Cluetrain told us that markets are conversations. Now Seth Godin tells us those conversations need leaders, that people want to become part of the “tribe.” How does this apply to journalism? Practicing “news as a conversation instead of a lecture” was the first step. The next step is to lead the conversation. In Godin’s new […]
Archive for October, 2008
Mark Briggs 
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October 28th, 2008
Spam attack
The spambots finally found this blog so I apologize if you saw any content vandalism here the past few days. I’ve turned off trackbacks and activated the Akismet plug-in in an attempt to keep it clean around here. Just wondering: how do you spend your day programming a spambot to spread the garbage I had […]
October 23rd, 2008
Tomorrow’s journalism will be whatever you make it
I’m at Western Washington University this week as a visiting professor, speaking to a number of classes in the communications school on the concepts of Journalism 2.0. The core message I’m trying to deliver: tomorrow’s journalism will be whatever you make it. Sure, jobs at traditional news organizations are disappearing. But opportunities to influence, inform […]
October 21st, 2008
It’s time to add collaboration to the journalism playbook
Recently, Scott Karp asked if algorithms will make human editors obsolete and replace them on the web. It is an excellent question in this age of emerging technology and dwindling human resources at most traditional news companies. The same group of editors who shuttered at the first look of Google News a few years ago […]
October 14th, 2008
Market forces drive smart content decisions
Recently I was part of a strategic content planning session for a traditional newsroom. Given that the newspaper had recently been through a couple rounds of buyouts and layoffs, like most newspapers, I figured there would be some serious reinvention occurring in this brainstorming meeting. Boy, was I wrong. The editors, reporters and visual journalists […]
October 11th, 2008
Osder: Be relevant and useful versus arrogant and entitled
Digital technology hasn’t just changed the way we do journalism. It has created a new information ecosystem. Journalists today need to be navigators in this realm. And to navigate, one has to know the lay of the land and be comfortable operating in it. I previously wondered what online journalists need to know now. I […]
October 7th, 2008
In case you’re still wondering: Digital is not an option
In an era of dwindling resources, mainstream news organizations are more tempted than ever to retreat. On Friday, The News Tribune said goodbye to five journalists who spent more than a century (combined) covering their community. On Monday, I led a discussion on how to raise the level of quality for the user comments posted […]
October 3rd, 2008
Into the void: newspaper layoffs may create new competition
Previously I suggested that most local news organizations are not nearly local enough, especially considering the ample opportunity provided by the web. So is that opportunity lost? Not yet, but it’s pretty easy to see how it could be. LostRemote shows us how hyperlocal blogs are building audience and building a sustainable business in Seattle. […]
October 1st, 2008
The four C’s of building a new local market
Local newspaper web sites have made a lot of progress during the past 10-plus years since they were first launched. Video, blogs, comments, constant updates – the list is long. But one area that hasn’t evolved much at all on local news web sites is … strangely … the local news section. If you click […]
