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

Undergoing the great entrepreneurial pivot

Many entrepreneurs find themselves pivoting at some point during their entrepreneurial journey. Even some of the leading tech companies today pivoted in their early days: Instagram initially was a check-in service called Burbn; Facebook was FaceMash, asking users to rate which person was hotter; and YouTube was a video dating site. Whether pivoting sales strategy, … Continued

Need for speed 2: Newspaper data diving, metrics and methodologies

Welcome to the weeds, fellow bit-twisters and data divers. We can chat here without worrying about the numeracy nonbelievers. This post details the methodologies used in “Need for speed 1: Newspaper load times give ‘slow news days’ new meaning.” First, you and I both know “load time” is a fickle metric, completely dependent on the … Continued

News startup survey: Revenue growth, capacity challenges

In the chaotic world of online news startups, I think it makes sense to take a long view. Whenever someone asks whether a big breakthrough is coming, I scratch my head. That’s because progress at this time is so incremental — a game of inches, feet, maybe yards but rarely miles — a marathon with no … Continued

Leadership and culture are linchpins of digital transformation in the newsroom

Little has proven more challenging for newspaper newsrooms than their transformation to digital news and information providers. It takes much more than learning new skills, although those are important. It’s a matter of re-engineering journalists’ attitudes and their relationships with news consumers, as well changing newsroom workflows and priorities. It takes significant culture change; both … Continued

Looking at a photographic image from another point of view: Yours

Good writers can conjure a vivid image in our minds with just words. But journalists also have long relied on illustrations, photographs and videos to enrich a story. Photographs and, by extension, videos have an important limitation. The story is told from one point of view – that of the photographer. The photographer structures our … Continued