Will the daily paper be missed when it's gone?
Submitted by yelvington on August 19, 2008 - 9:56amMark Potts thinks about the day when a major American city sees the end of its sole remaining metro daily newspaper:
A little alphabet fun
Submitted by yelvington on August 18, 2008 - 6:45pmI like this alphabet game from STLToday.com. Not everything has to be "news" to be meaningful on a local website.
My score? It was 18 out of 26, which STLToday rates as "OK, you can be deputy mayor." Not so good, but it's been a long time since I was news editor at the Globe-Democrat. And the truth is that I lived on the East Side and didn't hang around in Missouri all that much.
Flipping the AP model
Submitted by yelvington on August 16, 2008 - 1:04pmSisyphus and Cassandra don't live here any more
Submitted by yelvington on August 12, 2008 - 2:34pmIn the nearly 15 years that I've been advocating on behalf of online media at newspaper companies, it's often seemed that the heroes of online journalism were Sisyphus and Cassandra.
Sisyphus was a crafty and devious king of Corinth. We've all been crafty and devious from time to time. Breaking the rules may be the only way to get anything done.
What's wrong with the new Philly publication rule? Us and them
Submitted by yelvington on August 8, 2008 - 8:00amPhiladelphia Inquirer managing editor Mike Leary says the paper is "adopting an Inquirer first policy for our signature investigative reporting, enterprise, trend stories, news features, and reviews of all sorts. What that means is that we won't post those stories online until they're in print."
Instant reaction by the online crowd was predictable; Jarvis went ballistic.
Re:connecting
Submitted by yelvington on July 31, 2008 - 4:17pmAre you connected with the community you cover? That may be hard to answer honestly. Sort of like asking, "Are you nuts?" You may not be the best authority on that. But it's likely that you could use some improvement. On the connection thing, I mean.
A retraining guide for copy editors
Submitted by yelvington on July 29, 2008 - 8:42amJustin Williams has a detailed 12-step program for copy editors -- "subeditors" in British English -- who want to remain employed as the newspaper industry is restructured and their old jobs disappear.
One key recommendation: Learn SEO techniques. That's an obvious place where careful selection of words and attention to detail pays off.
The larger message is that you don't wait for someone else to train you. Take responsibility for your own career.
'Newspapers need to rise up and take responsibility'
Submitted by yelvington on July 28, 2008 - 3:43pmSeattle P-I blogger Monica Guzman: "I'm convinced that newspapers need to rise up and take responsibility not just for the quality of the news, but for the quality of the conversation." Read on, and listen to the whole interview at Beatblogging.org.
Curmudgeon alley
Submitted by yelvington on July 25, 2008 - 11:27am
Storytelling that makes you hungry for more
Submitted by yelvington on July 21, 2008 - 4:36pmAs each of us struggles with the real enemy of journalism -- apathy -- we should think about how and why people become interested. Jay Rosen's exploration of the great NPR audio story, "The Giant Pool of Money," zeroes in on how great storytelling that focuses on context can create demand for news: