Studying the intersection of journalism, interactive communications and public discourse
What’s the role of the local press in a Donald Trump presidency? WNPR invited me to participate in a live town hall discussion of the topic on Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, with Hartford Courant Publisher Andrew Julien and Journal Inquirer Managing Editor Chris Powell. (I start talking around the 12-minute mark.)
“[News] is the product of a bunch of people sitting in a room, using their own best judgment. Their own best judgment is shaped by their own lives. If you do not have people in that room who lived a very wide array of different types of lives, your publication will have holes.” —Hamilton Nolan, …
The Hartford Business Journal publisher Joe Zwiebel invited me to participate in a “power breakfast” panel discussion on April 27 about Technology in the Work Place: What’s New and What’s Coming. Below is a summary of my remarks: Q. How is technology changing your industry? When it comes to the business of journalism, there are two forces affecting …
Social networks are changing from open to closed. See WhatsApp, FireChat, Weibo. These are private spaces, invite only. New/old sourcing skills required for journalists looking for access. Finding reliable sources via social still boils down to relationships, journalism verification skills, ethics. Use Twitter lists. It helps you organize your sources. Vicarious trauma is being brought …
Journalists are more than storytellers. We are more than researchers. Journalism requires skill and bravery, a strong ethical center, flexibility and creativity, social skills, technical smarts and an inherent desire to serve the public and the greater good. It is dynamic and important and still one of the best jobs in the world. Let’s nurture …
Journalism students with little exposure to data, spreadsheets or graphic design are often intimidated by the idea of information “visualization.” There are myriad ways to adapt text and numbers into interactive pictures. To ease my “Introduction to Online Journalism” students into the practice of visualization, we embark on a three-part initiation. During the 2015 Journalism/Interactive …
Is freedom of expression a universal and inalienable right? What about free expression posted on the Internet? On April 6, 2015, the UConn Global House Learning Community invited me to participate in a timely panel discussion on how ideas of free speech and freedom of expression vary across the world and how the 21st century …
Below is a presentation I gave at “Data Driven Connecticut 2014: Progress and Possibilities | Moving from Data to Action: A Connecticut Data Collaborative Conference” on Friday, November 24, 2014 at Yale School of Management, Evans Hall, New Haven, Connecticut. I joined a panel of professional journalists to explore new developments and trends in data-driven …
A journalist’s professional reputation hinges upon credibility. Journalistic credibility is a recipe with five ingredients: Your published body of work, the organization you work for, the company you keep (friends, colleagues, followers, fans), what others may say about you, and, lastly, how you conduct yourself in public. Nowadays, “public” includes any online posts accessible by an …
For better or worse, social networks are an integral part of how people communicate now. It’s how people share news and their emotional reaction to it. The 24-hour online news cycle delivers a never-ending avalanche of information, misinformation, reaction, shock, surprise, disgust, satire, confusion, reposts/retweets, commentary, debate, speculation, collaboration and trolls. Online news and social …