I have been blessed to attend the last two national Online News Association conferences, one in D.C. and last year’s in Boston. This year, the celebrated, 13-year-old organization will host its annual event of more than 5,000 members in San Franciso to offer some geographical balance to the affair. There is some call for a [...]

Sometimes, if not most times, what happens outside of the sessions can be what’s most valuable about a conference. I learned plenty the traditional way at the 2011 Online News Association national conference, held in Boston this weekend Sept. 22-25, but I surely got more out of reconnecting with friends and colleagues from other markets, [...]

Online journalism has seen advances editorially, technologically and, more recently and perhaps more importantly, in sustainability, but the industry has yet to efficiently mature its methods of replication, according to my experience last week at the 2010 Online Journalism Association conference. In spring 2009, major conversations were still focusing on what direction anyone should be [...]

The second annual BarCamp NewsInnovation was held last month at Temple University — see my notes here. In addition to sharing all the failures we’ve had at Technically Philly, I spoke with founder and editor Shannon McDonald about the progress we’ve had with Northeast Philadelphia hyperlocal NEast Philly, including most prominently the breakdown of where [...]

Highly localized news and its intersection with profitable, sustainable news is already starting to dominate conversations about the future of news in the United States. The numbers and business plans, relationships with each other and with legacy news organizations and who will be written into history for leading the movement seemed trending themes of the  [...]

Community newspapers in Philadelphia remain wary of the Web, if any stock is to be paid to a morning panel from a journalism innovation conference held this month at Temple University. Their thoughts just might be relevant to community-focused news gathers across the country. Hosted by Temple’s journalism department, the Philadelphia Initiative for Journalistic Innovation [...]

Today I’m in State College, Pa. perhaps making a fool of myself at the 76th annual Pennsylvania School Press Association conference. I was thrilled when someone asked me in December if I’d like to speak to high school kids about multimedia storytelling and online publications. (Apparently people do read this thing!) I thought it even [...]

On Nov. 9 2007, one year ago today, after founding and leading a student newspaper at the Franklin Learning Center for a school year and a half, I was asked to present and take part in a panel discussion on youth journalism at the Journalism Education Association conference held at the Marriot in Center City, [...]