Dorange is a Haitian man who studied journalism in Haiti. He says using his investigative journalism skills allowed him to make the documentary film “The Oblivion Tree.” It’s a film about cultural and historical ties linking Haiti and the west African nation of Benin.

“I’ve been in the journalism field for about 20 years, so I’m pretty good in investigative journalism,” Dorange said.

The Oblivion Tree Project, Dorange said, is a film to show lost pages of Haitian history. The film is about African slaves and the process of what the slave traders did to the slaves after they were captured. The oblivion tree is a tree in Haiti, and was one of many rituals done to the slaves to try to make them have amnesia about their culture and past.

The project includes the movie, with audio, video and still images. The bonus photos on the DVD show some photos with audio in the background. This project is a great example of convergent journalism.

Since I am a college student and in this age group, I agree with what he’s saying. Practically all college students have cell phones, with many of them being smart phones. My phone is almost two years old, and I can browse the Web and check my e-mail and Facebook easily.

If news media wants young adults to read the news, this is the way to do it. He also puts links to other articles and blogs about smartphones and journalism.

One link from a food and education write talks about how smartphones allow for citizen journalists, since they make journalism easier and more convenient to do. Some examples of using citizen journalism, she says, are a crime or accident scene and during natural disasters.

Another link is a video and interactive talk from Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in New York University’s graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program, says that smartphones (with Facebook, Twitter and text messagings) is allowing news to be more peer-to-peer and mobile news, versus the traditional “top-down” control of news.

“What matters here isn’t technical capital, it’s social capital,” Skirky says.

One student project is a good example of multimedia journalism, about West Berkeley Animal Care Services Center having a vast increase in animals because of the recession.

The main layout is clean and concise, with different parts of the project being photos to click on. It has video of inside the shelter, video of different volunteers, a day-in-the-life video, a video about a child who adopted kittens from the shelter ,and even a map of the area’s shelters with contact info.

I liked it as a reporting tool because it made what I was reporting on even more open to the public. I was able to update people on my progress on my story. And there wasn’t a tool to do this previously. It also allows people to read my story, since my Twitter is a preview to it.

If I did it again, I’d figure out how to put links in the text of my Twitter posts.

Twitter is so immediate, so it’s great for reporting and reading the news from several sources quickly and clearly. But it also makes reporters’ jobs tougher, because it puts more pressure on us to get the story out as quick as possible, since the American public can get news just about anywhere.

Searching Olympics on Twitter yields several results, like Olympics info and NPR Olympics Twitter.

Twitter isn’t the only Web site playing the Olympics in real-time. MSNBC’s Web site shows some of the events live, gives the full schedule, and even has blogs (like one from Kristi Yamaguchi).

MSNBC’s Web site even has Twitter updates on one of their pages, so someone doesn’t even need to leave their Web site.

USA Today has the latest Olympic news from several media outlets right on their Web site, like Nancy Kerrigan partying at the Olympics from Entertainment Tonight.

Being constantly connected to the info from Vancouver allows the public who usually can’t afford to go to be constantly connected to what’s happening.

Where it all began..

It seems to have started with Facebook and MySpace. It brought a new community from in-person to online. People who weren’t in the same place could talk to and find out lots of information about other people they knew (or didn’t know), therefore, making themselves more public, and in some cases, “branding” themselves. This made journalists’ jobs with finding sources and getting in contact with sources easier.

As Shahdai Richardson cites in her blog post, people will more likely read things that their friends post on Facebook, versus choosing from several news organizations to find out what’s going on. Also, as she cites in the blog, people can communicate easier through groups and applications. She also points out that news organizations like CNN can benefit from using Facebook to get their face out there, by having a page that people can become a fan of or become friends with.

YouTube as a catalyst

YouTube seems to be the catalyst to “citizen journalism.” It allows anyone to post a video about anything. Therefore, news organizations shoulduse YouTube for showing videos from their Web site or bringing people to their Web site. Rachel Wilson says in her blog that young people are more likely to click on a video than read a text-rich news story. Aimee Hoyt’s blog points out a Mashable blog post about a journalist’s guide to YouTubut that is vital information to any journalist. For example, I had no idea 20 hours of content were posted to YouTube every minute. That fact puts into perspective how many people use and watch YouTube. Not only that, but that YouTube also has several categories of videos, like News and Politics category.

Twitter and text messaging as delivery

Twitter in news delivery has become increasingly popular just in the past two years. It allows news organizations to essentially tell the public what is happening at that moment in time, whether it be an event that is being covered, an update, their office or what an individual reporter is working on (usually linking it back to the main news Web site). Ryan Bass talks about this in his blog, citing ESPN.com keeping the public updated through Twitter on breaking sports news.

Social networking is an all-encompassing reporting concept

Jeff Weiner brings up a good point in his blog: social networking is common nowadays for reporting, but five or six years ago, it could have been a reason for termination. But now, since social networking and reporting coincide with each other, news positions like “manager of social networks and news engagement” are being created.

To wrap up, social networking for reporting is synonamous now. I did a story about a UCF student convicted of having child porn on his computer, and I was able to find out information about him from his public Facebook page and found out who his lawyer was, and who a couple of his friends were. Like Jeff says in his blog, since social networking and reporting coincide with each other, news positions like “manager of social networks and news engagement” are being created.

Therefore, reader comments and bulletin boards on news Web sites (along with any other Web site people are getting information from, like blogs) not only allow interaction with the the source of information, but the public with each other.

Out-law.com, a Web site giving IT and e-commerce help from international law firm Pinsent Masons, said that reader comments on stories are higher risk than forums. This means that the Web site that hosts the reader comments has greater liability for libel of the comments than forums, if they are not pre-screened.

They also say that the bulletin boards are “like contributions to a casual conversation,” and those who participate know this and expect a certain amount of repartee or ‘give and take.’”

Most news Web sites do pre-screen their content, because of this reason. When I interned at the local news-talk radio station, I had to read comments on the stories posted to the Web site, and take off the ones that were profane or vulgar.

SmartBlog on Social Media is an example of user comments and bulletin boards being the whole basis of the Web site. It’s readers of a blog for marketers and decision-makers to “stay ahead of social networking trends.” One user wrote that message boards are like cork bulletin boards in public places. She lays out the whole definition of the boards and some examples of them.

Then they use things like polls to get more feedback from readers, like this one.

ReadWriteWeb is a large information technology blog that provides analysis of Web products. One blog post discusses the New York Times putting reader comments on their main page, which they think is a bad idea (as do I). They say it’s a bad idea because “giving reader comments such a prominent position is dangerous. Readers of news sites (and blogs) go to those specific destinations to read news in the voice they expect — not to see a public argument from commenters.” Then is asks what the reader thinks, allowing more interactivity with the public, allowing them to comment on comments.

It seems the overall consensus is that both reader comments and bulletin boards should be monitored, because the company or person who owns the Web site takes the responsibility for what people post to it.

But the question the book asked was if these Web sites should update their information this way, or at allotted times. Being used to seeing stories pop up at random times, I didn’t even think before about news updates coming out at allotted times. Makes sense, though – TV and radio news has been doing it for years. People know what time to turn on their news or weather, because it’s broadcast at a specific time. With the internet’s immediacy, it is expected to have the most updated information possible at any given time.

But, if news was to say, be updated every 15 minutes on a news Web site, would this work? For the general public, I think they like their news and information as soon as they can get it, but, on other hand, it would create consistency knowing that they’re going to get fresh information at a certain time, and to plan for it – like TV and radio news does. For the people who produce the news Web sites, it might put more pressure on them to have new stuff every 15 minutes, yet could provide more consistent deadlines. For example, when I was an intern at WDBO AM-580, I learned that the news was broadcast every 30 minutes, and that provided me with concrete times to get my cut stories in on time.

There are pros and cons to each way of updating the news Web sites, but the concensus now seems to be getting it onto people’s computer or cell phone screens as soon as possible.