SF paper wants student podcasts

Mark Larson of Humboldt State University shared the following report today on the JACC-FAC listserve:

The (SF) Chronicle is interested in meeting with college and high school teachers throughout the Bay Area to explore ways of getting their students' writing, videos and podcasts into the paper and onto our Web site, www.sfgate.com.

We welcome input from any college or high school teacher, principal or administrator in the Bay Area, but we are particularly interested in having journalism teachers and advisors attend the brainstorming session.

Interesting notion, looking for other sources of content. Community college programs should consider participating in such a project --indeed, should be copying it on their own campuses-- but do so with caution.

At Cerritos College we've already investigated a similar project by contacting our radio program and our film program to see if we can repurpose some of their content on the Talon Marks site starting this fall. Both seem interested. In fact, the film program instructor countered by suggesting that he make one his class projects for his students to partner with a Talon Marks reporter to create a related-story video (see a sample). Bingo, we just got help for producing up to 20 video stories for our web site each semester! With minimal extra effort on our part! The radio station's music programming creates some copyright issues, but not its sports broadcasts and talk/interview shows.

Now, as for the San Francisco Chronicle project, though, colleges should realize that the Chronicle is hoping to drive traffic to its web site. Colleges should want that traffic, too. And since I'm pretty sure the Chronicle does not want to pay for this content, schools should seek an appropriate quid quo pro out of the deal. Their publication web sites should get free ad space and linkbacks out of the deal.

For those schools who are still struggling with the concept of podcasting, the Project for Excellence in Journalism has just posted a pretty good primer on the subject.

And Washingtonpost.com has an interesting article about the growth in popularity of poddcasts:

A report released by Nielsen Analytics last week found that podcasts -- online broadcasts downloaded from the Internet for playback on portable devices -- are attracting a growing number of listeners, a shift that media companies and advertisers have noted.