30 Aug 2013
Highlight your local manufacturers: a Friday Freebie
On occasional Fridays I’ll offer specific ideas for print/online content. My first Friday Freebie is a feature The Plain Dealer ran on its Sunday Business front for several years. We called it “Made Here.” Each item was just a few inches long: The name of a product, the name of the manufacturer and its location,
29 Aug 2013
How to get past the print-first mindset
Well, there goes one “grass is always greener” belief. Newsrooms that want to adapt to digital ways can find that it’s hard to get their journalists to think about online until it’s almost too late — the stories are almost done, the photos have been taken, and then — oh, I guess we should talk
27 Aug 2013
Ultimately, a teacher is to blame for making me a writer. How about you?
In her Prof KRG blog, Kenna Griffin asks: When did you discover your love for writing? I’d love to hear your stories. She cites a study of journalists in which “Basically, the journalists interviewed spoke about how they always wanted to be journalists, having identified the profession during their youth. The journalists reported that they
27 Aug 2013
Radical idea for hyperlocal coverage: Cover what readers actually read
Completing the series of posts in response to Steve Buttry, he said: Give me a detailed vision of a single slice of your vision for how a newsroom should operate. If I were really looking for a newsroom job right now, I might discuss the nature of a reporter’s job, or how to keep the
26 Aug 2013
Does journalism make a difference in a community?
The first day of my first journalism class in college, we went around the room saying our names and answer a couple of questions from the prof, former Chicago’s American and Chicago Today editor Dick Hainey. There I was, happy to be able to say I was co-editor of my high school paper … happy
26 Aug 2013
‘Almost holy’: 14 quotes about newspapers and journalism
My library is stuffed with books (remember those?) about journalism. From the shelves I plucked “That’s What They Said about the Press” by Keen Rafferty (Vantage, 1975). Rafferty was head of the copy desk at the Baltimore Sun after only three years in the business (or so his bio says) and head of the University
23 Aug 2013
I can tell you the exact moment I became a leader
Steve Buttry asked the questions. I provide the answers. What leadership experience do you have? If the answer is “none,” tell me why you would make a good leader. I can’t remember the exact date, but I can describe the exact moment that I became a leader. I had recently been named editor of The
22 Aug 2013
What digital tools and skills does a newsroom leader need?
As I mentioned yesterday, Steve Buttry sent out a call for journalists to tell him why they should be hired as Digital First editors. I’m not raising my hand, but the questions he asked were interesting. What digital skills and tools do you excel with? Which ones are you learning? (If the answers to both
21 Aug 2013
Why today’s newsrooms need ‘digital people,’ and how to identify them
Steve Buttry, digital transformation editor for Digital First Media, challenged journalists recently to tell him why they should be hired as newsroom leaders. Been there, done that, ready for a different set of frustrations. But some of the questions he raised are worth answering, anyway. Our CEO, John Paton, says we need to “put the
05 Aug 2013
The Plain Dealer’s big changes, explained
Today, Cleveland becomes the latest city to see the result of Advance Digital’s strategy. Many of the headlines about that will, I expect, focus on the number of people who are no longer working for The Plain Dealer. I’m one of them. But this is a man bites dog story: I’m leaving, but I like