Month: February 2009

Accidental freelancing

What is a recently laid off journalist to do? You need to make a living but you’ve lost your job.  Freelancing is one option but the transition isn’t easy, says Michelle Goodman, who’s been a full time freelancer since 1992.…

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Say no to staging

It’s always good to be reminded that there are ethical lines in journalism that shouldn’t be crossed. One of them is staging–telling people what to do or asking them to repeat what they’ve done so you can get it on…

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Twitter your resume

What can you say in 140 characters?  The Media is Hirin’ Twitter feed is collecting short text resumes from journalists looking for jobs. Among my favorites so far: Will Work for Milk Duds: Nationally known film critic Larry Ratliff looking…

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The Web changes crime & coverage

Crime reporting is a staple of local news, so it’s important for journalists to provide context for their stories. At the 4th Annual Guggenheim Conference on Crime in Society, dozens of criminal justice reporters, criminologists and representatives of law enforcement…

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Using nat sound online

In TV news, natural sound is the other part of every picture–even if the sound is silence. You have to capture it by getting a mic close enough to pick up good quality ambient sound. Then you have to use…

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Should journalists be armed?

The question, posted on the international journalists’ network IJNet, drew me up short. Wouldn’t carrying a weapon jeopardize a journalist’s neutral status? Couldn’t it put them more at risk, especially in a war zone where a gun could make them…

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No simple job

The digital development director at WUSA-TV in Washington, DC, doesn’t just manage the station’s Web site. Patrick O’Brien is also in charge of five local microsites focused on everything from young moms to entertainment to high school sports.  So what…

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Charging for content

How can a news organization make real money online? The answer may be the key to survival for many mainstream news outlets, but nobody’s really found the magic formula yet.  Most sites depend on advertising, which does bring in revenue…

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Ten rules for video journalists

Everybody likes lists, right? Travis Fox of the Washington Post shared his “10 golden rules” for video journalists at a recent workshop at the University of Miami on creating video narratives.  [Thanks to Chrys Wu for sharing this, as well…

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Newspapers fight back

Tired of all the “print is dead” headlines, a group of newspaper executives is fighting back.  The Newspaper Project, launched today, will counter what organizers call “the misrepresentation of newspapers and their continuing importance to the public, to the marketplace…

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