Lorraine Lee

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Lorraine Lee, a 2008 graduate of Marlborough School in Los Angeles, is a freshman at Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Last year she was Editor-in-Chief of her high school's award-winning newspaper, The UltraViolet, and conducted research under Professor Mary Nesbitt, Associate Dean of Medill and Managing Director of the Readership Institute at Northwestern's Media Management Center.

In her year-long research, Lorraine sought to determine how print and online newspapers can coexist and make each other stronger in the future. Her collection of four research papers was one of 25 submissions selected from over 1,200 entries to win the Academic Paper Award, sponsored by the National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS). Also, as one of only fifty 2008 NSHSS National Scholar Award winners out of over 11,000 applicants worldwide, Lorraine had the privilege of receiving her scholarship award from Mr. Claes Nobel, senior member of The Nobel Prize family and NSHSS founder, at a gala celebration in The Dirksen Senate Building in Washington, DC.

Lorraine, a member of the Quill and Scroll International Honorary Journalism Society, is a “two-peat” National Gold Key Winner in the News Story (2007) and Editorial (2008) categories for The American Society of Newspaper Editors/Quill and Scroll International Writing and Photo Contest. Based on her outstanding journalistic accomplishments and academic record, Quill and Scroll awarded the prestigious 2008 Edward J. Nell Memorial Scholarship in Journalism to Lorraine.

The author of over 35 published articles inside and outside Marlborough School, Lorraine has participated in and won recognition at several highly selective journalism workshops, including the National High School Institute in Journalism workshop at Northwestern University and California Scholastic Press Association workshop at Cal Poly SLO.

At Northwestern, Lorraine plans to join and write for the Daily Northwestern and hopes to continue her research with Professor Nesbitt.

Over the course of this year, my research has examined the current state of the news industry, delved into readership trends for both print and online newspapers, and assessed technology’s effect on journalism. I have interacted with many industry experts and read countless articles on the transforming world of journalism. Under the mentorship of Professor Mary Nesbitt at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, I have learned more than I could have imagined this year and am that much more prepared to enter the industry as a productive and effective journalist.

Culminating in this fourth paper, my research presents how print and online newspapers are able to not only coexist in the future, but make each other stronger by adopting changes that respond to reader behavior and preferences, while maintaining journalistic integrity.

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For my third research paper I will focus on how new technology has paved the way for “multimedia journalism,” and examine the changing relationship between reporters and readers resulting from this development. This topic naturally follows the subject of my second paper – story content/presentation. My second paper analyzed the effect which story content and presentation have on readership, and looked at how to draw in readers with the way in which a story is written or presented. My third paper takes my research one step further, by exploring how multimedia journalism (through enhanced content and presentation) can increase readership and reader engagement by appealing to their visual as well as auditory senses. I further discuss what technology has done not only for journalism, but also for reporters and readers.

Multimedia journalism – which often includes a print or online story supplemented by some other form of media that is more interactive than just text – is becoming a prevalent way to “do” journalism. New technologies will solidify this trend. Multimedia stories require additional skills from journalists, but provide readers with more choices to interact and be informed. If they choose to do so, readers can only read the article; however, they can also watch the supplemental video and be “on-the-scene” with the reporter, or listen to sound clips taken at the scene. The stories become more enjoyable and may help some readers better understand an issue if they are aural learners, for example. In addition, readers may save time by watching a two-minute video clip instead of taking five minutes to read an article.

Multimedia journalism, enabled by new technologies, has provided readers and journalists alike with new opportunities, as well as transformed how they interact with each other.
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For my second research paper I focus on how story content and the way news is presented impact print and online newspaper readership. This topic naturally follows the subject of my first paper – culture change. My first paper analyzed the effect of the Internet on readership, how people’s lives have changed their reading habits and the evolving perception of media. In this paper I discuss what turns readers on/off to newspapers based on the societal changes which I reported on in my first paper.

In a world where people’s time seems more valuable than ever, story content has become that much more important – it is one of the main factors drawing readers into or turning them away from reading newspapers. Without appealing content written in a reader-friendly manner, readers won’t want to read newspapers. Newspapers will serve no purpose if they don’t have an audience to inform.

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Over the past several years, it has been widely reported that print newspaper circulation has declined substantially. More and more readers prefer to get their news from other forms of media. Consequently, advertisements have been migrating away from print newspapers to other channels that have wider and growing audiences. With fewer advertising dollars to support the operations of print media organizations, hundreds of journalist positions have been eliminated, adversely impacting print newspapers and arguably the quality of their content.

As a budding journalist, I have naturally been following these developments with keen interest for quite some time now. The world is becoming increasingly driven by technological advances and the news industry is transforming rapidly in unexpected ways. Since many media experts are predicting the inevitable death of print media, I decided to research this topic to examine the reasons behind this prediction. My goals are to explore whether print media is destined to die off as so many have forecast and to suggest changes which print media can make to remain relevant going forward. This research is extremely pertinent to today’s society and helps us better understand the rapidly transforming face of journalism and its impact on and interaction with society.
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