Videos from Dodging the Memory Hole: Saving Born-digital News Content

In today’s digital newsrooms, a software/hardware crash can wipe out decades of text, photos, videos and applications in a fraction of a second. Digital archives can easily become obsolete due to evolving formats and digital systems used by modern media, not to mention media failure, bit-rot and link-rot. One recent survey found that most American … Continued

MobileVideoDIY giving away 10 free mobile gear bags to student journalism programs

Columbia, Missouri ­­— Journalism teachers are no longer limited in their ability to add video to their curriculum because of the high cost of professional cameras and gear. Using smartphones and many free supporting apps, videos can now be shot, edited and shared with the world with a quality consistent with professionals. Teachers and students … Continued

News companies as tech companies: Some venture capitalists say yes

For years, the drumbeat among venture capitalists has been that content is expensive and is not worth their investment. But we’ve seen a turnaround, and the question is, why now? The answer may simply be optimism. As Hamish McKenzie and Sarah Lacy wrote in Pando Daily of the return to content: Large funding rounds don’t … Continued

‘Losing a piece of you’: The fragility of digital news archives

In 2002, The Columbia Missourian received a shock when it lost a significant portion of its digital archives. A server crash wiped out 15 years of precious and painstaking work of journalists, photographers and editors. The data loss also weakened the paper’s link to the who, how, what, when and why of changes in mid-Missouri … Continued

Credibility of mainstream news media fares better among mobile media users

2014 RJI Mobile Media Research Report 9 Mobile media users are more likely than nonusers to give higher credibility rankings to national newspapers and most other mainstream news media (see charts 9.8 and 9.9), according to the latest mobile media news consumption survey from the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI). They also tend to … Continued