Tag: Blog

A ‘Fine’ letter to Sam Zell?

Check out Jon Fine’s column in BusinessWeek magazine, which I peruse whenever I’m home because my dad subscribes. I may not agree with everything Fine opines (sorry for the rhyme), but he’s always interesting to read.

This time I found him online, writing a light-hearted column to Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell:
You’ve Got Tribune. Now Do Something.

If you’re interested, here’s his blog: Fine On Media.

Full disclosure: I’ve interned at two Tribune companies in the past, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Forum Publishing Group, which is owned by the Sentinel.

Weigh in: What do you think of Fine’s to-do list for Zell?

Bloggers’ thoughts that student journalists should heed

Similar to the links I posted on journalism education a few days ago, here are some bloggers’ thoughts on the skills and such that student journalists should note.

Further notes on the new journalism skillset » Invisible Inkling (Ryan Sholin)

Teaching Online Journalism: Dreams vs. reality in journalism ambition (Mindy McAdams)

What sort of things should an aspiring journalist be thinking about? (Rob Curley)

Take note of what these three detail and be sure to subscribe to their blogs.

I’m glad I waited a day to publish this post, because Ryan Sholin wrote a post called Your real competition, which links to related Paul Conley and Dave Cohn posts, that all student journalists should be aware of.

If you go to interview for an internship or job at a place that says what Ryan writes below, you’ll A) Not be exposed to the kind of working environment that will help you compete for jobs and B) Probably not have a job very long because the organization will become irrelevant to most readers, especially younger ones.

“If you’ve said the words ‘Oh, well we’ve always done it that way’ in the last FIVE YEARS, you have a problem with addressing the question of who is competing with your organization.

If you’ve said the words ‘Oh, but that won’t work here’ in the last THREE YEARS, you definitely have a problem with addressing the pace of change in the news business.”

I’ll soon post a Top 10 list of advice for student journalists that will help them to stay relevant, viable and competitive in the evolving world of journalism.

CNN: China blogger beaten to death

A reminder of the dangers: China blogger beaten to death – CNN.com

From the article, quoting Reporters Without Borders:

“Wei is the first ‘citizen journalist‘ to die in China because of what he was trying to film,” the group said in a statement.

“He was beaten to death for doing something which is becoming more and more common and which was a way to expose law-enforcement officers who keep on overstepping their limits.”

Setting the stage for college newspapers online

An interesting look at the “stages” of community college newspapers online, though the breakdown is also easily translatable to a four-year, private institution like the University of Miami:

How to put the community college press online – Online Journalism Review (May, 1. 2007 by Rich Cameron)

I’d say The Miami Hurricane has reached the tail of the stage three beast. Looking forward to next semester, we’ll continue to work on creating a better sense of community and concurrently plant at least one foot in stage four with even more breaking news, updates, online exclusive content and blogs.

Weigh in: What would you like to see from TheMiamiHurricane.com in the coming semester in terms of features, content, blogs, multimedia, etc.?

Sacked newspaper editor’s column

A partial version of the quote below in one of the comments posted on a very telling column by now former San Angelo (Texas) Standard-Times editor Perry Flippin:

Columnist caught up in newspapers’ changing times

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

I haven’t heard this quote in a little while, but was inspired to use it to kick off an occasional “quote of the day” post. I’ll post an interesting quote, either current or historical, if I run across something I find noteworthy. I won’t just throw on a quote for the sake of doing so.

Thanks to Romanesko for posting the link to Flippin’s column.

Weigh in: What’s your reaction to Flippin’s column?