Quit yer complainin’!

Two recent developments in the print world are worth a closer look. The Newspaper Association of America says online audiences for newspapers grew by about six percent in 2007. According to an Associated Press article:
Web sites run by newspapers had an average of 60 million unique U.S. visitors per month in 2007, up [...]

Web jobs open at TV stations

Broadcasting & Cable has a compelling article about TV stations and station owners re-thinking their Web strategies. The article points to multiple examples of news organizations shifting resources to the Web through new hires and job restructuring.
To find ample resources for the Web, some managers are converting broadcast positions to Web ones. When [...]

New Newseum worth a trip

The opening date still isn’t set, but the Newseum is shaping up to be a must see for journalists in DC when it finally does open this spring. The “interactive museum of news” on Pennsylvania Ave. will be ten times larger than its predecessor in suburban Virginia, which closed in 2002. I [...]

What’s an online journalist?

It may sound like a simple question, but Craig McGill says it wasn’t easy to find a definition for the term online or digital journalist:
I’ve asked a bunch of people this question over the last few days - inside and outside media circles - and the answers have ranged from “they type the stories up [...]

FCC changes ownership rules…again

It took 32 years, but the FCC has now said broadcasters in the country’s 20 largest television markets can also own a newspaper in the same market.
But, if ever there was a continuing story, this is it. According to the Associated Press, Congress is likely to weigh in on this issue again soon, but [...]

Users want video

OK, so you’re wondering what’s the news here? We know people like video online. Well, the marketing and research firm, Horowitz & Associates, put out a news release this week that says 6 out of every 10 high-speed Internet subscribers watch or download video at least once a week. More than one [...]

Unlearn what you know

Three misconceptions about the audience are leading journalists to produce vapid journalism for the Web, says Robert Niles in the Online Journalism Review. Do you think today’s audience suffers from too-short attention spans, can’t handle details and hates numbers? Wrong, wrong, wrong, says Niles.
Attention spans are not the issue. Competition for time is. People will [...]

Convergence controversy

The FCC is once again talking about changing the rules that prevent companies from owning a TV station and a newspaper in the same town. But, according to the New York Times, the rule change might actually force some companies to sell off a TV station or newspaper in the same town. Here’s [...]

Understanding “net neutrality”

What happens if the big Internet service providers (ISPs) decided to make some online content more readily available than other content? And what if the easy access is provided just to content produced by companies that pay the ISPs for the privelege? Sounds a little scary, right?
Well, that’s the controversy behind the issue [...]

The new “News at Seven”

In our textbook, “Advancing the Story: Broadcast Journalism in a Multimedia World,” we describe a virtual newscast being developed by Northwestern University’s InfoLab (www.newsatseven.com). Now, a new customizable version of News at Seven is live on the site, albeit in a Beta launch.
Previously, the site displayed a virtual newscast in which the stories [...]