Technology
Mobile long-form journalism: The future is (even more) visual
Three RJI Research Scholars spent the past year studying the effectiveness and sustainability of long-form digital journalism. This is the fifth in a five-part series based on 53 interviews with millennials to gauge this audience’s reception to long-form journalism delivered on mobile platforms.
FL#161: 5 tips for email newsletters
Email newsletters Email newsletters are far from new, but recently there’s been a resurgence in their popularity. With this renewed interest come new techniques. We look at five innovative approaches to delivering newsletters, inspired by Clover Letter, BuzzFeed and TheSkimm.Reporting by Whitney Matewe. For more information: BuzzFeed has 12 core newsletters but, in total, close … Continued
Digital preservation: Why is this important to me?
Journalists are dependent upon access to back files for research and context, but those back files may no longer be there. Almost all news content created in the U.S. today is digital, but digital content is even more fragile than print and might be scattered over a variety of media and storage systems. How long … Continued
From widescreen 3-D TV to Cardboard: The evolution of teaching VR in the classroom
No textbooks. No PowerPoints. No crib sheets from the previous class. This is teaching college? The University of Missouri School of Journalism prides itself with staying one step ahead of the news industry, but the light-speed immersion of virtual reality this year tested the system to its limits. Thanks to a talented corps of students, … Continued
Does structured journalism work? Evaluating the feasibility of structure for consumers and reporters
Does the traditional news article still make sense as the primary unit of news in the age of the Internet and smartphone? That was the question I asked in my first blog post as an RJI Fellow in July 2015. My fellowship has focused on evaluating a proposed alternative unit of news: the structured story, … Continued
Attitudes about news transcend technology and generational divide
2015 RJI Mobile Media Research Report 5 Millennials more likely than boomers to use smartphones for news, but professional journalism and news sources matter to both This is my final report on the results of the 2015 Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute Mobile Media News Consumption Survey. I will use it to explore the generational … Continued
Team Recordly demonstrates its prize-winning interviewing tool at Silicon Valley tech firms
The winning team in the 2016 RJI Student Competition took full advantage of their grand prize trip to California last week, demonstrating their Apple Watch/iPhone interviewing tool in five key venues. Recordly members John Gillis, Zolbayar Magsar, Anna Maikova,Yaryna Mykhyalyshyn and Sintia Radu began their tech tour at Apple world headquarters in Cupertino. They … Continued
Interviewing tool for Apple Watch wins 2016 RJI Student Competition
Technical Merit award goes to event-mapping app
Can structured news reinvent archives and reimagine objectivity?
In earlier posts I have reviewed the long-term potential of structured journalism to make newsrooms economically sustainable, empower news consumers and future-proof journalism as a profession. However, journalism is not just another business. Its economic and market success is important not only to its shareholders, customers and employees, but also to society in general. Journalism, … Continued
Kevin Poortinga: Controlled Chaos: The Balance Between Herding Cats and Collaborative Innovation
Kevin Poortinga, USA TODAY Kevin Poortinga leads the USA Today Lab, a department designed to quickly incubate concepts, new businesses and new initiatives for the media network, which consists of more than 100 local news organizations and flagship USA TODAY. When not prototyping or experimenting, the Lab also champions an internal innovation grants program, a hybrid … Continued