Newsroom Connect

If you’ve visited our homepage lately and scrolled down the right rail, you’ve probably noticed a new addition. In between our Twitter widget and local business directory we’ve added a podcast widget. This is actually a pretty powerful little widget.

Most audio player widgets can only handle one file — a limitation for playlist-based things like podcasts. Not a problem with our widget. It grabs data directly from our podcast RSS feed, so it can handle quite a bit. What I like most about it is its tab interface. By default, it opens latest tab, which displays the 10 most recent items — whether they be news updates or podcast episodes. If you click on the audio tab, you’ll just get podcast episodes. Click on the news tab and you’ll get news updates related to the podcast.

Directly below the main audio interface (the player buttons), there’s another set of tabs. Playlist brings up the various tabs I just mentioned; details delivers text (like episode information for a podcast); share allows you to link to items in the player; the RSS icon gives you a list of buttons for subscribing to the podcast; and the “I” gives you general info on the player.

And best of all, the player allows you to stream any recent episode directly from our website. This is great for people that just want to sample the podcast or are only interested in listening to the latest episode. You can subscribe to our podcast by using the RSS feed or going to the iTunes store.

Like the title of the blog post reads, the Sun Journal podcast has been added to the iTunes store. You can find it via this URL or by searching for “Newsroom Connect” at the iTunes store.

The feed appears to be functioning properly. If you subscribe, iTunes will immediately start downloading the latest episode. You can also click a button in iTunes to download all previous episodes as well. The iTunes store supports streaming of episodes if you want to get a sample before downloading. You can also leave a review on our iTunes podcast page.

Let me know if you have any issues with subscribing to our podcast by sending me an email or by leaving a comment on this post.

For months the Sun Journal podcast feed has been not been working properly. The number one problem associated with it is the fact that the code wasn’t modifiable, so users couldn’t subscribe to our podcast via media players like iTunes.

However, we’ve discovered that by publishing the feed through my blog, we can get around those problems and it now works properly with software like iTunes.

I have submitted our podcast to the iTunes store and it has to undergo review before it is officially added. Once it has been, I’ll share the iTunes store link. Till then — if you’re impatient — you can manually subscribe to the podcast in iTunes by following these steps.

1. After you’ve opened iTunes, click on click on “Advanced” in the menu (at the top of the iTunes window).

2. Click on “Subscribe to podcast … ”

3. A box will pop up. Copy and paste in this URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/NewsroomConnectPodcast

4. Click “OK”

That’s it. You’ll be subscribed to the podcast and iTunes will automatically start downloading the latest episode and will download all future episodes automatically once they release.

Seven episodes in and I’m starting to rethink the structure of our podcast. Our past format has been one of a variety show. I’ll round up people from the newsroom for interviews, column readings, discussions, etc. What I worry about is redundancy of content. For example, do we need someone reading or talking about a column that you can already read on our website and/or the print paper?

I still like the idea of a variety-based show — that way we’re not boxed into a predetermined format. What’s kept me glued to our past structure has been recording deficiencies. The reason we get a good recording is because we have a dedicated sound room with a mixer board and microphones. One problem with that: it’s not portable. You can’t take it with you out into the field.

And that’s where the most interesting stories are — outside the confines of an office. Once you start telling people they’ve got to come into a studio at a set time and are boxed in by that kind of rigid structure, it limits how and what you can cover.

We’re part of the way there to solving this problem. I recently purchased a digital field/voice recorder and am in the process of getting a shotgun mic repaired. What does this all mean? It means we can go to where the stories are, allowing us to do more narrative-driven segments on the podcast.

We recently featured user-submitted music on the podcast. Something I hope to do more of in the future. If you are musician or have a band or know someone with music they wanted featured, email me.

I know our RSS feed for the podcast is still slightly broken and until it gets fixed, we can’t submit to services like iTunes. Unfortunately, it’s not something I or our local IT guys can fix quickly. It’s a coding issue with all Freedom websites, so we are stuck waiting for our help request to be processed. For now, the easiest way to keep up with the show is bookmark our archives page.

Feel free to share your comments and thoughts about the podcast so far, as well as what you’d like to see in the future.