Shift Work
During my second week working at the station, I spent about an hour browsing through KOMU.com’s site. I found several mistakes, many dealing with AP style. I found and corrected mistakes on articles Empty Seat for Congress, Wintry Weather is Back, Opening Eyes and Glancing Back at Governors. Your email definitely affirmed what I have thought for the past two weeks. With a focus on broadcasting news style, many of us have forgot AP style.

After that time, I began learning the basics for updating smartdecision08.com. I really like the shift I pulled for updating that site. As I pass it off to the later shift, it is easy to communicate what I have done and what needs to be done as I have a good working relationship with Mark Welsh. He is my roommate after all.

Through the first two weeks, I enjoy working with KOMU.com more than smartdecision08.com, as there is more to do. I think once the election picks up speed and more blogs, stories and other items need updated, the site will require as much work if not more than KOMU.com. I think once my project begins with mid-Missouri bloggers, I will like smartdecision08.com more as I will have a more personal stake it it’s success.

One improvement could be bettering communication between the paid web editors and the students in Advanced Internet Applications. That might just be a first couple of weeks thing. The AP style also needs improvement.

Project
My group will need to meet this week sometime to start deciding what goals we would like to accomplish and how we plan to carry out these goals. I spent the weekend at home so I haven’t put too much thought into the project, but I have brainstormed a few ideas. I think we could target mid-Missouri residents who campaign for presidential candidates to blog as they have “insider” information and could give great stories inside the election stories. (For example, a thing like “Life on the campaign trail,” etc.) Like I said, the project is still in the infancy stage as we have yet to meet, but I think if something could be formalized by Tuesday, we might be able to visit some mid-Missouri communities at the polls during Super Tuesday.

Website Focus
It is a little tough to blog about this section as my group and I have not met. Once we begin to formalize plans, this will become clearer.