Andy Kessler offers his two cents on the future of newspapers in today’s Wall Street Journal. Somewhat ironically, Kessler argues that traditional newspapers aren’t going away anytime soon because newsprint is easier to read than web pages, but then he posts the entire article on his blog (which is nice if you don’t happen to […]
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Michael Nutter will (probably) be the next mayor of Philadelphia
I spent much of the last four of five years covering Philadelphia government. I got to know mayor John Street pretty well, and I got to know members of the city council too. For about three years I attended most of Council’s regular Thursday meetings, and I sat just a few feet away from Michael […]
Offshoring journalism
The editor of PasadenaNow, a local news and information website has decided to expand the site’s news coverage by hiring two reporters. Right now the site is basically populated with press releases and event listings, so this is good news, right? But the thing is, PasadenaNow has a small budget, so the site can’t really […]
High fives all around
Well, as the week draws to a close, you’ll probably see fewer top 5 lists floating around the blogosphere. ProBlogger’s group writing project has drawn to a close. As of yesterday, nearly 600 bloggers had written top five posts on something. Here are a few interesting/funny/snarky posts I found in yesterday’s crop of 222 entries: […]
Philadelphia Mayor’s race update
Wow, I just realized I really stink at self-promotion sometimes. I filed a piece for National Public Radio on the Philadelphia mayor’s race the other day. And while I mentioned this story on the blog while I was working on it, it completely slipped my mind that I’d meant to post an update when the […]
How to write for the web
Lost Remote’s Cory Bergman has written up a great manual on writing for the web. While the document is designed for TV news producers, there are some useful tips for anyone looking to tell better stories on the web, be they news stories or personal narratives. The basic premise is that it’s not good enough […]
Can journalists multitask?
Andy Dickinson suggests that there’s a belief out there that journalists can’t multi-task. There seems to be a lot of resistance from print reporters asked to do podcasts, take pictures, produce video, or write a blog. Same goes for radio producers, camera operators, and photographers. But as more and more people are going online to […]
PC World shakeup part 2
Last week PC World editor Harry McCracken tendered his resignation after the magazine’s new CEO told him to kill a story titled “10 Things We Hate About Apple.” What a difference a week makes. Today, McCracken has his job back and that CEO has been demoted to VP of online strategy. The whole story involves […]
One day lists will rule the world
So the other day I wrote up a list of 5 gadgets for podcast and radio producers on a budget. This was part of a “group writing project,” where hundreds of bloggers are writing top 5 lists. The contest/project has been hugely popular, partly because there’s a chance to win $1001 dollars, and partly because […]
5 gadgets for producing radio (or podcasts) on the cheap
Darren Rowse has given me a good excuse to write a post I’ve been meaning to get around to for months. He’s asking bloggers to write up “Top 5” posts as part of a group writing project. So I’m going to write that how to set up a home studio on the cheap post I’ve […]
CNN to offer free access to presidential debates
You know how they say “information wants to be free?” Well, when it comes to news, that hasn’t always been the case. Sure, there’s fair use, which lets you use small subsets of copyrighted material under certain circumstances. But if say, CNN hosted a presidential debate, they could restrict viewers from posting clips of that […]
It’s all in the presentation
I spent a fair amount of time juggling in high school and college. Not metaphorically, but literally. I can toss three balls, clubs, torches, whatever up in the air. On a good day, I can do five balls for a few seconds, but I’ve never quite managed to get very far with higher numbers. I […]
Top news sites that don’t get RSS are driving readers away
The International Center for Media and Public Agenda released a study this week examining RSS use by 19 top news sites. The results? Most just don’t get it. Or to be more precise, they don’t give it. While all 19 news sites offered an RSS feed, those feeds varied widely in utility. Some sites put […]
Search engine traffic to new sites continues to rise
Hitwise has released some data on online news trends over the last year. A few interesting facts: News aggregators such as Google News, Yahoo! News and the Drudge Report continue to be the leading source of traffic for news web sites. Google and other search engine traffic for news sites is on the rise: in […]
Local politics moves (slowly) into Web 2.0
So I’m putting together a story for NPR on the mayor’s race in Philadelphia. I’ve attended a couple of debates, interviewed a few candidates, and talked to people on the street. Today I sat down to spend some quality time with the candidate’s websites and check out their television ads. But on a whim, I […]
PC World editor quits in stand for editorial integrity
Wired’s Epicenter blog is reporting that PC World Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken quit after parent company IDG’s CEO Colin Crawford told him to kill a story titled “Ten Things We Hate About Apple.” The piece was meant to be light-hearted, but Crawford allegedly told McCracken it wasn’t advertiser friendly. Apparently Crawford had also been pressuring McCracken […]