The Journalism Accelerator’s (JA’s) blog reports on a broad range of experiments unfolding in the field. Evolving daily, news and community publishers across journalism networks share much common ground, but have unique brands and market challenges. Posting content on the beat of news, we’re excited by the passion of publishers and hope to document some of the creative ways the business of news continues to re-imagine itself. The blog offers a range of feature content, much of it our reporting out to you what we’re learning from our experimentation across the JA. We think of the blog, related resources and featured items as compost that we hope helps fuel experiments, cross pollinating innovation and emerging practices with the wisdom of the field to seed new ideas.
Posted by Lisa Skube on May 15, 2013
Topics:
Blog Education
A new digital era points to new possibilities for journalism to evolve, survive and thrive. Weigh in on what you think is possible. Credit: Lisa Skube
In this post, the JA is reaching out to students and recent journalism school graduates to learn how they hope to, or are applying, their educations. We invite your revelations, reflections or suggestions, from the classroom to the field, what is your J-school experience? This is an open call for students (and recent grads) to share your comments.
Your input helps the JA bring fresh perspective “from the source” to help give the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication’s team the ability to consider your needs as they design their new Center for Journalism Innovation. Your ideas will help us think proactively about how a new Center might be optimized to fuel your success, as you help us reimagine journalism’s future.
How do students of journalism today hope to gain the skills and insight to deliver new forms of journalism that thrive? What most excites you about journalism and your place in it? And what most frustrates you as you think about your future in journalism?
(more…)
Posted by Lisa Skube on May 3, 2013
Topics:
Blog Education
University of Oregon
Since its launch in June 2011 the Journalism Accelerator has been developing, growing and refining a network to examine emerging business practices for journalism from multiple vantage points. In late April 2013, the JA was awarded an assignment from the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication (SOJC) to produce a market scan to help inform its new Center for Journalism Innovation and Civic Engagement (working title). The Center will be based out of the beautiful Turnbull Center in Portland Oregon, also headquarters for U of O’s digital media master’s degree.
The purpose of the market scan is to get a sense of how schools of journalism are addressing the need for innovation to sustain journalism in the digital age. The JA will apply its crowd sourced, qualified conversation techniques for data collection (on and offline). We will synthesize the information to guide discussion around the mission and vision of the new SOJC Center.
We’ve been finalizing the work plan, having inspirational strategy sessions, rounded out with preliminary discussion across peers and journalism verticals. And the sampling has begun!
We’ll be posting a series of reports this month, this being the first. We anticipate two more posts with specific questions for you to address. Join us in this information quest, as we share back with you the bounty of our findings in pursuit of new knowledge. (more…)
Posted by Nicole Staudinger on April 26, 2013
Topics:
Blog Distribution
Hilary Niles weighs in at the "Building Better Media Policy Reporting from the Ground Up" strategy session in Denver, at the Media Reform conference. Credit: Lisa Skube
In early April, JA participated in the Media Reform event, as Josh Stearns, the Journalism and Public Media Campaign Director for Free Press, described it: “A conference of [hundreds] of grassroots media makers.” JA met and talked with dozens of organizers, journalists and policy experts, attended great panels, and had the additional opportunity to meet with a number of leaders such as Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, executive director of Media Consortium; Lark Corbeil and Kimberly Lavender of Public News Service; Dan Moulthrop and Jill Miller Zimon of The Civic Commons; Tom Glaisyer of the Democracy Fund; Journalism That Matters leaders Michelle Ferrier and Peggy Holman; and digital media expert and journalism veteran Steve Outing, in addition to many, many others paired with numerous inspiring hallway conversations.
Covering the event across social channels, the JA designed social coverage to convey the powerful ideas of the people who came to share, learn and compare notes. Building a narrative across social platforms opens up new strategic ways to participate in content, deepen connections and offer important context. Here’s an overview on different ways you might tap into social channels, to develop your own content stream, build a rich narrative, expand your network and bring more return for the investment. (more…)
Posted by Lisa Skube on April 2, 2013
Topics:
Blog Policy
JA’s Lisa Skube (left) and Nicole Staudinger at 2012 SXSW braving torrential rain. We’ll be taking two umbrellas to Denver. Credit: Lisa Skube
This week, the JA heads to the Media Reform Conference in Denver, brought to us by the good folks at Free Press. The JA gets to be one of the hundreds of participants joining with “Award-winning artists. Hollywood luminaries. Visionary activists. Veteran journalists. [and] D.C. heavyweights.” In addition to the Free Press Media Reform Conference that runs April 4th – 7th in Denver, Journalism that Matters will host “Journalism is Dead; Long Live Journalism” to discuss and consider fresh possibilities for the Front Range news ecosystem. Here’s a useful post from Patrick Kitano featured on Street Fight today focusing on the JTM Denver conference in which he outlines what he hopes to learn while there.
This post is a quick overview of some of the things JA is stoked to do while in Denver at the Free Press event, luminaries we hope to meet, and things we can’t wait to learn more about! We welcome your comments on what you hope to take away, or bring, to the upcoming gathering of great minds and disruptive discussion. (more…)
Posted by Jamison Taffel on March 22, 2013
Topics:
Blog Technology
The goal of responsive web design is a seamless experience across devices.
Responsive design is the big buzz of 2013. If 2012 was foretold to bring prosperity based on the Chinese zodiac, Mashable’s prediction for 2013 forecast a big year for responsive design, presenting a significant paradigm shift in the web design and development world where previously we were restricted by browser or device. With the adoption of responsive design, websites are now engineered to be “device-agnostic,” meaning that it doesn’t matter what device you’re using to view a site, you’re still viewing it in a way that was intentionally designed. The user experience can be controlled across platforms and devices: smart phones, tablets, laptops, PCs, or even a smart TV. In this post we’ll discuss the background and purpose of responsive design, why it is touted as creating a better user experience for media consumers, as well as offer a few tips to convert your site and resources we have found useful where you can learn more. (more…)
Posted by Nicole Staudinger on March 1, 2013
Topics:
Blog Distribution
For JA's social expert Nicole Staudinger, monitoring social is a daily practice. Sharing our best practices with you, what tools do you think we should try?
2012 was a huge year for social. According to Folio’s Greg Levitt, “2013 is shaping up to be the first year that social media eclipses search as the leading source of referral traffic to publishers.” Social media management has become an essential super power to connect with audiences through content and to contextually appeal to readers.
A comment posted on JA by Christopher Sailus (of Sailus Mortgage) makes the point: “Utilizing Twitter to create a market audience can be wildly successful at a very low budget.” But considering most publisher or journalist’s existing work load, how can writing you’ve already produced efficiently build followers, promote deeper content and respond to the needs of your online community in a sustainable and strategic way?
Here on JA, we’ve gathered a treasure trove of free tools that we typically use daily for social monitoring, listening and response. These tools, when used consistently, are invaluable in improving our ability to be responsive to the targeted messages we share and receive, by optimizing (and integrating) the use of our social channels. This is the first, in what will be a series of posts over the year, to share what we’re learning to help you unleash the power of social to deepen your success. (more…)
Posted by Lisa Skube on February 22, 2013
Topics:
Blog Experiments
Started in 2009, the Breaking News Network curates the media and blog feeds in 350-plus cities worldwide to create a real-time ticker tape of social-media-sourced news in each city. The noncommercial network is unique in supporting each city’s civic groups, arts organizations and causes by providing them with a free media voice to connect with their community.
The JA had the opportunity to participate in the recent Street Fight Summit in New York City. While there, Breaking News Network (BNN) founder Patrick Kitano introduced himself.
When BNN was launched three years ago to give voice to community causes, Kitano brought a unique knowledge from early experiments using Twitter (2006 – 2009) and social media to develop hyperlocal community information networks for the real estate market. Focusing on social at the outset, Kitano was “cobbling together” segmented lists on Twitter before Twitter had even created “lists.” (For context, Twitter launched in July of 2006.) This early social community development revealed new ways that Kitano found effectively enabled an active, community-sourced and locally driven information network.
Kitano sees BNN providing a shared social channel – one community, one voice, one cause at a time – with promise of doing good for others by supporting civic groups, local causes and arts organizations. (more…)
Posted by Jamison Taffel on February 8, 2013
Topics:
Blog Technology
Twitter's API changes in March 2013, are you ready?
Twitter’s API (application programming interface) has become so popular that it’s rare you don’t see a website that has a feed of Twitter content or a way to login using your Twitter account. In August 2012, Twitter announced some upcoming changes to its rules and regulations to foster a more consistent user experience across platforms and devices. The deadline to meet the requirements of API v1.1 is March 5, 2013.
This could affect any website that uses the Twitter API and many third-party apps, such as Hootsuite or Flipboard, who have had to make major adjustments to adhere to Twitter’s new rules.
Even Journalism Accelerator has had to make some changes. Are you ready? (more…)
Posted by Emily Harris on January 30, 2013
Topics:
Blog Community
As the final of our four-part series exploring “Was 2012 the year of prosperity for publishers?” – in this post we explore the value of volunteers, intentional curated conversation and connected collaboration for non-profit media. We hear from Mark Glaser, executive editor of PBS MediaShift and Idea Lab; Dan Moulthrop, curator of conversation at The Civic Commons; and Josh Stearns, public media campaign director at Free Press. The third post in JA’s “what we know now” 2012 series offers specific ideas on building public trust, raising money and a free press powered by the people. The second post in the series reveals practical perspective on local advertising, meeting the needs of communities and customer connection. With 2013 now under way, may the lessons of 2012 help pave the way for greater prosperity in the year ahead! (more…)
Posted by Emily Harris on January 23, 2013
Topics:
Blog Revenue
Was 2012 prosperous for publishers? The four-part series continues, with this third installment offering key lessons from three well-respected practitioners known for thinking outside the box. Mike Fancher, veteran news business strategist; Lila LaHood, director of operations and development at San Francisco Public Press; and Keith Hammonds, director of Ashoka’s Knowledge Initiative, offer their unique perspectives. Fancher sums it up as such: “News businesses – emerging or legacy, large or small – won’t be relevant and economically viable if journalists don’t feel a personal responsibility to make public engagement a core tenet of their work.” LaHood offers insights from the nonprofit trenches: “We learned that we weren’t giving our supporters enough different opportunities to support our brand of local public-interest journalism.” And Hammond sees the opportunity to act as a changemaker is to “produce content that’s relevant; connect it to mechanisms that help citizens and communities make change; articulate a value proposition and (not least) ask to be paid.” See their contributions below for useful context you can compare your experience against. Check back next week as we offer the fourth and final post in this series, with contributions from Josh Stearns of Free Press, Mark Glaser of PBS Media Shift and Dan Moulthrop of The Civic Commons. (more…)
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