2011 on my blog: Digital First, Twitter, branding, TBD and other themes

My move to Journal Register Co. and Digital First Media and my work for my new companies dominated my writing this year on this blog. I’ve reviewed my blogging each of the past two years, so I’ll do it again in a post that clearly is self-indulgent. Still, I think it’s good to look back [...]

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Digital First journalism blog posts (in a print format)

I have compiled all of my recent series on Digital First journalism as a pdf. Yeah, it’s a little odd to present Digital First content in a format so people can print it. But I already acknowledged that the purpose of the series was to help people through a transition from print to digital. If [...]

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Iowa caucuses have hogged first place in our political line too long

Let’s bid farewell to the Iowa caucuses. They’ve had a long run, but it’s time for someone else to launch the presidential campaign process. This state with far more hogs than people has hogged its place at the front of the political line far too long. It is past time for the Hawkeye State to [...]

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How Digital First succeeds at making money

I have blogged this week about various aspects of Digital First journalism. For any of that to succeed, Digital First must succeed as a business. It will. It is. I’m not going to explain that in detail in this post, though. I’m going to shift to curation (an important process and skill in Digital First [...]

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Leading a Digital First newsroom

Digital First editors are caught in transition. Many are longtime print editors. However much they have been embracing and resisting the digital transformation the past couple decades (and most of us have been doing some of both), they understand now that the future is digital and they want to help lead that newsroom of the [...]

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10 ways to think like a Digital First journalist

Digital First journalists think creatively and individually, so this is a post that can’t be completely true. To whatever extent my observations here are true, Digital First journalists will reflect wide variety in the degree and application of the ideas and views I describe here. But I think these are ways many Digital First journalists [...]

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Digital First journalists: What we value

Journalism values are not timeless and etched in stone. Values have changed through the years and the Digital First journalist recognizes that they are changing today. In some ways, a Digital First journalist shares the values of traditional journalism but may pursue them in different ways. In other ways, we pursue values that we think [...]

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How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work

Digital First means different priorities and processes for journalists. The name and approach of my company, Digital First Media, is getting a lot of attention in journalism, and other companies have declared they will follow a digital-first approach. But I don’t think the approach is yet widely or well understood. As I’ve visited our company’s [...]

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Larry Altman’s account of live-tweeting a breaking news story

Larry Altman of the Daily Breeze in Torrance, Calif., told me in an email how he worked a recent breaking story. It’s a great example of live-tweeting the unfolding story, with some good crowdsourcing and a correction supplied by the community. And it all starts with some excellent fundamental reporting. “I received a tip from [...]

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Examples of live-tweeting government meetings

Continuing my discussion of live-tweeting as a reporting tool: “ @stevebuttry I saw your post the other day about court reporting using twitter. Do you have good examples of gvmnt/board meeting reporting? David A. Johnson December 15, 2011 11:32:58 PM EST ReplyRetweet Here’s the blog post I wrote last week that prompted the question: A [...]

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A first try at live-tweeting from the courtroom

In a webinar this week, I covered some basic Twitter techniques for journalists and mentioned live-tweeting trials and meetings as an example. Thursday, Lisa Fernandez of the San Jose Mercury News live-tweeted a sentencing for the first time: “ Omar Siddiqui just arrived at federal courthouse in San Jose for sentencing. Lisa Fernandez December 8, [...]

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Q&A from Twitter webinar: hashtags, retweets, search, photos, getting buy-in

I didn’t have time during yesterday’s Twitter webinar to answer all the questions. I will provide quick answers here (so I can get to them all today), no more than one paragraph each. If you’d like me to elaborate on a topic, tell me in the comments and I may make it a future blog [...]

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