Tonight the first CNN/YouTube presidential debate will air. The Democratic candidates will tackle video questions submitted through YouTube and moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Last time I checked out the video submissions I was less than impressed. But that was last month. In the meantime, it seems like some folks rose to the challenge and […]
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A look at Philly newspapers after a year under new management
Last year McClatchy put the parent company of the Philadlephia Inquirer and Daily News up for sale. There had been major newsroom cuts at both papers in recent years in response to shareholder pressure. In reporters’ circles, the speculation was that anybody who bought the company would be likely to close the Philadelphia Daily News […]
Collaborative writing project on collaborative news writing
Paul Bradshaw is preparing a paper on the use of Wikis in journalism. And he wants your help. Conveniently, he’s set up a wiki for anyone who wants to contribute. For the uninitiated, a wiki is basically piece of online software that lets a group of people easily collaborate. You can use a wiki to […]
All the news that’s fit to print
Jason over at Mental Floss has taken advantage of his access to the New York Times online archives to pinpoint the first mentions of a few household names. For example, The Simpsons got their first reference in 1988 when the show went on the air, Barack Obama got his nod in 1990 when he was […]
More on unfortunate ad placement
Duncan Riley is hardly the first person to get hit by inappropriate ad placement. Thanks to contextual advertising, Google AdSense advertisements and others use an automated system to find the perfect text or image to place on your website based on what you’ve written about. Unfortunately, AdSense uses a script that fails to recognize the […]
Hyperlocal journalism’s not dead yet
You know how I was making the case that hyperlocal news wasn’t dead, it was just hard to sustain without deeper pockets and the help of mainstream news organizations? Yeah, so today Fisher Communications announced that it was purchasing Pegasus News. Pegasus is a Dallas-based company that provides users with personalized, local news and information. […]
Embedding videos on your site and the law
YouTube, Odeo, and other services that let you embed audio and video files on your website are great tools for bloggers. Need a funny video to emphasize a point you’re making? Just find one from YouTube. In fact, some web sites have based their entire business plan around finding the best videos from online video […]
Is hyperlocal journalism dead? Or just a dumb name for a trend?
There’s been much ado about the demise of Backfence. For the last two years, the site has been building online communities designed to reflect real-life local communities. Some call it citizen journalism, although in a post-mortem on the site, company co-founder Mark Potts said it was more about community discussion than journalism. And how do […]
The perils of contextual advertising
So the Wall Street Journal has an article on the 10th anniversary of blogging. Just one problem, blogging is a few years older than that. Blogger Duncan Riley points out that the WSJ incorrectly labels Jorn Barger the first blogger — even though he’s widely attributed to be the first person to popularize the term […]
Read/WriteWeb examines citizen journalism
One of my favorite blogs for in-depth analysis about all things Web 2.0, Read/WriteWeb is running a series on citizen journalism. R/WW has an excellent explanation for how citizen journalism differs from traditional news reporting, “The readers are the writers and editors, unlike traditional journalism which is written/edited by the ‘few’ (professional journalists) for the […]
Building an external battery pack for portable electronic devices
This post will give you step by step directions for adapting an external battery pack to power a Zoom H-4 Handy Recorder using about $30 worth of supplies. For the most part, these instructions should work with pretty much any electronic device that can be powered by an AC adapter. With a little know-how, you […]
Biodiesel in Brooklyn
This week I have a story on The Environment Report. It’s about an oil company in Brooklyn that’s getting into the biodiesel business. Aside from a few spot news reporters I’ve filed for NPR, this is the first radio piece I’ve produced since moving to New York. It was nice being able to drive a […]
Philadelphia Mayor waits in line for an iPhone — for a while
It’s stories like these that make me miss Philly. Before moving to New York, I spent about 6 years covering local politics in Philadelphia. I spent enough time at City Hall to tell you that Mayor John Street is a gadget freak. He’s addicted to his blackberry, and a colleague tell me that one day […]
How hard is it to follow a simple set of instructions?
I found a picture of the most confusing set of instructions for a light switch you could ever imagine via Boing Boing today. And it reminded me of a sign I ran across when doing a story on pedestrian safety. This sign rests under a crosswalk in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And to be honest, […]