A new career path?

If you’ve heard this once, you’ve heard it a million times. The path to a major market TV job starts in a very small market, where you can learn on the job and make mistakes that won’t kill your career. It’s good advice, but it’s not the only way. Gil Matos is [...]

Diversity lacking in sports journalism

It’s the second year for bad news when it comes to the diversity of newspaper sports departments.  According to Editor & Publisher, a survey from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports (TIDES) has found an overwhelming majority of white males behind this country’s sports pages.
“This report shows that in 2008, 94% of the [...]

Video wins online

A new study says PBS.org has seen its Web traffic grow in part because of “enhancements” to its video offerings. TV Week reports that a Hitwise survey finds PBS.org had more total U.S. visits in the past month than the other broadcast network Web sites. PBS says its traffic overall is up about 25 [...]

Farewell OJR

I’m a little behind on this unfortunate development: the Online Journalism Review is no more. Editor Robert Niles says the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School has decided to pull the plug. While he doesn’t offer much in the way of an explanation, Niles says USC will focus its online efforts for professionals [...]

Powerful local TV Web sites

A short while ago, we published a post about some of the best newspaper Web sites; now here’s a look at some of the most heavily visited local TV sites.  Broadcasting & Cable reports that newspapers generally dominate local Web traffic, but there are exceptions.
According to “What Local Media Web Sites Earn: 2008 Survey,” recently released by [...]

More ratings info

Sometime this summer, Nielsen will begin providing information about who is watching what when they’re away from home. For a long time, many in the television industry have complained that they don’t get “credit” for people watching their programming in hotels, bars, gyms, etc.  Now, according to Media Post, the “Nielsen Out-of-Home Report” may be [...]

New model for investigative reporting?

Everyone knows that newsrooms have been cutting staff and shrinking their budgets. When there aren’t enough people to get the daily job done, in-depth reporting can suffer. What’s to be done?
Chuck Lewis thinks he has an answer. The founder of the Center for Public Integrity is launching a new “workshop” at American [...]

Journalists’ memorial

More than 60 years ago, Edward R. Murrow stood on the rooftop at the BBC’s Broadcasting House in London and reported live to American listeners as German planes bombed the city. Now, that rooftop is the site of a stunning new memorial to journalists killed while doing the dangerous job of keeping the public [...]

Remembering Russert

Journalists everywhere are mourning the loss of NBC’s Tim Russert, one of the really good guys in the TV news business. Full disclosure: Tim was my husband’s boss. He wasn’t just a tenacious questioner as moderator of Meet the Press. He wasn’t just a great communicator, able to convey a story’s significance in [...]

Tornado damage map

After a tornado wiped out a third of a nearby town on Memorial Day, the Des Moines Register created an interactive map on its Web site that lets users “see the breathtaking scope of the disaster house-by-house, with photos and stories from the survivors.” The map is color-coded to show the level of damage, [...]