Blog Post 1 - October 6, 2025
In JMS 430: Digital Journalism, we have covered a multitude of topics throughout the semester. Some topics of discussion so far have included digital journalism ethics, search engine optimization (SEO) tips and the BASIC story structure. When writing my digital story for this class, I plan to utilize the advice given to me in both the BASIC story structure and SEO tips to make my story accessible to all audiences.
The next steps for my digital journalism story revolve around contacting my potential sources. I have a solid list of people I plan to reach out to, and my next step from there will be working out a possible schedule with them for sit-down interviews and video. There are several athletes on campus that I want to contact, in addition to a few professors and graduate student-athletes. Once I schedule those meetings, I should have enough information for my written story, as well as a more concrete plan for my video component. Regarding the social media aspect, I've spoken with an athlete who has agreed to contribute.
Blog Post 2 - November 3, 2025
Last week, I turned in the first draft of my digital story, and I feel pretty confident in it. I was able to get good feedback about my written story and how I could adjust the time of my podcast to make it more effective for an audience. My next due date for an updated draft for everything is on November 10, in about another week. The edits that I need to make are simple; the most complex adjustment that I need to do is to find more statistics for my written story to really nail home my angle. I have another interview that I need to transcribe and add to the story, so I feel that will make it a stronger story with some edits. I also need to create my social media piece, to which I am emailing an athlete for this week. I also hope that the research I do for my infographic assignment, which is due on Wednesday, will give me enough statistics to add to my written story.
In class, I'm enjoying all of the work that we're doing with Google Sheets and formulas. This has prepped me for work in other classes, as these formulas are the same as the ones we're using in JMS 485: Research for Journalism. However, I need to figure out how to do them with large statistics for JMS 485, as our final project consists of looking through academic research and writing a story utilizing all of those numbers effectively. Besides that, I have enjoyed our recent class materials and how my digital story is shaping up. I appreciate being able to work with the professor one-on-one almost every class to sharpen up the work in my assignments.