WiredJersey.com – A Dynamic Brand-New Student-Run News Site – by Steve McCarthy and Martin Halo

October 18 2013

Dear Neil: Thank you so much for asking me to give The Creative Research Center a peek into the back-story and an update on WiredJersey.com, a media collective of journalists, film-makers and tastemakers focused upon music, the arts, sports and culture in the Garden State that has flourished thanks to the hard work of our students and the faithful idealism and support of the visionary Director of our School, Merrill Brown, and many other colleagues in the School of Communication and Media.

When I first came up with the idea last spring, I knew that I wanted this website to be youth-oriented, funky and hip. At the same time, we would follow NBC News Standards and Practices in reporting and presenting content in video, text, photo and audio. Such is indeed the case, I am pleased to report.

The site is managed by students and faculty from the School of Communication and Media and features contributions from students in SCM and throughout the University – as well as from projects developed in conjunction with the Center for Cooperative Media.

The site covers campus issues as well as events and news from all over the state. If a big national or international story hits, we seek the local angle and get something up on the site as soon as possible. The site covers all University sporting teams, club activities, campus art events and shows, as well as noteworthy news events. We also feature selections from larger projects such as films produced by the Film Studies students and the TV and Digital Media students. The site highlights the activities of the SCM such as lectures, discussions and projects by students and faculty members.

Our goal for this news and information site is that it be frequently updated, Monday to Friday. Eventually, we envision the operation being run from our newsroom in the new SCM building now under construction. Launching the project now — in 2013 — enables the SCM to develop curriculum around WiredJersey production activities and to recruit to the SCM those interested in participating in the ongoing and challenging work of a five-day, frequently updated site.

My Electronic Journalism class here at Montclair State, which already produces the news feature program “Inside MSU,” has morphed into a class to develop and maintain the new WiredJersey site. We call this class “News Production Lab.” The focus is on editorial meetings and lessons on web design and production. A student assigned as site editor each week is responsible for updating the site during that week.  We collectively set guidelines for just how much updating will be required.

Students will gather, produce, aggregate – whatever content they can get their hands on — and pitch those stories at our daily editorial meetings.  Our brilliant consultant, Martin Halo, and the rotating student editor craft this content – video, still photos, text, cartoons – onto a page that shows and links the work.

The class also occasionally puts together a video including one or two students sitting in front of one or two cameras telling what’s happening on the site in just a few dynamic minutes. The “hosts” actually point to the place ‘outside their box’ where content is sitting, and talk about it – maybe show a picture, roll some video – get people interested in checking out that piece of content.

The setting for these presentations is located stylistically somewhere between Scott Pelley’s CBS Evening News and Wayne’s World –  students design the look and feel.

Each 3-credit student in the class will eventually be assigned a reportage ‘beat.’ The beats will be as varied as campus news, NJ News, National and International News, Sports, and Entertainment. Other students will be assigned to check in with our SCM Media Partners to share what they are working on for their organizations.

As the site grows and other classes are brought in, we are going to divide and expand the headings of the site. Eventually, we hope to encompass Campus News, NJ News, World News, MSU Sports, World Sports, Campus Entertainment, World Entertainment, and so on.

During this semester, we are featuring special headings to cover the New Jersey Governor’s race, the upcoming Super Bowl, and other huge events.

Once the class gets going, I see us increasing it to two, three, four and finally five days a week. By that time, a “shelf” will be established and each class will share content. And I might add that content created by any other classes in the school will be welcome.

Once we move into our fantastic new building, we can have two classes a day working on updating the site – it will flow all day and into the evening with frequent updates.

As you and the CRC readers can see by clicking here, the WiredJersey.com website is off and running. The students of TVDM 455 are managing the site and have created content on everything from an immigration series to the recent and spectacular Homecoming Weekend. The class right now consists of ten highly-motivated students as varied as our population at Montclair State all working together and putting out a terrific looking site.

And as I had hoped, other students in the TVDM program taking courses with Debra Galant and David Cummings are likewise contributing articles on subjects ranging from a late-night disturbance outside a dorm to the latest Montclair State sports game. We have even had alumni create content: recent graduates Ken Spooner and Mike Mee went down to the tragic boardwalk fire in Seaside Heights to file a report about a pizza shop owner who lost his store in the blaze.

From our newly-improvised and lively production home on the second floor of Finley South the class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays to shoot, write, plans, edit and create. There’s an incredible energy to the class that often reminds me of my days working in the newsroom at CBS News.

Next step: To examine our process and outreach and try to organize production into a more streamlined flow. The site will take a while to develop and find itself — but we already have a tone and style that appeals to our students.

My “Co-Conspirator” Marty Halo is one reason for the quick success. He possesses an unusual combination of skills as a developer, programmer and journalist. He’s always available and on call to get content up on the site and has a great rapport with the students.  I took this opportunity to ask Marty to provide a “P.S.” to my letter, and here it is…

…In March 2013, Steve McCarthy contacted me in the hopes of developing a publishing mechanism for Montclair State University students to produce journalistic content as part of a class project.  The idea of working with a University was very attractive to me –  something I’d always wanted to do.

After graduating from Monmouth University in 2006, I embarked upon a journalism push of my own in American music.  I was searching for freedom and the classic fantasies of rock n’ roll, as I think most young adults in their early 20s dream about.  As I began to weave through the artistic layers of American pop culture, I crossed paths with the bedrock of American rock n’ roll and the artists who, to this very day, capture the imagination in the hearts of the young.

The first publication I began writing feature interviews for was the Aquarian Weekly in New Jersey.  That relationship was the perfect situation.  Nobody there at the time was really tracking down all the musicians that were left to the sands of time: The Allman Brothers Band, Patti Smith, Bob Weir, Richie Havens, Buddy Guy, Jack White, Yoko Ono, The Marley Family, Little Feat, The Black Crowes… and a plethora of others.  Working for the Aquarian, as well as freelance contributions to an industry niche San Francisco based publication, I began to lay the framework for my own journalistic brainchild.  To keep my overhead down I decided I was going to forge a publishing endeavor online.

When you decide to start your own company, you are basically condemning yourself to compete with organizations smarter than you and larger than you that have been around for many years longer than you.  Want to compete? Well, you are forced to adapt and learn while at the same time your own organization is looking to you for all the answers.  It is quite the sensation to work in such an environment.  My mentor at the time was author Dennis McNally whom I had met when I was working with the Grateful Dead camp.   I always used to moan to him how I felt I was running in quicksand at that time in my life.  It was a lot of work, and sometimes the results were not immediate.  The best advice Dennis ever gave me was that the blood, sweat, tears and struggles of my mid-20s would be the things that would lead to opportunities in my 30s.  The man could not have turned out to be more right!

Well… here we are.  I turn 30 in January.  I had just started a web development and production boutique shop in Soho when Steve asked me to interview with the School of Media and Communication at Montclair State University for a position yet to be defined.

Steve was looking for someone who, in a just a few short months, could set up the technology and publishing infrastructure for a journalism endeavor expressly so that the work of his students would have equal opportunities to reach audiences in the same manner as already established publications.

Thus, we “birthed” Wired Jersey, and, as a project, I couldn’t be more excited to create something from thin air and watch it grow up and mature. The opportunities presented to the students in our class are opportunities I wish I had when I was in college.

The technology is tested, the publication is primed… let’s make some noise!