The newspaper industry has taken a beating in recent years. Shrinking ad revenue has led to tighter newsrooms. Consolidation, downsizing, buyouts, and cutbacks have become familiar within the industry. In the past two years, major daily newspapers reduced staff. These include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, New York Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer,…
Tell me if this sounds familiar: You started something, but never finished it. Maybe it was a blog, podcast, or YouTube channel. Or you took a stab and freelancing, but it never gained momentum. Eventually, you stopped. You’re not alone. When you’re working a full-time journalism job, it can be tough to maintain a side…
2016 was one heck of a year in the world of media. The past year was laden with challenges, including covering a contentious presidential election, making heads or tails of fake news, launching Facebook Live, and processing numerous media consolidations and more layoffs. The election very clearly affected the media game. Several news organizations, most…
News is breaking. Your editor is breathing down your neck. Your deadline is approaching and there are holes to fill in your story – but the central figures are either unavailable or unwilling to talk. Where do you turn? Chances are you go where many of us go for information these days: social media. A Facebook, Twitter…
News happens faster than ever these days. Adding to the speed of information coming in and going out, you must create visually-appealing, tweetable, Instagramable stories that quickly can be re-purposed for the web and/or a blog post. There’s no shortage of sources to tap into to meet the new demands of news reporting. Searching the…
When I sat down to contemplate the biggest media stories of the year, I realized that the subjects I wrote about last year – journalism fears, drones, and plagiarism – were still very much at the center of the news in the news in 2015. The WDBJ shooting, the drone debate, and Brian Williams’ embarrassing…
The shooting of WDBJ reporter Alison Parker and camera man Adam Ward during a routine live shot last week left the country speechless. For journalists, particularly TV reporters who work daily in the field like Parker and Ward were, their brutal death was personal. “Everyone was stuck,” says Indianapolis’ WISH-TV President and General Manager Les…
