TweetWhen Central PA NewsVote first launched last week, the initial post got 36 comments, many of which were story ideas I was very happy about. (Catch up on my new blog, in which I solicit story ideas from readers and allow them to assign me their favorite via polling, in my older entries on the …
Early success and struggles, and why Central PA NewsVote isn’t Spot.Us Read More »
TweetThanks to all who have contributed your thoughts to the evolution of my new community-directed blog: Central PA NewsVote. It’ll be the keystone of my new job responsibility at The Patriot-News. The idea started with a blog post in January, and dozens of comments from other journalists and readers really helped me sharpen the idea. …
TweetThe gears are turning, and pretty soon I’ll be embarking on what Ryan Sholin called a “community-directed reporting” experiment. From here on out I’m stealing Ryan’s name for it, because it’s a good one. The short version: I’ll soon be starting in a new role at The Patriot-News as a hyrbid mobile journalist/general assignment reporter …
In online reporting experiment, a good start is essential Read More »
TweetI intend to always keep this blog on-topic. I created a side blog in case I felt the need to write about non-journalism stuff, though I haven’t been good about writing in it. But I’ve been tagged by Sara Bozich to participate in this trendy meme, and I planned to ignore it. Then I thought: …
7 journalism-related things you may not know about me Read More »
TweetOnce the equipment arrives, I’ll be starting in a new position at The Patriot-News as a mobile journalist, or mojo. What that means is, correctly, still to be determined. We do know it’ll involve video, still photography, print stories and a lot of updates for the Web. We know I’ll have a laptop and an …
How I want to redefine my role, and the reader’s role, in the newspaper Read More »
Tweet(Alert: This idea went from light bulb to blog post in less than an hour. I reserve the right to re-examine this post tomorrow and realize that it was a terrible idea. And let’s be clear: This is just an idea, not an actual unveiling of a new Web site feature.) The best newspaper stories …
How to promote the local music scene and deliver killer content to your news site Read More »
TweetNews organizations won’t stay afloat and continue to provide an essential service to democracy because the public suddenly values what they’ve been selling. They’ll stay afloat because forward-thinking leaders will make sure the news organizations are damn good at the next news model, and the next one after that. Someone is going to figure out …
Why journalists need to stop playing catch-up, start focusing on the next news model Read More »
TweetTruth is one of the bedrock principles of journalism, as it should be. But what if the public decided it placed zero value in truth? What if the public decided it sought nothing more than affirmation of existing beliefs, even if it came at the expense of truth? What if the audience cared about truth …
Thought exercise: What if the public didn’t care about truth? Read More »
Tweet“One thing we don’t get with online sourcing : verification of the source. When you have a nickname and a maybe-fake email addy, how can you resist manipulation and ill will ? Are virtual witnesses as valuable as real ones ? How can we backup our stories with sources we can’t really identify ?” — …
Defending the underlying principles of crowdsourcing Read More »
Tweet(This is Part 2 on my series about crowdsourcing. Part 1 argued the crowd can help ease the pain of a shrinking staff, and Part 3 defended the underlying principles of crowdsourcing.) I understand that crowdsourcing is a scary word to a lot of journalists. So I thought it would help to offer some specific …
Easy, immediate, responsible deployments of crowdsourcing Read More »