12 years (9 focusing in online things), The News & Observer in Raleigh, NC. He currently works for NPR (National Public Radio), has been there for just under 2 years and is the digital managing editor.

NPR is a non-profit organization, so money comes mainly from individual donations. It is very news-centralized and one of the largest, most-consumed news organizations in North America with around 20-30 million listeners. They are being challenged, though, by people who are in their offices not wanting to listen to NPR.org or the radio.

NPR has used the iPhone and Android markets to expand to listeners through those capabilities. NPR staff also take pictures for their website which show you pictures. The radio’s job is to paint that picture for the listener.

It is very difficult to work with three mediums (radio, text, video) so NPR typically just does text and radio.

Historically, NPR has produced great audio. Now, they have also added great text to their capabilities.

Don’t cover events, cover implications.

At the Post, he tried to bring talk radio into text form through interactivity with the audience.

On NPR’s Facebook page, they take stories that never got huge amounts of views on their site and add them onto their Facebook page so it can receive more views.

Twitter is also a very dynamic form of social media for NPR. Andy Carvin and others tweet some stories for their followers and turned the reporting process inside-out to show everyone how it’s done.

These social mediums are great ways to tell people what is going on air soon. It also helps show how interactive the hosts are.

NPR’s job is to cover news and break it in every possible way whether its on the radio, blogging, etc.

BJ Koubaroulis, George Mason University graduate in ’04, began writing high school level sports, getting the most access and “real people” who enjoy doing what they’re doing.

He had an early recommendation for us young journalism students:

Work at a small place early to get learning experience and make mistakes.

By doing so, you’ll gain experience and be able to get published without having extreme pressure and demand of needing to be perfect.

He eventually focused his energy into adding another element into his repertoire in order to be able to compete better. He added a video element to his game which helped him stand out amongst his other journalists at the Washington Post. It gave him more power as a writer having another aspect to add to it.

As important as it is to have unique abilities in one particular area, BJ made an important point to talk about the necessity of being able to do everything — writing, radio, television, video, internet.

By being able to do everything, you’ll be able to do your one “specialty’ even better than you thought. If you’re unwilling to change, you will get left behind.

He showed us a virtual tour that he created about Mason’s campus. It was incredibly cool to see.

The four necessities to become a real backpack journalist:

• Camera
• Computer
• Microphone
• Work hard

The major takeaways from BJ’s speech:

• Do as much as you can
• Don’t be satisfied with the ability to do one thing
• You need to be able to do everything