ARTICLES: Business 2.0’s Quittner on “On The Media
NPR’s "On The Media" interviews Josh Quittner, editor of Business 2.0 about his turning his writers into bloggers:
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_110306_d.html
November 8, 2006
October 31, 2006
ARTICLE: When Bloggers Commit Journalism
This article, by JD Lasica in OJR, is ancient history (published in 2002!) but really worth a revisit: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/lasica/1032910520.php
When do webloggers commit journalism? What do informed amateurs and niche experts bring to the media ecosystem? Should journalists blog? And should they rely on weblogs as news sources? Should bloggers and those in traditional media engage in a dance of fear and loathing, or do both sides stand to gain from the other? Should blogging be taught in journalism classes?
Those were some of the questions tackled last week at the University of California Graduate School of Journalism.
Find the answers in the article.
September 4, 2006
HOW-TO: Turning Multimedia Clark Kents into Superheroes
In today’s Editor & Publisher, Emily Sweeney of the Boston Globe & SPJ provides seven tips for developing multimedia skills (she is kind enough to mention this blog - its MSM debut… I have done ZERO marketing/PR, so this is a nice surprise).
How to Turn Multimedia Clark Kents Into Superheroes
As demand for online content grows, acquiring online media skills have become more than a personal hobby for me — this stuff is coming in handy at work. Reporters who can produce an edited MP3 clip or a video clip can become a valuable asset to any newsroom. Here are seven tips to get started.
Full story:
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003086985
August 9, 2006
INTERVIEW: Jossip on Noelle Hancock of Us Weekly blog
Jossip, the popular entertainment blog,
interviews Us Weekly blogger Noelle Hancock. Her blog is called "This Minute: Our non-stop celebrity news blog."
Initially, what attracted you to the job of "Us Weekly blogger?"
Who, among us, hasn’t aspired to write about Jessica Simpson’s hair extensions for a living? Or wanted to ask the questions everyone else is asking like, “Is Keira [Knightley] too skinny?”
Honestly, it’s just a really fun gig. I actually got an email from someone who wanted to be Brad and Angelina’s nanny and sent me her resume so I could pass it along to them. How could you not love a job after something like that? Good times.
August 8, 2006
NEW BLOG: ShareSleuth.com debuts
I haven’t had a chance to read the piece yet, but the first piece at ShareSleuth.com has just been unveiled. SS is the work of Chris Carey, a business reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was hired by billionaire Mark Cuban to run an investigative business reporting site. From Carey’s opening note on the site, "Welcome to the Jungle" -
My goals for Sharesleuth.com are to shine a spotlight on questionable companies, to build an audience through unique, compelling stories and to generate multimedia content for other outlets, including HDNet and HDNet Films.
Unlike mainstream media outlets, we’re going to have a clear bias – against deception and corruption. We’re going to depart from the traditional “he said, she said’’ model of journalism, with its false balance and toothless objectivity.
The first piece, an investigative report about Xenathol Corp, a producer of alternative fuels, is at http://sharesleuth.com/2006/08/moonshine_blindness.html
Reax?
July 28, 2006
TOP BLOGS: NYT’S David Carr on new opportunities for journos
David Carr’s media column on mainstream journalists doing new media projects.
Content may or may not be king, but it’s mighty valuable. Journalists, who know a thing or two about its creation, are beginning to build sites that help them maintain custody of the content and, if all goes well, reap the rewards. Om Malik, a former writer for Business 2.0, has received backing for GigaOM.com, a technology news Web site that has broken a number of stories, and Rafat Ali, the former managing editor of The Silicon Alley Reporter, recently received funding for his company, which publishes PaidContent.org, a site that covers digital media news.
Read full story:
The New York Times
July 24, 2006
A Sideline That Competes With a Byline
By David Carr
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/24/business/media/24carr.html
July 4, 2006
3 QUESTIONS: Cyrus Farivar of CyrusFarivar.com
THREE QUESTIONS for Cyrus Farivar, tech writer, who blogs at CyrusFarivar.com (“Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet”).
1. Why and when did you start to blog?
A. I started a more personal blog on LiveJournal -
http://cfarivar.livejournal.com/- 2001/12/19/ - that began on December 19, 2001. I started because LiveJournal was something that a lot of my friends were doing and blogging just seemed like a cool
medium. I later switched to Moveable Type - http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~cfarivar/blog - then ultimately to WordPress - http://cyrusfarivar.com - for the customizability. My LiveJournal still exists, but only as a mirror of the WordPress blog.
2. What have you learned (about your work, journalism or yourself) since you began to blog?
A: As my writing has improved professionally, my blogging style has gotten shorter. In other words, I’m not one of those bloggers who puts significant amount of time or thought into what I blog. I generally have short items and/or excerpts of news articles, without commentary.
3. Should journalists blog?
A: Journalists should blog if they have something to say that they don’t have an outlet for. But don’t blog just for the sake of doing it, or because you want to "expand your brand" or something ridiculous like that. Will blogging necessarily improve your writing or get you a book deal or make you money? Probably not.
Read more Cyrus Farivar at CyrusFarivar.com.
3 QUESTIONS series archived here.
June 27, 2006
ARTICLE: Brian Williams, anchor - and blogger
Mark Glaser, who writes the MediaShift column for PBS.org, interviews the blogger with arguably the largest regular, non-blog audience in the world, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams (his show’s The Daily Nightly blog just turned one).
Blogger-Anchor Brian Williams Defends Nightly Newscasts
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/06/digging_deeperbloggeranchor_br.html
One of the many interesting points: "People should know that I read every e-mail received by the broadcast, I read every e-mail received by the blog."
June 20, 2006
3 QUESTIONS: Tim Porter of TimPorter.com
THREE QUESTIONS for Tim Porter, veteran news guy, who blogs at First Draft ("Newspapering, Readership & Relevance in a Digital Age") at TimPorter.com. More about him here: http://www.timporter.com/resume.html
1. Why and when did you start to blog?
A: I started blogging on Dec. 4, 2002 with the somewhat arrogantly named Quality Manifesto. I had been out of newspapers for a couple years, working in Internet start-ups and, after the dot-com bust, building a house in Mexico. When the time came to go back to work, I began looking around at newspapers again, thinking I could bring some of the entrepreneurial, innovative culture I had found in start-ups back into newsrooms (which I had left primarily for the lack of the very same thing). I found, in "reading in" on papers after a couple of years off the grid, so to speak, that the cultural problems that left me dissatisified had worsened. I thought I might have something to add to the nascent discussion that as arising about changing newspapers and helping to them prepare for digital future, but I had no real place to say it. So I blogged. I downloaded a free (at the time) copy of Movable Type, endured the teeth-pulling (at the time) installation procedure and began.
2. What have you learned (about your work, journalism or yourself) since you began to blog?
A: What have I learned? Too much to bang out here (from the Red Carpet Club in O’Hare), but a couple of things I can say quickly.
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I didn’t know anywhere as near as much as I thought I did when managed newsrooms.
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There were really a lot of smart people interested in media and journalism who worked far outside of newsrooms.
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That barrier to entry to publishing had been lowered to zero and that that forever changed the business and editorial model of journalism.
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That voice, truth and authenticity — enabled by technology — was powerful.
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That I had much to learn about journalism. (Read Jay Rosen’s somewhat embarrassing piece on my "education".
3. Should journalists blog?
A: Of course. I have a much longer answer, but since time is short I’ll point you toward this post on First Draft: Blogging the Beat. It contains this link to a PowerPoint presentation on blogging for journalists.
Read more Tim Porter at TimPorter.com.
3 QUESTIONS series archived here.
June 19, 2006
3 QUESTIONS: Daniel Pink of DanPink.com
THREE QUESTIONS for Dan Pink, author of "A Whole New Mind" and widely-published tech journalist, who blogs at DanPink.com. More about him here: http://danpink.com/aboutdp.php
1. Why and when did you start to blog?
A: i actually had a blog in 2002 called Just One Thing. so i blogged before it was cool and after it was trite. i do it largely to test out ideas, get things off my chest, and keep folks up to date on what i’m doing and working on.
2. What have you learned (about your work, journalism or yourself) since you began to blog?
A: i’ve learned that i actually don’t have an opinion on everything — and that i shouldn’t try to muster one. i’ve learned that a blog can be an enormously useful and searchable database of what i’ve thought and read at particular moments. and i’ve learned — or, more accurately, reaffirmed — that i prefer getting paid for my writing!
3. Should journalists blog?
A: sure. why not? journalists should enlighten, provoke, and entertain readers. the medium by which they do those things doesn’t matter all that much.
Read more Dan Pink at DanPink.com.
3 QUESTIONS series archived here.
