Patrick Thornton of Beatblogging.org called last week to talk about how I use Twitter to cover trials.
Also look up Patrick on Twitter @jionoclast.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Hot links this week on online journalism
Jack Lail says "We'd get more readers if we gave them less frickin' news to read": “The news junkies, however, are the users that move the metrics and we focus even more on what they want because they are generating more pageviews and longer times on site. And thus we have less of what more casual news consumers want. Sort of like drinking ourselves to death?”
"We Were Print" – the blog of “former and soon-to-be-former print journalists” – chronicles the dark humor that is our business with links to this week's Doonesbury.
Don Himsel gives us the latest generation of point-and-shoot cameras as News Videographer.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Best of online journalism: from D.C. to Middletown
"Fixing D.C. Schools" is the kind of project I still remember seeing for the first time on Washington Post.com. It covered every aspect of the public schools in D.C., from the maintenance of the school halls to student scores. It told stories across the multimedia platforms.
No surprise it won the Knight Award for Public Service during the Online Journalism Awards.
See the awards site for the complete list of winners, then linger for a while to marvel at some inspiring work, including "I Didn't Do Murder," by the RecordOnline.com, from The Times Herald Record (Middletown, N.Y.), which won best investigative piece for a small site.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
SPJ Convention all a-Twitter with new media and online journalism learning
Random notes from the SPJ National Convention which ending Sunday …
Some SPJ members may see the organization as still being for a bunch of old newspaper dudes. You may think curmudgeons rule, but you couldn’t tell that by attending the workshops and sessions in Atlanta.
“People are getting new media here and loving it,” Molly McDonough said. “I don’t get that back in my newsroom.”
I would agree.
SPJ has kept its high-tech ambitions a secret to some, however. That’s evident this week, after SPJ’s Convention struggled with lower attendance, but the Online News Association, meeting this week in Washington D.C. sold out in advance.
Nevertheless, I didn’t talk to one person who came to Atlanta already a devotee of online and new media who didn’t rave about the conference and promise to return next year.
A few of the highlights:
Sree Sreenivasan on “Figuring Out Blogs & Whatever’s Next” – Every journalist should have a blog and know how to use it. Post often. And keep it short.
- “If you can’t sell it in six words, you can’t do it in 6,000,” he said.
Howard Owens on Reinventing Journalism, included his 10 Things Journalists Can Do:
Among them:
- Include informed insight and personal voice.
- Stop competing for scoops and awards
- Cover people not processes
- Be kinder.
- Be smarter.
- Emphasize accuracy, honesty, and transparency.
- Be the guide. Be the filter. There is a fire hose of information. Help your readers find it.
Molly and I got a great reaction on our "60 web sites in 60 minutes".
- It included a showing of Facebook with this live update: “Molly is thinking Ron should pick it up a bit or we won't get to 50.”
Want to find out what you missed? Or maybe you were there and want to pick up some sessions you missed.
You can from two of my new friends:
Rene Gutel wrote some great blog posts about the sessions she attended.
So did Jeff Cutler
And as always, you can read the reports from the talented students covering the convention onThe Working Press.
Don’t expect SPJ to retain its curmudgeonly image forever. We’ve put together a Digital Media Committee, which I’m co-chairing. You’ll see other of our members posting here in the future.
After all, nearing its 100th birthday, SPJ is the original social network for journalism.
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