Local TV news is, perhaps even more than other in the media business, a ratings game. That’s a distinct takeaway I had, leaving NBC Philadelphia headquarters on City Line Avenue after the latest local ONA meetup featured the affiliate’s web strategy and news direction. More than 50 journalists, NBC 10 representatives, bloggers, freelancers and other [...]

When the inevitable annual news story comes out about the latest politician having cheated on his wife, people question why leaders cheat. There are some obvious reasons to me: Long campaign hours — Same as workaholics, being away from home offers a lot of opportunity for philandering. Lots of people interaction — When campaigning and [...]

In three years at Technically Philly, I’ve noted a change in the sources that bring me the ideas for the stories I do. It made me think if it’s a trend that other niche media follow. In order to develop a baseline, I did some estimating and created some crude graphs roughly looking at where [...]

Prideful, working class white ethnic neighborhoods in cities have been ignored and poorly represented for at least a half century, goes a major theme of Peter Binzen’s 1968 Whitetown USA dissection. [Google Books here.] Written by a former Philadelphia Bulletin newspaper reporter with whom I was thrilled to have lunch last month, the book attacks [...]

Two premises: (a) Generations are cyclical. (b) Technology is everything we were alive to see invented. If my peers today are a part of an incredible age of change and innovation, when what is new is what matters most, I believe that my children’s generation in 20 years or so, will be characterized by rebelling [...]

Choosing between local impact or broader scale is a vital differentiation in our professional paths. My buddy Daniel Victor was named the new social media editor of nonprofit public affairs news outfit Pro Publica, and so I reluctantly bade him farewell from his brief few months at Philly.com and with the local ONA chapter. Having [...]

News organizations should recognize themselves to be either a fire hose or a neighborhood block party and, if particularly robust, they should have both and discern the different strategies for each. After joining an Aspen Institute Roundtable in D.C. back in June, I met up with NPR Project Argo’s Matt Thompson, who I teamed up [...]

The celebrated HBO historical drama Boardwalk Empire, set in Prohibition-era Atlantic City, is making its way through its second season, and I’m catching up, having recently finished watching the first season. The well-funded period piece, with backing from Scorsese, Wahlberg and others, tracks the life and times of a character based on a real political [...]

Is our recession another blip in centuries of economic rises and falls or is something darker happening? Part of me agrees with the recent post from media critic Jeff Jarvis, who voiced a concern I’ve been working through myself: efficiency-creating technology has continued to speed and, well, there are a lot of old people coming. [...]

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter gave an hour of his time this week to answer resident questions that came to host NBC 10 by way of email, Twitter and Facebook, as we reported on Technically Philly in sharing video of the event. Nutter has already been praised for use of Twitter – a move we had [...]