10 questions for journalists in the era of overload

This is a blog entry from Mark Thompson, on how journalists can respond to the changing media environment.

Introducing The Printed Blog

One entrepreneur is bucking the downturn trend and starting up a printed version of the best blogs he can sign up. The Printed Blog will start up in San Francisco and Chicago, but he hopes eventually to have them spread across all the major cities, even tailored to neighborhoods.

Blog advice

Scott Joseph recently left the Orlando Sentinel in a recent round of buyouts, and decided to turn his restaurant reviews into a blog. Here's some advice from the blogging newbie, which bloggers of all stripes can use.

Journalism prof uses satellite image to estimate inauguration crowd

A professor from Arizona State used his own system to estimate the size of the crowd for Barack Obama's inauguration., basing his number of 800,000 on his interpretation of the GeoEye-1 military satellite images.

My favorite all-time correction

This comes from the Newark Star-Ledger, courtesy of Regret the Error, a famous news-correction site:

Star Trek fans: No more calls or e-mails, please! Captain Kirk did not
often "cloak" the Starship Enterprise to make it invisible, as was erroneously
reported in the "Biz Buzz" feature in yesterday’s Business section. In fact, the
first known use of cloaking technology was by the Romulans in 2266, according to
"The Star Trek Encyclopedia: A Reference Guide to the Future." Kirk and
Commander Spock were sent on a mission to steal a cloaking device from the
Romulans in 2268 during the first Star Trek series. And Klingons used cloaking
in the movie "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock." This prompted theories of a
Romulan-Klingon alliance, in which the Romulans may have traded their cloaking
secrets for warp drive, reports An-swers.com. The Star-Ledger really, really regrets the error.

Promises, promises

The Tampa Bay Tribune reports that the Poynter Institute's PolitiFact will keep track of the 510 campaign promises made by Barack Obama.

Encouraging words in discouraging times

San Francisco Weekly laments the layoff of a noted journalist from the area, David Weir, he is putting a positive spin to these turbulent times, both in his personal blog and in comments e-mailed to the SF Weekly:

To all young journalists trying to cope with these troubling times I say: Keep
on reporting, reporting, reporting, writing, writing, writing, and editing,
editing, editing. Start a blog, send me a link, and I'll try to promote your
work. Build your personal brand.

I like the advice. Whether you are just entering my class, or a "veteran" reader of a semester or two, I hope you take it seriously. The skills you will need remain the same; just the platform/forum might be different.
And don't think it's all bells and whistles. One of my earliest friends in the business recently got laid off from his job at the paper in Burlington Vt. What did he do, go all high-tech? Nope, he bought a weekly whose roots go back to 1878.