Potter resumes newspaper listening tour this month in Virginia

Walter B. “Walt” Potter Jr., a retired newspaper publisher who works with the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, will tour community newspapers again this spring. A year ago, Potter visited Missouri weeklies and small dailies during what became known as the Potter Listening Tour. He wrote a series of … Continued

FL#142: Enlisting product managers and automating more complex stories

This week we explore the role of product managers within news organizations, and we find out how more complex stories might be written by computers. PART 1: Product managers for news Borrowing from the tech and business worlds, several large news organizations have integrated the role of product manager into their workflows. The result can … Continued

Traditional news media still popular with users of mobile media

2015 RJI Mobile Media Research Report 2 Majority of smartphone owners say they frequently get news from television and-or printed newspapers Updated March 9, 2016 Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of U.S. adults who owned smartphones said they got news and information frequently or very frequently from at least one traditional media source — television news … Continued

FL141: Faster fact-checking and nonprofit partnerships

This week we find out how automation might speed up political fact-checking, and we learn what goes into successful partnerships that involve nonprofit news organizations. PART 1: Faster fact-checking It takes time to investigate whether claims made by politicians are true, but technology might help speed up that process. We get some ideas from PolitiFact … Continued

News organizations getting significant boost from phablets

2015 RJI Mobile Media Research Report 1 Large-screen smartphone owners between the ages of 25 and 34 are the most frequent news consumers U.S. adults who have a phablet —a smartphone with a 5- to 7-inch screen — are much more likely to use it for consuming news than those who have a standard-size smartphone, … Continued

How stories can contribute to patient-centered care: A framework that targets efforts

In an earlier blog, I wrote about my interest in how stories, through health care and news organizations, can contribute to better health and health care. Research is showing that patient engagement, a key determinant of patient-centered care, improves health outcomes, patient safety and health care costs. In its landmark 2001 report, Crossing the Quality … Continued

Reporting into structure: How journalists, crowds and robots can work together

In previous posts, I’ve written about structured journalism’s potential to improve newsroom economics by rebundling news as networks of structured information, and to provide new value to consumers by giving them more control over the news they consume. But what does structured journalism do for journalists? Will structure merely contribute to the tech-driven weakening of … Continued

WordPress moves news past the printed newspaper

Local newspaper sites have long broken all the rules for building a sticky site. Most still load painfully slowly. They are difficult to navigate and — let’s be honest — often ugly.—Matthew Hindman, Shorenstein Center For centuries newspaper design has stayed about the same. In 1880 printers introduced halftone photographs and in the 1980s the … Continued

The Apple News app is not living up to its hype

The Apple News app launched with much hype on September 15. I’ll always remember that date because the app’s launch was a major determinant for me to pivot Reportory, my news customization platform, from a consumer-facing service to a license play for publishers. The Apple News app hadn’t launched when I first profiled 15 other … Continued