Innovation in College Media has an interview with me up right now if you want to find out more about what and how I think.

I will leave you with a small preview of the interview. This sums up what I think well:

And if you want to make journalism better — truly foment change — you have to believe there is no idea too crazy to succeed. Journalism needs dreamers. Journalism needs entrepreneurs. Journalism needs people willing to take big risks. The status quo will result in all of us losing our jobs.

And here is a little Q&A preview:

ICM: You mention that journalists need to “get and understand the Web.” Could you flesh that out a little more. Lots of students, for instance, know facebook, youtube, and the like. Is there something more to understanding “the Web”?
Thornton: It’s one of those things that if you need someone to show you how to do something or if you need to read a manual for something like YouTube or Blogger.com, you don’t really get the Web.
Anyone can use Facebook. We need people who have that entrepreneurial spirit — the people starting their own blogs, creating their own personal sites, etc. Making a MySpace page is nothing. Do you know some HTML and CSS? Can you FTP files to your site? That’s understanding the Web. And getting the Web means that you understand that the Web is an interconnected Web of people, cultures and civilizations.

Just because you can shoot video or make an audio slideshow, doesn’t mean you get that concept. Journalism needs people who understand that the Web is a community. That’s how we break out of this one-way communication paralysis in journalism. The Web allows everyone to have a voice, and many journalists — and journalism students — still don’t get that.

It’s a simple question: What should news organizations stop doing, today, immediately, to make more time for innovation?

And it’s a simple answer: News organizations should stop pretending like it’s the pre-Internet days. Most news organizations are still legacy-first. Newspapers still care more about the print edition than the Web edition. Beats are still centered around making content for print edition.

The same goes for broadcast. Even the best news organizations often have separate Web staffs that produce editorial content for the Web product. But that makes no sense.

Why have two staffs to produce editorial content, when most employees could be creating content that works on multiple platforms? That’s what I mean by rethinking staff resources.

It’s simply a matter of making employees and content work for us. Duplication of work is a great way to stifle innovation, because most news organizations are under a tremendous budget crunch and can’t afford to waste resources like that.

It’s easier to go from Web-first to print than the other way around. Why? Because the Web is incredibly flexible.

It can do all sorts of content incredibly well. Print, for instance, can only do writing, and photos to an extent, well. And print even has major limitations on written content that the Web doesn’t have (arbitrary story lengths, anyone?).

Let’s take the example of a beat reporter. Some beat reporters have begun blogging, but their blogs are often treated as one more thing to do. That’s hardly a way to promote innovative content. In fact, one-more-thing syndrome is a good way to promote staff burnout.

Rather, a blog should be the heart of a beat reporters arsenal — not the 15-inch story. Any time a nugget of information comes in, a beat reporter should blog about it (or post to Twitter or both). As news comes in a blogger can either add to his original post or make a new post.

Twitter updates take seconds to write, but make fantastic notes for longer written pieces later on. This keeps readers updated and interested.

At the end of the day, when the dust has settled, it will be a lot easier to put together a 15-inch story. A beat reporter will already have notes (Twitter is great for this) and several post of content to work with.

But imagine the reverse scenario. A beat reporter concentrates on producing copy for the print edition first. This means no meaningful content will be posted until a story is completed for the print edition (or stories). This also means the story may be an aribitrary length to fit print needs — not the story’s needs. Many beat reporters who operate like this will occasionally dump smaller news items into their blogs.

When people ask “how can we make more time for innovation,” it’s really more about using time more wisely than about making more time. Think about it. Blogging and Twitter are naturally mobile friendly, which saves us even more time while reaching an even broader audience.

That’s another bird killed with the same stone. Any good blog has at least one RSS feed (if not multiple ones for comments and sometimes categories). Google Reader is a fantastic (and free) mobile RSS reader. Without doing any extra work your content is already mobile friendly.

And I don’t have to explain how ridiculously mobile friendly Twitter is. So, now a beat reporter isn’t actually doing any extra work, but he is hitting the Web and mobile with full force. And because of the way blogging and Twitter work, it’s extremely easy to make a print story from all writing that has already been done.

We need to make our content work for us. This means making our content smarter and rethinking how we us staff resources in news organizations.

This is my May post for the Carnival of Journalism. It is currently hosted by Ryan Sholin over at Invisible Inkling.

I’m convinced that most journalists don’t really understand blogs or the power blogs have.

So, it’s time for all journalists to start understanding blogs. Yes, it would be great if all journalists experimented with blogging and blogging software, but that is overkill in some ways and just unreasonable given the reality on the ground (we’ll start with baby steps). We can start with journalists reading and posting on blogs, and then maybe one day we can ask all journalists to get their own blog (blogging is a great way to learn about the Web, new media and social media).

For now, I think it’s reasonable to ask every journalist to pick a few blogs to read and start posting on them. I got this idea from journalism professor Mindy McAdams, who is asking her students to pick a few blogs and post on them. McAdams came up with the idea because she wanted students to start reading blogs (I assume many students did not on their own):

One of the things we try to get journalism students to do is, um, read other people’s blogs. And not only their friends’ blogs!

Here are my suggestions:

1. Pick a few blogs and start reading them - Romenesko does not count. Your friends and colleagues do not count. The Guardian has a list of the world’s most powerful blogs. Or you can check out Technorati’s 100 most popular blogs by amount of fans or authority ranking. Both are great places to start if you don’t know of any blogs. It also makes sense to read blogs about topics you care about.
2. Read before you post - The first time you read a blog is not the best time to post. Read several posts. Read the blog for several days. Then you’ll have an informed opinion about the blogger(s), what the blog is about and, importantly, what the community is like.
3. Post something worthwhile - Don’t just post to post. If you post on a blog, it should be a meaningful comment that helps further discourse. That is the power of blogs. It’s a communal event.

Most journalists do not understand the social aspect of the Web, but blogs are a great crash course in that. All news organizations should encourage their employees to read and participate in blogs.

If you’re on the fence about signing up for Twitter, know this: Twitter can drive traffic to your site.

This blog is less than a year old. I’m 23 years old — hardly an established brand or identity. That’s why I only have a little more than 100 people following me on Twitter.

But Twitter drives traffic to my blog every day, and on some days it is the top non-search engine referrer to my site. Even if you don’t have a lot of followers, Twitter is very viral.

Let’s say I make a new tweet on Twitter about a new blog post. People read it and like it, and then they post that they are reading it on Twitter as well.

Some of their friends find my post through their tweets and then decide that they are going to tweet about my blog post too. And it continues. Suddenly, people who have never read my blog or knew I was even on Twitter are coming to my blog.

All with little work on my part. Now if Twitter drives traffic to my blog, imagine what Twitter could do for a large, established brand.

The secret to getting Twitter to drive traffic is to be interesting. Most news organizations have missed this point. Most news organizations use Twitter accounts to just list their most recent headlines.

Boring. Twitter is not a repurposing tool. It’s a conversation.

The most popular people on Twitter have a brand that people want to know more about. The New York Times Twitter account has about 2,400 followers. Not bad, but blogger Robert Scoble has more than 14,000 followers.

CNN has about 2,100 followers, while venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki has more than 6,500 followers. The major mistake that both the Times and CNN make is that they simply use Twitter as a headline feed. But Twitter is about conversations, not one-way pronouncements.

Before I make a Twitter post, I often talk about what I am writing about, why I am writing it and just give my general thoughts. People can then ask me questions or make comments. It’s a public conversation.

In fact, many times you’ll see me working through my thought process on Twitter before making a blog post. But it gets more people interested in my content. In fact, Twitter is a fantastic brand-building tool.

The Times probably doesn’t see a big traffic bump from 2,400 followers, but an individual like Scoble probably sees a lot of traffic originating from Twitter. Scoble is much more popular on Twitter than the Times or CNN because he uses Twitter as it was meant to be used.

So, how can news organizations use Twitter to generate traffic? First, news organization could begin using Twitter to have conversations about stories they are covering. Imagine a public page 1 meeting, where people can ask questions.

A page 1 concept could be very popular with users. Anyone at the Times who writes a blog or column should have a Twitter account where they share opinions 140 characters at a time. Employees must also be willing to interact with people on Twitter too.

Twitter is also a great way to cover live events in new ways. Many events are not broadcast, and those are good events to Twitter. Heck a reporter could even use Twitter to cover a local government meeting, and then use the tweets to write a full-fledged story.

I’ve done this before, and Twitter works pretty well as a note-taking tool. Plus, it gets people more involved in the process. All without any extra work on my part.

If you use Twitter as merely another one-way conversation tool, it will be nothing more than a really poor version of RSS. But if you use Twitter as the two-way communication tool that it is, not only will you be able to drive traffic, but you’ll most likely be able to discover new readers and users.

In the past week we’ve lost two well-known journalism blogs that used WordPress.

MultimediaShooter.com might be down for the count, and Matt Waite has decided to stop using WordPress after his site was hacked and his MySQL database ruined.

Waite is now developing a custom Django-based platform for his new site. He is done with WordPress, and its security issues. Should we all be concerned about the security of WordPress? Are there better, more secure options available?

I love WordPress and think it’s a fantastic platform, but if it’s not secure enough, I’m wasting my time. An insecure platform can destroy a Web site and a entire company. Hopefully, WordPress 2.5 fixes many of these issues. I wonder which version of WordPress MultimediaShooter and Waite used?

This is yet another reminder of the need to back up regularly. Hopefully, this is not a disturbing trend that is forming.

MySanAntonio.com has a blog dedicated to helping staff bloggers blog better.

What a novel idea! Instead of just telling staff members to blog blindly, they are providing staffers with a resource on what this new medium is and how to utilize it well (and I’m sure blogging is a very new concept to many of their staffers). The blog tackles big and small issues ranging from how to post or edit an entry to discussing ideas about how to improve blogging and integrate better with the newsroom.

A resource like this seems like common sense. Hell, it is common sense, but how many other papers have a public blog where they help their staff bloggers get better? Some news organizations, like mine, give bloggers a Word file with some rules and guidelines.

Blogging is an interactive medium. It’s a two-way conversation. Blogging is ever evolving.

A Word document is none of those. A blog is a fantastic staff resource because it is interactive, it allows for (public) feedback and it is ever evolving. Just as news organizations need to evolve, so do staff resources.

Every news organization that has bloggers should have a resource like this.

Why not blog your beat and then reverse publish the content to print?

People want continuous updates throughout the day. That’s why sites like TechCrunch are so wildly popular. People want experts on niches and they want to get news in real time.

Most good beat writers at newspapers are experts in a niche. Take a local court reporter for example. A newspaper’s local court reporter might be the only media person in the world with intimate knowledge of how that court system works and of the legal issues surrounding the community.

That’s a niche to exploit. The same goes for just about any other beat at a local newspaper.

If you’re a local sports writer and you’re not blogging, you’re an idiot. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. You’re sitting on a gold mine.

Good Beat Blogging is more than just having a blog at your news organization’s Web site. It also means harnessing social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Utterz and others. It means getting your niche content out to your niche in as many ways as possible.

It also means not thinking of your blog as a complement to your print stories. Oh, no no no. Your print stories are a complement to your Beat Blog. Get it straight.

Now don’t think of this as more work. It’s smarter work. Blog content, tweets on Twitter and other postings can be used to make print stories. Twitter can be a great place for electronic and public notes.

Beat Blogging allows reporters to fill in readers as news is happening, not just after news has marinated for a day. But good Beat Blogging requires more than just a savvy reporter. It requires editors and a newsroom culture that allows it. No reporter will ever seriously be good at any kind of new media if he has to write three stories a day.

Until editors and publishers get away from thinking that having reporters write copious amounts of print copy is a good idea, innovative solutions like Beat Blogging will never take hold. And until that day happens, more and more newsroom jobs will have to be cut because of falling revenue.

Let’s get back to the local courtroom reporter example. She can write several blog posts a day, post on Twitter whenever new tidbits come in, send updates to Utterz via her mobile phone and manage a group on Facebook. Then once she has gathered all the information for the day and sorted through it all she can begin to write a good, in-depth analysis piece for the print addition.

Each segment of the content needs to be unique. A blog shouldn’t just be a rehash of tweets on Twitter. Print stories shouldn’t be the same as blog postings.  Multimedia content needs to add to the equation, not just be there for the sake of being there.

Niches are how the Web is won. Beat Blogging is the key for newsrooms to showcase their many niches.

Ultimately, it’s about informing your users at the speed they want to be informed at, which is right now.