Near the close of the OpenDataRace, a popularity contest for data sets that affect nonprofit missions, I was asked onto NewsWorks Tonight, the daily, local drive-time news radio show from NPR affiliate WHYY. We recorded the segment last week and it aired Monday. Read more about the contest here, see the data sets and register [...]

A newly funded ‘apps and maps’ studio at Temple University could be another part of the ‘connective tissue’ between early stage ideas from novice entrepreneurs and sales worthy or impact-driven ideas, I told WHYY reporter Maiken Scott last week for her story on the news. I reported on the funding for Technically Philly. Read her [...]

Nearly a year after launching, the team behind the NewsWorks community-driven online news effort from WHYY, the Philadelphia public media organization, shared its lessons. It was the third event from a revived local chapter of the Online News Association. After an hour of beer donated by Boxcar Brewing, sandwiches from the Trolleycar Diner and pretzels [...]

As part of its agreement with FCC to take over majority stake in NBC Universal, Comcast pledged to, among other things, bolster local news. A half dozen NBC local affiliates, including Philadelphia, announcing a request for proposals to partner with nonprofit news organizations is just that. I’d sure hope attention is being paid by WHYY [...]

NewsWorks Tonight, the daily, local, drive-time news radio program on NPR-affiliate WHYY in Philadelphia, invited me on for a segment that aired Monday about the launch of OpenDataPhilly.org and other new data initiatives. Though I was sure to note during my interview that OpenDataPhilly was built by development shop Azavea, unfortunately that was cut in [...]

Creating a bold and serious collaborative niche membership network with existing and emerging independent media should be a primary objective of WHYY, the Delaware Valley public media organization. Highlighted by its six-month-old NewsWorks online news site and hyperlocal news experiment, WHYY has attempted to recast itself as something more than a stodgy PBS TV channel [...]

Sometimes journalists are desperate for any schlub to give perspective on an event, and I’m there to fill in the cracks. News broke this week that eBay purchased regional e-commerce shop GSI Commerce, and WHYY was interested in whether an exit was good or bad for the region. (I said the region needs balance: exits [...]

A surprisingly fairly comprehensive take from Net News Check on the Philadelphia media ecosystem, including the William Penn Foundation investment, the WHYY Newsworks initiative, Philly.com and others, like Technically Philly: In addition, journalists set free as the city’s newspapers spiraled into bankruptcy have founded independent Web sites, said Chris Satullo, executive director of news and [...]

A lot of legacies over at WHYY are going to be forged with whatever comes out of Newsworks, the online news re-branding and redevelopment initiative from Philadelphia’s NPR affiliate that I first wrote about back in April. In short, NewsWorks, which had its official launch last Monday, Nov. 15, is WHYY’s new online news brand, [...]

Eighteen months ago, I was searching for the best metro columnist in Philadelphia. I felt the Inquirer’s Dan Rubin was the nearest in a legacy of citywide voice boxes, telling the broadest and widest ranging stories. Perhaps that’s true. But it’s been nagging me that outside of some media-focused friends — and even then — [...]