In all of regions, there is a great need to envision the future of the metro newsroom, which feature smart, engaged reporters on a variety of beats able to work together to better inform other residents and keep government honest. In a fractured media ecosystem, the newsroom of the future is coworking for independent media. [...]

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 [...]

Meet Ph.ly, the local URL shortener and the curated weekly email that will make you a better Philadelphian. Try the tool and add your email here. Last week, we at Technically Media announced that we launched Ph.ly, which has two primary features. URL shortener with a Philly focus — Try ph.ly/connect to see how domains [...]

A small group of journalism practitioners in Philadelphia were treated with the chance to have dinner and throw questions at MinnPost CEO Joel Kramer Tuesday night. Kramer is the former publisher of the Minneapolis Start-Tribune and a frequent example of success in growing public affairs journalism online. I was blessed to be among them and [...]

Ownership concerns be damned, the publisher of the largest news organization in one of the largest markets in the country needs to make a major shake up in company structure and output or face a continued decline. The Philadelphia Media Network, owners of the city’s two daily newspapers and most trafficked news site, announced almost [...]

In honor of the passing of Steve Jobs, I was trolling through videos of the Apple co-founder. I came across one that was very relevant to the news industry today. More than a year ago, Steve Jobs spoke about the iPad and Apple’s broad role in touching publishing and journalism, during a broader interview at [...]

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, [...]

Academic Clay Shirky tossed down another great post ahead of an undergraduate course he’s teaching at NYU. In the end, he calls for more chaos — more competitive approaches to creating meaning news for citizens, beyond news for consumers. You ought to read the whole piece, but here are a couple of my favorite parts: [...]

Almost two years later, I read the entire Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age, the report of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities. Debuted in September 2009, I tackled the 80-page document for “the Hardly. Strictly. Young conference I attended in April at the University of Missouri, which was dedicated [...]

A friend recently told me that everyone should have at least one good analogy every few months. He’s already heard my Journalism needs a catering business spiel, in which I suggest meaningful, public affairs reporting needs to be an audience or reputation grower for something more profitable. That is, if journalism is the low yield [...]