Category: On Media

My industry

Recap of Barcamp News Innovation 2016

The 8th annual Barcamp News Innovation was the best attended yet. This annual unconference on the future of news welcomed more than 175 journalists, editors and other media makers interested in trends and best practices.

We at Technically Media have always produced it at and with Temple University’s School of Media Communications. For the first time, this year we hosted the day-long event in the fall, rather than late in the spring, which allowed perhaps nearly two dozen students to attend. Despite being free for students (just $15 for professionals), we’ve never had much turnout for those about to begin their careers. This year worked.

I wanted to share a few lessons and notes that stuck with me below.

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In defense of “Off the Record” and back room conversations

Transparency is a modern virtue.

Its pursuit is among the more commonly inalienable constants of news media. But like a child who needs to be exposed to germs to develop resistance, we can benefit from some level of privacy among leaders. Transparency of power can lead to polarization. Some conversations need to be worked out in private.

Of course that doesn’t sit quite right with many newsrooms — or among many civic minded people. A symbolic scourge of journalism is the back room conversation — dealmaking without public discourse.

But it’s so much more complicated.

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Journalism is a strategy, not an industry

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Journalism is a strategy, not an industry.

Newsrooms should rethink their competition. Journalism organizations are in dozens of different businesses. What we share in common (journalism DNA) makes us more partners than adversaries. The many businesses that are competing for the revenue and not providing other community value, like service journalism, are the real competition.

This was the focus of a lightning pitch I gave this weekend at the national Online News Association annual conference in Denver. Below find my slides, audio and some tweet reactions I received.

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Acts of journalism that aren’t written articles

Because the modern concept of journalism was developed inside newspaper newsrooms, we’ve stayed stuck on the idea that journalism only looks one way: written words with a feature lede and nut graf.

Maybe a photo essay. Or an editorial cartoon. Or nonfiction book. Radio and TV reports too can cut the pass. But we know what form comes to mind first when journalism is invoked: writing and editing long, multi-source feature stories, likely to put into some print publication. That has to adapt.

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Beat reporters: stop hanging out with other journalists and spend more time with your community

I say this fully admitting I’m an active, proud and lively member of the Pen and Pencil Club, a private journalist’s association and bar in my hometown Philadelphia.

Journalists, especially community and beat reporters, should spend a lot more time with their communities than with other in news media. For sure, you can get great professional development and important understanding from meeting with your colleagues. But count up the number of hours you spend with other reporters and compare it with your community in person: which one is the bigger number?

This was among my clearest points from a talk I gave at the third annual Entrepreneurial Journalism Educators Summit organized by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Below are my slides and some notes.

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The news business is the only where the CEO isn’t meant to control controversy

This summer, I was really proud to receive a leadership award from Temple University’s Fox School of Business. The next day the local tech news site I cofounded, Technical.ly, ran a highly critical analysis of that school’s signature business plan competition and widely panned it as having lacked any real successes in 15 years.

Awkward.

A year ago, we replaced me as Editor in Chief and I have been transitioning to more of a publisher (connecting and overseeing business and editorial). The experience brings up an interesting reminder of my role in a news organization I helped found but no longer have complete control over.

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Innovation in Philadelphia Q&A with Dilworth Paxon CEO Ajay Raju and me

How are so-called innovation clusters happening across the country and in Philadelphia specifically? Alongside Dilworth Paxson law firm CEO Ajay Raju, I was interviewed on the subject over drinks at Parc on Rittenhouse Park.

The interview was for Temple University law school’s blog and came in a two-part series from a Temple law professor and transcribed by a precocious law student.

Read part one here, in which we talk about Philadelphia’s own development of a tech and entrepreneurship communit

Read part two here, in which we talk about what that development can mean for the rest of Philadelphia.

A few thoughts on editing young reporters for community news

After a few years of working closely with other reporters, I’ve found the points we most often talk about. Here’s a list.

  • Tell me something that matters with your lede.
  • Anecdotal ledes should follow through the narrative arc. That anecdote better be in your kicker too
  • Either a story I want or a lesson I need. Readers want a great story or something that can help them (preferably both)
  • Where is your nut graf? This always feels like what is most often missing. This is the pivot between a story and your point: what broader context brings this together?
  • Structure and pace are two different skillsets
  • Prepare headlines and stories for the wider social web. Help think through the tightest way to explain the importance of your story.
  • Allow your story to be focused locally and understood globally
  • That’s redundant, which means a waste of words, which is a sin.
  • Know what your news site believes in. Who is your audience? What is the worldview? What is the broader narrative this story fits in?
  • How could this story be told differently?
  • What would the reader most need? What would help the reader scan? Would bullet points help?
  • You haven’t earned long sentences; shorter sentences for pace
  • Move faster; ship product
  • Be flawless on grammar
  • Hyperbole and cliche is where imprecision lives
  • Human elements to give the reader a break from technical pieces
  • Lead with attribution on purpose, either for style or more likely because the source matters. otherwise, lead with the lesson. the attribution is the footnote.
  • Link for more information
  • Have a call to action and make it easy
  • When in doubt disclose. Transparency over all else