Guest speakers next week

Just a quick reminder that we will have guest speakers in class both days next week. My only requirement is that guest speakers be named "Steve," apparently.

First, on Monday, Feb. 9, Steve Harbula, the sports channel content manager for Examiner.com, will come to our class to participate in our initial discussion about citizen journalism. Examiner.com is a nation-wide citizen journalism initiative backed by Denver's Philip Anschutz, and the company has its national offices in Denver. It was discussed also in a column by David Kopel in The Rocky Mountain News on Saturday.

Next, on Wednesday, Feb. 11, CSU graduate and new media guru Steve Outing will come to class for the first hour to talk about a variety of issues, but we'll pay particular interest to his ideas on the paperless newsroom: "What a surviving newsroom will look like when the presses go silent." Also, be ready to discuss other initiatives being started by journalists.

This is a change from our initial schedule, and I'll adjust the schedule below to reflect this change.
Please be prepared for both classes by watching the News 4 video and reading the articles linked above.

Audio editing help from Audacity

If you would rather work at home (or on your laptop at other locations) on your audio files rather than working in Clark C255, you should probably download Audacity editing software.

It's free. Adobe Audition is not, but Audition is more robust and it's loaded in the C255 lab. The C255 lab is free only on Fridays, generally, so by using Audition, you're limiting yourself to those times unless you buy it for own use.

The first Audio Project (podcast to introduce a blogger) is due on Feb. 18, so you need to figure out how you're going to get that done.

Audacity has a great Wiki site to help you get started doing the basics of sound recording.

If you're going to use Audition, the 390-page user manual also is available via PDF online.