RJI news
Online news startups explore revenue sources beyond advertising
Revenue was very much on the agenda when more than 100 local news entrepreneurs gathered at the LION Summit in Chicago Oct. 1-3. There were encouraging, if fledgling, signs that some sites are looking beyond banner display advertising. Supplemental sources include crowd-funding, membership programs, sponsored content, and events. For now, however, banner display advertising is … Continued
Using digital stories to fight institutionalism in nursing homes
After I complete my RJI Fellowship I want to test digital storytelling in the context of long-term care. These stories would be about nursing home residents, ideally written by journalism organizations, with the goal of improving care or interaction between residents and staff. I was a nursing home administrator during part of my health care … Continued
Examining the new conceptualization of entrepreneurial journalism
The dominant scholarly understanding of and approaches to journalism do not match the variety of practices that make up journalism today. The profession’s recent reconfiguration as a post-industrial, entrepreneurial and altogether atypical way of working calls for new ways to investigate, theorize and teach journalism. Our fellowship project at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute … Continued
The economics of structure: Could structured journalism make quality journalism sustainable?
Structured journalism, an emerging and somewhat obscure approach to digital news, has been getting a lot of attention lately. The last three months have seen articles in the Columbia Journalism Review and on the websites of The Poynter Institute and Nieman Lab. BBC News Labs published “A Manifesto for Structured Journalism,” and pilot projects are … Continued
Could digital stories, written by journalists, be good medicine for the health care industry?
How can health care and journalism organizations work together to create digital stories that improve both the health care system and an individual’s health? As I seek answers during my RJI Fellowship at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, I’ll rely on two life experiences: I’m an ex-health care administrator who later got a Ph.D. … Continued
McCainspeakwrite plusgood, or How I came up with the name ‘Dodging the Memory Hole’
We started digging our current Memory Hole a few decades ago: Technological systems that support the creation and presentation of modern journalism, those digital troves holding “the first rough draft of history,” morphed so quickly and frequently over the years that we no longer know where the treasure is buried. Like drunken buccaneers, journalistic enterprises … Continued
Talk Story, Write Story helps financially disadvantaged children write their way into college
RJI Fellow to pilot a version that newspapers can introduce to local communities
McCainspeakwrite or How I came up with the name ‘Dodging the Memory Hole’
It’s been two years since I rolled out of Tucson, Arizona, and headed east on Interstate 10 toward the University of Missouri, a.k.a. Mizzou, my alma mater in Columbia, Missouri. Along with suitcases and camera gear from 30 years as a photojournalist, I brought audiobooks to pass the hours on cruise control. My first selection … Continued
Tracy Clark’s take on 5 email news digests in the market today
Recently I wrote about 15 different mobile app news aggregators in the market today. A few of them — Shuffle, my company Reportory, and Apple’s upcoming news app — offer a daily email news digest of what you would find in the app. However, there are many others that just offer an email newsletter, which … Continued
Preserving a visual record, Part 2
The drive to create a born-digital photo archive at the Columbia Missourian