Saturday, October 25, 2008

Inside Washington Post







Last week on a class trip to the Washington Post meeting Chet Rhodes of the interactive division gave a fresh perspective on online journalism. Rhodes has worked as a news director on radio, taught broadcast journalism for 10 years and is currently assistant manager of the web division.

Rhodes was very positive about the work environment at the Post, which was obvious considering he works there. But his enthusiasm certainly was heartfelt.

Rhodes also clarified the certain myth on newspaper interactive division not turning profits. He said, “It’s not that we not making money. We are making plenty of money. If we were a business onto just ourselves we would be like great, but that’s not the case. We are trying to make up for the fact that newspapers are declining.” Washingtonpost.com was ones of the first ones to launch comments on their stories.

In the three hours spent there Rhodes answered a lot of questions and gave a good idea on the difference of treatment and craft online journalism demands.

Overall this outside-the-classroom experience and into the real world of online videos, web interactivity, user behavior, change in media landscape and video making and camera techniques was a valuable lesson.

Here's Chet Rhodes covering the conventions.



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