Zombie Journalism

Industry News and Ideas

Is there a flaw in the proposed federal shield law? This scathing rebuttal to an overwhelming support of a Federal Shield Law has definitely caused me some pause. For every organization that needs a shield law to protect sources that deserve it, others can exploit it to push through a salacious story [...]

I’ve had a bunch of links sitting around I meant to share forever ago, but they fell through the cracks. So if they seem a little late, well, too bad.
Cool Stuff

A lot of sites (Cincinnati.Com included) have been running with the idea of expanding data coverage on local crime, but the Knight News [...]

“New” Tools and Technology

Prior to its demise, Editor & Publisher had written about allegedly “new tools” the newspaper in Knoxville uses to police website comments. First of all, I find it alarming that anyone, particularly a publication supposedly in the know about our industry, would find this community management approach new or innovative. I say [...]

I read a lot of industry blogs and they generally all boil down to two topics: complaining about the Internet (or complaining about people complaining about the Internet) and lamenting the future of news.

The past couple of weeks have seen the roll out of a few new looks and ideas for online news presentation that really seem to focus on the observed needs and desires of readers, while not ignoring how much the online medium has to offer.

Oh, Rupert
News Corp’s Murdoch says he’ll hide his content from Google very soon. I’ll believe it when I see it. And if he does do it, how long will it take for regret to set in?
Pay Models
Alan Mutter points to the indicators and recent comments from newspaper execs that all point to a continuation of [...]

Here’s a collection of great tips and how-tos I’ve found lately you might find helpful if you want to break into media – or break out. Includes tips on YouTube, data mapping, UGC, training and starting your own blog.

A roundup of recommended links from around the web on the Federal Shield law, newspapers as non-profits, who’s charging for online content, removing content from Google, Twitter, news blogging networks and more.

The 2009 Technorati State of the Blogosphere Report has got some great demographics about bloggers that online news orgs would be good to know, as a lot of them are voracious news consumers.

Don’t bother reading Len Downie’s “Reconstruction of American Journalism” report. It’s long, it’s boring and it doesn’t offer anything new. Instead, check out its critics.