Jon Stewart is our generation’s Edward R. Murrow

The greatest journalist of our era is a comedian on a basic cable network.

If J-School doesn’t teach social media, who will?

I just got an e-mail from one of my former journalism professors asking for input on a new class she’s looking to institute.
She’s got some good ideas for the course, centering much of it around multimedia content.
Tucked within her note asking alumni for ideas and input, she included an interesting little unscientific survey she asked [...]

A few reasons I don’t do print news (or book clubs)

I was briefly brainstorming with a friend and colleague today over business model ideas for our publishing clients. Our company supports magazines with back-end solutions – it’s a volume business. More is better.
But the reality is, today there is less and less print business. There’s less subscribers. We’re all scratching our heads.
I don’t have an [...]

School is cool: Drake J-School Jr. NAC highlights

I wasn’t sure what to expect from today, but my immediate reaction is that the best part of sitting on an alumni council is the opportunity to sit in a room of people passionate about two things:
1.) The university
2.) The industry
For me, that’s a rare thing. There were some really bright people in attendance and [...]

Confessions from someone with the word “Internet” in their degree

I have a degree in News/Internet Journalism from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
I learned a whole lot. Worked with smart people. Even won an award or two.
Thus, I was honored when I was recently asked to join the J-School’s Junior National Alumni Council based on my young career in communications and my interest in [...]

Community media project, part 4 of 4: Other applications

I’m going to go ahead and wrap up my initial thoughts on this community media project with a few of the ways I think it could be used elsewhere.
Up until now, I’ve focused on some specific small-town media sources and lobbed a lot of large stones toward their small staffs, budgets and circulations. I’m not [...]

Idea for community media, part 3 of 4: How to build it

I’ve discussed the mission of my media project and I’ve offered some thoughts on the content, the sources and a few of the ways people would adopt it.
Now on to the practical issue: How do you build it?
When thinking about this project, a few things really matter:

It’s got to be simple. Simple to add content, [...]

Small town media idea: You asked, I typed

I love the reaction and discourse that’s developing around my community media idea. A big thanks to both Jim and Julie for bringing up some good discussion points in the comments.
Here’s a few of my thoughts on some of these points (paraphrased):
1.) “This isn’t investigation, it’s not breaking news and it’s not a third-party watchdog. [...]

Idea for small town media, part 2 of 4: Content, sources and buy-in

In my last post I outlined the mission of my community journalism project. This project takes a tool (social media) and places it in an environment with little to no existing conversation.
In case you missed it, here’s the mission again:
To create an online forum to offer a conversation about the existing diverse passions and stories [...]

Idea for small town media, Part 1 of 4: The mission

In my last post, I outlined my general thoughts on the crappy media coverage that small communities endure.
I also gave a vague overview of a possible solution – a blog-based site in which the content is provided largely from the community itself.
Think Huffington Post, only very different.
But the platform of the Post got me thinking [...]