Opinion

Web site, new media course coming soon

Journalism is changing across the world, and so is the journalism at MCCC.

In the next few weeks, The Agora’s first Web site is scheduled to launch.

Coverage of the campus community by The Agora’s student staff will go from once or twice a month, with the printed newspaper, to 24/7 on the Web site.

The changes are occurring in the classroom, too. Beginning Winter semester, I’m teaching a class in New Media Journalism – how to cover news in the new digital world.

The class will be an informal laboratory for The Agora’s Web site, while also focusing on the many ways to tell stories using digital tools, from blogging to video.
It will be a 3-credit course, JOURN 181, New Media Journalism, meeting at 9:30 a.m. Mondays and Wednesdays.

The Agora Web site, which will be at www.mcccagora.com when it launches, will dramatically change the work flow for The Agora staff. Instead of taking days or weeks to write a story, reporters will post breaking news soon after it happens.

They’ll also have the option of offering extra photos as well as video and audio. And as the JOURN 181 class gets going, they’ll begin exploring the full range of digital story-telling.
— Dan Shaw, Agora adviser