Wanted: Vision for community engagement

One of the exciting things about my new job is that we’re going to try some things that haven’t been done before. We’re going to try some things that haven’t been done before on the scale we’re doing them. We’re going to try different ways of doing things journalists have been doing for years. So [...]

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User experience is the key to success

User experience is critical to the success of a business. As I work on community engagement plans for a startup Washington metro news operation, I know that the user experience we provide will determine our success. We need to give users the news they want. We need to help users engage with us and each [...]

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Anonymity or identity: Which is the best way to handle comments?

I was too busy yesterday enjoying beautiful spring weather, a beautiful baby granddaughter and exciting NCAA basketball to join a lively Twitter discussion of anonymous comments. One of the primary discussants (it wasn’t combat, but it was pretty vigorous) was Mathew Ingram of GigaOm, who blogged about the topic (and has a link to a [...]

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Leading your colleagues toward prosperity

This is the handout I prepared for a newsroom leadership workshop for the Maynard Academy today at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. Here are my slides for the presentation. The business models that have supported traditional media for decades are breaking down. Some critical elements of the economic crisis: Newspaper circulation was 31% of [...]

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Preparing and delivering workshops and presentations

This is the handout for a workshop I am presenting for the Maynard Academy Thursday at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. This is an updated version of a handout I have used (and posted online) before. However well you know a topic, you need to master presentation skills if you want to teach colleagues [...]

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Thoughts on redirecting and rejuvenating a career

I knew a lot about journalism in 1997. I was 26 years into an exciting career, enjoying a rewarding run as a reporter following success as an editor. But I’ve redirected and rejuvenated my career twice since then. Those efforts led me to opportunities and success I could not have imagined 13 years ago. From [...]

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Resources for journalists using Twitter

Journalism professor Julie Posetti has compiled a helpful analysis of the use of Twitter by political journalists in Australia, The #Spill Effect: Twitter Hashtags and Australian Political Journalism. I highly recommend reading it and will deliberately not quote or summarize it extensively here because you should just read it. I will. though, note her summary of [...]

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