Technology
Facing the pressure to unpublish
This project represents my commitment to helping the industry solve a problem that editors say is rising in importance: how to respond to requests by members of the public to “unpublish”—typically meaning deleting or significantly altering—online news content that identifies them in a way that they would rather forget. Often, but not always, the request … Continued
Redefining local journalism: What is news?
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Reynolds Journalism Institute or the University of Missouri. Since the advent of the Internet, many people have increasingly wondered: What is “news” in a universe of infinite information? What is a journalist’s role when anyone … Continued
5 lessons from creating my first AMP story
Caroline Watkins is the RJI Student Innovation Fellow at the Chatham News + Record in North Carolina. This summer our student fellows will be sharing dispatches from their fellowships in newsrooms across the country as a part of Innovation in Focus. As part of my RJI Student Innovation Fellowship, I created my first-ever AMP story for The Chatham News + Record. I … Continued
Free micro-course by RJI Fellow: Learn to write news for mobile audiences in five-minute lessons
A free mobile-microlearning course — The 5 C’s of Writing News for Mobile Audiences — has launched on a mobile learning app, EdApp. Think Babbel or Duolingo for digital journalism. I created the course as part of my nonresidential Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute fellowship in 2017-18. Thirty-five journalists tested the course, and all said … Continued
We’re meeting our audience where they are. Now what?
Early on in our existence we realized we were facing a challenge. Our reporting was about city, state and federal immigration related policies and how they were failing the New York residents they were aiming to serve. However, our metrics told us our stories were not always reaching the people the stories were about. I … Continued
Credibility and trust: A project to prove value of strong photojournalism
Every day, you swim through a sea of visual junk on the internet — selfies and mug shots and stock photos that could easily be interchangeable. Then, you come across a photo that resonates. It’s a moment captured with rare perspective. Maybe it’s a video explaining something you didn’t know about your community—or a photo … Continued
The promise of environmental data journalism
Over the course of this RJI fellowship, I’m working with the nonprofit environmental magazine Grist to think through what it’d mean to build out a national environmental data-journalism unit—and, in turn, to take what we learn at Grist and translate these lessons into guides for other small or nonprofit newsrooms that might find themselves interested in similar work.
Interactive experiences: personalization and revisit value
For this Innovation in Focus, we spoke with Financial Times Data Reporter, David Blood, and Senior Developer, Ændrew Rininsland, to learn about how their interactive work has progressed, lessons learned, and see where they’re headed next. Greenway: How did you get started with interactive experiences? Rininsland: I’m a life-long web nerd and have been building web pages … Continued
Innovative strategies: 5 tips from Instagram news fellows
The fellows are now halfway through the program and already seeing tangible results from strategic shifts they have implemented.
Why the email newsletter is 2020’s MVP format
Newsletters are surging, and it’s not just a COVID thing