Journalism Department Adopts Movable Type for Online News

Initiated by Jon “Satch” Satriale, the Journalism Technology Manager, Emerson has adopted Movable Type, an online publishing system that allows users to post materials on the Web without working in HTML. Movable Type can best be compared to a weblog, but has more advanced capabilities. It offers a wide selection of templates that accommodates a more complex information design necessary to Web journalism.

Andrew Slocu, teacher of JR608 Interactive News and early adopter of Movable Type, describes Web journalism as clearly distinct from broadcast and print journalism. Slocum explains, “There’s no reason for a story without links to be on the Web, it may as well be in print.”

The Web is a “pull medium” where the user is active in finding information and moving around. Journalism students need to focus on storytelling while carefully choosing background information through hyperlinks, animations, video, and slideshows that offer more insightful information.

In order to achieve these best practices of Web journalism, the department needed to invest in an online system that separates writing the content from using the software system itself. Movable Type allows students to do this, to practice writing stories particular to the Web without the distraction of learning more software.

Other blogging software such as LiveJournal or Blogger do not accommodate customized information design as Movable Type does, and more sophisticated systems like Vignette StoryServer are much higher in price, making it impractical for classroom use.

Having used Movable Type for an online news association last year, Michelle Johnson recently customized a template for her students in JR600 Reporting Across the Media. In JR600 she teaches students how to write for print, broadcast and online news. On election day she assigned her class to go out and do breaking news for election coverage. They wrote their stories for the Web, considering images, links and other multimedia elements, and posted the stories to Movable Type. People see blogging as a reflective writing style; Johnson explains, “but for news, it’s a delivery vehicle.”