journalism

More fuel on the fire: Writing for the Nation, Eric Alterman asks if it's "time to abolish the editorial page."

Some of the coverage of Friday's announcement from Gannett that things will be different misses the most important points. This is not about putting breaking news online all day long, which -- as I observed the other day -- is hardly a new idea. Nor is it about equipping reporters with video cameras.

Writing for the American Journalism Review, Carl Sessions Stepp takes the pulse of American newspapers and declares:

"It is easy to imagine the time, coming soon, when the 24-hour Web cycle dominates the newsroom tempo, work flow and culture. ... As for tomorrow's journalists, they will more likely be identified by their function than by their medium."

Yes, but ... what about this wasn't utterly apparent 12 years ago?

John Burke has a thoughful commentary on editorsweblog.org in which he observes:

In my job as a strategist I often use a fairly simple trick to get the process going: Turn the problem over. What if all your assumptions are wrong? Flip-flop them and see what you learn.

Recently I was on panel at the annual Society of Professional Journalists convention Chicago. Here are three examples I gave of "bad" that have "good" aspects if you change your point of view.

For those of us struggling to understand the consequences of opening up our local news websites to broad public participation, Ulises Ali Mejias has a helpful essay, Social Media and the Networked Public Sphere. He focuses on a key distinction between mass and public:

This week I'm at the Poynter Institute at an online ethics conference. Here's a question that's come up: How much transparency is beneficial? It's easy to say "more is better," but is that always true?

Here are three "buckets" to consider: