Monthly Archives: January 2008

Every newspaper should pay attention to EveryBlock

Posted on January 23, 2008 by pat

EveryBlock is ChicagoCrime.org on steroids, and it is officially here to change the face of journalism forever. EveryBlock strives to put data into the hands of citizens down to the block level. It strives to give users a much better … Continue reading →

Posted in new media journalism, Web development | Comments Off

Pre-roll ads are a great way to lose money

Posted on January 22, 2008 by pat

Apparently, users don’t like them. Well, users don’t like a lot of ads, but it seems that the majority of users won’t even sit through a pre-roll ad to get to the content they originally wanted to view. Now, how … Continue reading →

Posted in Ads, Mainstream Media | Comments Off

If Time and Slate can use Twitter, so can you

Posted on January 22, 2008 by pat

Time, Slate and others have begun using Twitter to post rapid-fire updates from the campaign trail and at primaries and caucuses. And if they can do it, why can’t you? You can. Twitter is easy. Signing up takes seconds. All … Continue reading →

Posted in Mainstream Media, new media journalism, State of journalism, Web development | Comments Off

You still can’t teach culture

Posted on January 22, 2008 by pat

A lot of people disagree with me, but I’ll say it again: you can’t teach culture. Sure, you can learn culture, but it cannot be taught. Learning culture is an affirmative step, it’s something an interested person does because he … Continue reading →

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Another old-school journalist who just doesn’t get it

Posted on January 21, 2008 by pat

The Los Angeles Times again has a columnist who just doesn’t get it. This time it’s Bill Dwyre’s turn to say something stupid. We blog before we report, when it should be the other way around. We write more about … Continue reading →

Posted in Mainstream Media, State of journalism | Comments Off

A lot of the best young journalists are leaving

Posted on January 20, 2008 by pat

Journalism is hemorrhaging some of its top young talent. Many of the best j-school students forgo a career in the depressing landscape of journalism for law, PR, political science, Web starts up, etc. And more power to them. I’m not … Continue reading →

Posted in State of journalism | Comments Off

Final project at online storytelling seminar

Posted on January 19, 2008 by pat

I did my Poynter project on a no kill animal shelter in St. Petersburg. Now, the projects that most of us did probably would have been handled differently in a real-world situation. I spent a few hours at the shelter, … Continue reading →

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Thumbs up for Online Storytelling seminar at Poynter

Posted on January 19, 2008 by pat

I can now officially recommend the Online Storytelling With Audio & Images seminar at Poynter. Creating an audio slideshow is easy. Creating a great audio slideshow is hard. This seminar can help show you how to make the latter. The … Continue reading →

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Heads and tails at Poynter

Posted on January 17, 2008 by pat

Making great audio can be as simple as heads and tails. Howard Berkes of NPR gave us a great tip to always grab 1-2 minutes of ambient audio (often white noise) from every interview you do, even if it’s indoor … Continue reading →

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More thoughts on Poynter

Posted on January 17, 2008 by pat

Multimedia journalism is one of those funny things in life. Most of the people producing it weren’t originally multimedia — they were monomedia. If you’re a photographer you just add some audio skills and all the sudden you have multimedia. … Continue reading →

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