Changing Journalism Education

There’s been quite a bit of discussion online of late about what the heck journalism schools are doing while Rome burns. Patrick Thornton, editor of Beatblogging.org, posed some questions on the subject yesterday on Twitter (#jedu #jschool) asking how educators are keeping pace with innovation and if not, what the hold up is.
My perspective after [...]

Theory (of all things) Can Shed Light on Jarvis/Rosenbaum Dustup

I read about the tiff between Ron Rosenbaum and Jeff Jarvis today with some interest – and not only because like any cantankerous journalism type, I’m drawn inexorably if reluctantly to conflict.
In a nutshell, Rosenbaum, writing for Slate, basically calls Jarvis a pompous pontificator who thinks he has all the answers and who almost appears [...]

Do Social Media, and Do it Now

Although many Web-savvy journalists have embraced social media in a variety of creative ways that enhance reporting and help them fulfill core journalism values, evidence seems to abound lately that far too many are still behind the curve.
After attending sessions on the future of news at the Missouri School of Journalism’s big centennial bash [...]

Media Writing Students

You can follow my students as they develop their newswriting and reporting skills on our class blog.  We’ve just gotten started by putting up some bios thus far.  This is the first class University of Memphis students take where they start learning the basics of doing journalism, so we will mostly be practicing writing a [...]

Journalism as Conversation

Changing Newsroom is back after a brief hiatus! I’ve moved to Memphis and am gearing up for the start of the semester, and as thus am hoping to start posting more again.
Today’s post is brilliant, if I do say so myself — cause, well, I didn’t write it. This guest post comes to you [...]

Why Raines is Wrong About Romenesko

Busy dissertating, preparing to move to Memphis, getting ready to start a new job, and planning a wedding, I didn’t notice this article by Howell Raines until a journalist friend of mine sent it to me.
Apparently Raines thinks that Romeneko’s “gossip” site “inadvertently ushered in the era of fact-free journalism.”
Huh?
Does anybody else find it a [...]

Back. Back Again.

Sorry for the brief blog hiatus! Er. Well, that’s assuming that anybody actually misses my pontifications, which is probably unlikely. Anyway. The past couple of weeks have been pretty crazy. Last week I headed down to Memphis, where I will be an assistant professor of journalism starting this fall, to [...]

Disruptive Innovation: It’s All About Process, Baby

I’m reading a book (when I have time, which is clearly not very often) called The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen of Harvard Business School.  It was recommended to me by my very smart friend and colleague Jonathan Groves.  I’m not very far along, but thought I would share a bit of what I’ve [...]

Revving Up that News Engine and Taking on TV

I’m finding myself wondering what a new spirit of competition will mean for local news.
My research shows that it is finally dawning on newspapers that they can rev up that news engine that invariably is the biggest one in town and, with an increased focus on immediacy, compete with local TV news and radio at [...]

Unhappy Journalists Aren’t Productive Journalists

I hope to periodically use this blog to summarize recent academic research relevant to managing change in the newsroom. Today I picked up one of the Newspaper Research Journals that have been piling up on my desk, untouched, and spent a few minutes quickly reading through a study that found that one-third of copy [...]