Forum Topic

This is the place to share with NowPublic the stories behind your news stories. Consider:

how you picked your stories?
how did you research your story? Did you confront any challenges while conducting your research?
what was the most interesting aspect of this assignment?

These are just some suggestions.

See here for the TechOne page where all the stories with the TechOne tag can be found, ordered by popularity. Note that the list of stories only presents the most popular in the last 18 hours. If you want to view all the TechOne stories in chronological order see here.

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Alexander The 1st

at 09:11 on October 25th, 2007

NowPublic really is a one-of-a-kind-service. I picked my story based off of comments I've heard regarding the whole "3-hour per floor" concept, or the "Mall Entrance" concept, and I thought it was getting a little out of hand.

While I already started out with a set ideal solution, I wanted to interview a number of students to see if I at least held a common view - while I did not recieve a large school-wide survey, I did find that very few people actually appeared to oppose the idea.

Albeit, when I did check out the rooftop pay parking next to SFU Surrey itself, I found that $18.00 for 11-hours was not worth it - I could, by re-locating about a five minute walk lengths away, get the same for $5 - only, there was less stalls there.

So that, in turn, has roughly changed my opinion on how the parking should work, by ImPark's rate, as opposed to DPS's inflated rates.

On top of that, I found that regulating my audio files to properly display text relative to what was said was rather difficult, and that actually getting audio interviews was costly; difficult; and rather time-consuming.

That said, I enjoyed making my article.

ryan

at 09:18 on October 25th, 2007

I must say that your use of the voicereport as a tool for documenting an interview was unique and creative. Yes, the transcription is not the most accurate but a quick edit usually does the trick.

kate

at 12:28 on October 25th, 2007

What I dont' understand is why you have to pay for parking at all. It is a mall. There is lots of parking. Malls, though grotesque, are predicated on the idea of free parking. If we have to suffer the concept of the mall, we should reap the rewards of the car culture it creates.

Alexander The 1st

at 13:51 on October 25th, 2007

The issue I have is that the parking at the mall is limited to a maximum of three hours - after that, it's ticket time.

The issue being that they don't want people staying for more than that time, but...when you have a three hour class, and then another three hour class ten minutes later, and then a two hour class ten minutes later again, and then have to work beyond the hours of public transit, it's..unacceptable.

Therefore, I would rather pay for access to parking for longer, than I would for being stranded at night after working part time.

Or even staying at school beyond transit hours - it's about a thirty minute drive from where I live to Surrey Central, and for some obscure reason for bridges, I work at a place un-reachable by pedestrians.

Christopher Byrne

at 19:22 on October 29th, 2007

I think the concept of paying to park there is so that the spots are available for customers. Do they offer validation for people who have made purchases in the mall?

Alexander The 1st

at 12:06 on November 2nd, 2007

Nope.

And the bigger issue is that there is free parking, but at a 3 hour maximum - anything after that, and you get ticketed $35.00 or so.

Really annoying for university students.

ryan

at 12:39 on October 25th, 2007

Don't forget to join the NowPublic Facebook group. Check it out here.

dashDarling

at 12:41 on October 25th, 2007

The reason for the report I gave was a simple need that I saw after browsing the site for several minutes the night before last. The news feed was showing one story after another about Surrey or something related, and I thought that people would probably be confused by this flood of messages. So, I did the obvious thing and explained what was going on while giving our program a little publicity.

My report was by no means an astounding piece or writing, and wasn't even about something particularily interesting, but it was about something that was immediatly interesting to the normal readers of NowPublic and it therefore became quite popular. Believe me, no one was more suprised to see my story on the home page in third position than I was.

So, looking forward, I'm thinking of more things I can write that will interest the sites viewers and looking out more so for the stories that are happening around me.

See you around.

dashDarling

at 11:44 on October 30th, 2007

A thought crossed my mind earlier today when I was discussing something on the train during my commute. It occured to me that I would love to write a bunch editorial pieces but didn't think that this would be the appropriate place. Does anyone else think that opinion pieces would work here?

ryan

at 11:47 on October 30th, 2007

they sure do...just put them in the opinions category.

Swan

at 08:52 on December 30th, 2007

Actually, with the other sites I belong to, like Associated Press and Helium - opinion pieces are very popular, both with their members and readers.

I hadn't realized that there wasn't a category for this. Oh well, there's plenty more in me other than opinions -- I think!

As for my OPINION on whether or not it would work here - given the success on other sites, I'm positive it would work here - but is it actually permitted?
~ Swan

PEP

at 09:17 on December 30th, 2007

Swan, look up at the top of the page. Where it says "Channel," click on the down arrow to get a standard pull-down menu. You'll get a list of the categories used at NP. One of them is Opinions.

Also, when you highlight a piece or provide original material, you are asked to select a category. You have the same pull-down menu that appears on your workspace, plus a line to write in tags.

There are lots more "how to's" in the Newsroom (see tabs at top of page) and under Tools. Hope this helps!

Swan

at 09:28 on December 30th, 2007

Thank you PEP!

Nothing nicer than being shown around a new place! I'm also checking all the forums out at the moment, lots of great stuff in there that has helped me understand the way NP works.

PEP - your reply was the fastest I've ever received! Thanks again.
~ Swan

PEP

at 10:12 on December 30th, 2007

You're welcome! And thank you for your nice note. A refreshing relief from the recent spate of irate users who don't ask, don't look at the tools, then yell at the editors for ...editing (!) and ponting them to the resources they need to be successful.

Have fun! :)

ajinder.allainet

at 00:58 on January 4th, 2008

yeah i agree with you

politisite

at 14:14 on January 7th, 2008

Hello Group!

I wanted to share some of the things I do when Gathering news and
working on a story.

What I do to gather information is to monitor World Band Radio to
hear differing points of view like BBC, Radio Havana, Cuba, China
Radio International, Voice of Russia, etc.. I also have
extensive satellite equipment, C/Ku Band Analog and Mpeg-2 Digital .
I Scan the news feeds, on location SNG trucks, and chopper down
links.

For example, while watching the New Years eve festivities in Times
Square via satellite down links from the many positions on the ground
and in the air. One view was a helicopter. While watching
the helicopter, I noticed a light coming into view. The
pilot began to react to the light and stated it was an aircraft.
I began recording, I fumbled a bit, but finally got the recorder to
work right. There was a near miss between the helicopter and
the Plane. The aircraft had missed his approach and was
circling around. No one else reported the incident.. a scoop!

Another thing I do is use Google or yahoo news key words.
When the word or phase comes up on breaking news it sends me an
email.

I will be covering the elections in South Carolina this month.
I am credentialed for three debates. I keep close
attention during real time events to see what other services are
reporting. Since my team of two can only be in one or two
places at once,we use scanners to monitor security, Secret Service,
police, and maintenance crews. We also monitor chatter between
other news crews. We do this for our own safety in case something
occurs, we keep up on the entire location.

My digital recorder with Voice activate Transmit (vox) is attached
to the scanner, so I can review what happened while I am doing
something else.

These are some of the things Politisite, our blog, and Iron Mill
News Service do to gather news and research news.