Best practices
Turns out there’s a few things about obituaries that need re-thinking
Obituaries are a lot of things.
They’re a legal notice of death. They’re the story of a life. They’re a tool for grieving. And they’re a business.
In taking on one kind of obituary – the story – for this fellowship, I constantly bump into all the other forms.
Bolster your digital safety: An anti-hacking, anti-doxxing workshop
Journalists in all newsrooms, especially women, LGTBQ+ and BIPOC, are dealing with unprecedented levels of online abuse that can take form in publishing of private information, impersonations, hacking and more. In the ONA session, “Bolster Your Digital Safety: An Anti-Hacking, Anti-Doxxing Workshop,” Viktorya Vilk, program director for Digital Safety and Free Expression, PEN America and … Continued
Managing metrics that matter for subscriptions
Managing metrics that matter Mike Denison, audience engagement editor at Science News, sees analytics and metrics as a tool to “cut through the noise and look beyond page views.” This year at ONA20, learning about the importance of analytics and metrics has shown to be of growing interest for the industry at a time when … Continued
Readers can help you plan your next move
The beginning of the coronavirus pandemic brought with it a surge in engagement and traffic to the Spanish materials we publish on our site, Documented Semanal. Within weeks, we had built an ecosystem where our readers, using our WhatsApp app, had guided us to create certain stories which would then draw in more subscribers who … Continued
Push notifications: Segmenting and connecting with your audience
Why use push notifications? When it comes to connecting with your audience, push notifications may not be the first thing that comes to mind. Some may even say notifications are outdated or irreverent when compared to the current technology. However, the company One Signal, saw an increase of two billion push notifications sent out each … Continued
Building a culture of great visuals
Boyzell Hosey, Deputy Editor of Photography, faces new challenges at the Tampa Bay Times in planning the daily visual report. He directs a significantly smaller photo staff than a decade ago in addition to the added burden of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the plan boils down to the same principle as always, … Continued
‘Unpublishing’ may be a catchy term, but does it accurately encompass the issue?
Most journalists would agree that the words we use to identify important issues are intrinsic to understanding them. New phenomena get labeled through the process of discovery by individuals who, naturally, do not yet fully understand them. I propose we may need a better term for what we currently refer to as unpublishing. The Unpublishing … Continued
Your first web-scraping project will be easier than you think
Last week, a colleague emailed me with a data request. She was working on a story about the shifting sands of Republican congressional rhetoric on climate change and was wondering if GOP voting records had seen any corresponding shifts in recent years. She pointed out that one good measure of environmental voting comes from the … Continued
Discovering how readers perceive photos and video
The main questions bouncing around my educator’s noggin for the last couple of decades have been about how visuals resonate with audiences — what draws a person’s attention, helps them to parse information, to understand and remember? My goal with this RJI project is to create practical materials to help small newsrooms and non-profit organizations … Continued
Make your reporting more diverse: Try a different network, redefine experts
In the survey of 750 journalists, editors and producers conducted by ExpertFile in conjunction with The Associated Press, journalists acknowledged that there remains a significant gap in representing a more diverse set of experts in their coverage. Despite a recognition of the need for more diverse voices in their coverage, the national survey also found … Continued