If all the timing was right on track, some time this month or next, a CEO might be named for a new collaborative nonprofit news and information project being initially funded by the William Penn Foundation. As first shared here, the deeply invested regional foundation put an initial $2.4 million onto the table to form [...]

For Philly.com to maintain and expand upon its role as the dominant hub site in the Philadelphia region, it needs to become a comprehensive, collaborative and open source for all news, information and analysis that happens, reflects and impacts this metro area. For 15 years, the now Philadelphia Media Network-owned news website has exclusively featured [...]

Here’s something completely unoriginal: you’re going to get flat-ass rejected, crushing whatever self-indulgent perspective you have on yourself, and then you will go some place magical and it will change you. Here’s my submission to the #jcarn FAIL blog ring. In 2003, I was an involved and eager high school senior who struggled to focus [...]

Tradition matters to me. It gives us culture. It is a way to pay remembrance for those who came before. Yes, it’s a little bit fun. In the world of news, there is a lot of tradition that needs to be lost. Unquestioned impartiality, balance without real context, an ignorance and distance of what funds [...]

Above, TED co-founder Chris Anderson talks about the impact of Youtube and other online video has on the world. Youtube was a powerful part of moving forward content dissemination on the web. Suddenly there was a free place to host, distribute and embed easily video that drove traffic and audience. About which time Youtube was [...]

It came to mind that I toss around a handful of phrases with enough frequency and a long enough time that I feel they have sufficiently affected how I orient myself to what is around me. Maybe some will have meaning to you. Fifty percent of people are better off than you, and 50 percent [...]

I was inside Di Bruno Bros., Philadelphia’s beloved, 70-year-old artisan cheese shop and gourmet delicatessen, when something very apparent sunk in for me. They’ll sell me a block of Manchego sheep’s milk cheese for $5, or bratwurst or beef from the region for a few dollars a pound. It’s profitable and prominent. But I’d bet [...]

I am not going back to freelancing. Last month, I came on full-time with Technically Media, a company I helped launch and produces Technically Philly. Still, going back on my own, in some form, has returned me to thinking about and combing through some of the advice I collected in 2009, during my year freelancing. [...]

The William Penn Foundation board of directors has pledged a three-year $2.4 million grant to Temple University to incubate “a new organization designed to strengthen our region’s capacity for professionally-produced public interest journalism,” as described by strategic consultant Michael Greenle. “This will fund journalism, support other outlets and find and cover gaps in coverage,” said [...]

Smart people are making calculated investments in Philadelphia’s journalism community. The local NPR affiliate here is getting attention for its NewsWorks online news campaign. The William Penn Foundation is moving ahead with its mission-orientated drive toward increasing public affairs journalism in the region. New ownership for the Inquirer crew can mean some fresh ideas. Independent [...]