FL#172: Engaging News Project

Engaging News Project research Shannon McGregor and the team at the Engaging News Project believe analytics data can do a lot more than just help newsrooms attract audience. Through academic research out of the University of Texas at Austin, the Engaging News Project seeks to find ways newsrooms can use data to better understand what … Continued

Nonresidential fellow jumpstarts his project with a visit to RJI

My fellowship project was transformed earlier this month during a three-day visit to Columbia, Missouri. The occasion was an informal convening of several of this year’s Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute fellows to discuss the varied projects we hope to bring to fruition over the coming months. Though it was a laid-back affair, the conversations … Continued

Dry spell: Covering worsening droughts

In the news A months-long drought has hit the northeastern United States, and while it’s not as dire as the West Coast’s five-year dry spell, it has stressed farms, prompted water restrictions and threatened more wildfires. It stretches from Maine to Pennsylvania and has hit Massachusetts particularly hard, as well as New Hampshire, Maine and … 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

How do we engage news consumers in the digital world?

If you operate a nonprofit newsroom, email appeals have likely become an essential fundraising tool. Yet while recommendations for how to grow your mailing lists are readily available, it’s much harder to find good information about retaining subscribers and engaging them as active community members. As a result, many successful efforts to gain subscribers are … Continued