Discovering a new news ecosystem

When Michele McLellan dug deep into how local, online journalists were making a living, the result was a three-year series of annual conferences that spawned a national nonprofit organization.

Brian Gorman on MediaExecsTech.com

iPublish Media Solutions is an example of a technology company that makes running a news operation less expensive. They offer a “do-it-yourself” advertising platform that lets individuals or companies build a print, digital or social ad.

Why it works

By 2017, it was clear to Janine York that she had to act. “Our newspaper is our core product, but we knew we needed to expand,” says York, the advertising director at the Missourian, a twice-weekly newspaper in the small town of Washington, Missouri. By 2017, it was clear to Janine York that she had … Continued

A LION is born

Dylan Smith was skeptical when, in 2010, he received an invitation to the first Block by Block conference. Leaving his one-person newsroom for a weekend to fly across the country for a conference aimed at local, independent, online news operators seemed like a waste of time. Smith ran a nonprofit site in a major metro, … Continued

Where media meets tech

Alisa Cromer started her newspaper career, in the early 1980s, in Las Vegas, home of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the flagship paper of the Donrey Media empire, founded by Donald W. Reynolds. “I met old man Reynolds,” Cromer says, and she cut her teeth learning how to compete against him. She ran a small business publication; … Continued

Getting engaged. No diamond ring required

Some folks might think it’s a bit unusual for a print design professor to segue to a career researching and improving the relationships journalists have with their communities. Joy Mayer never gave it a second thought.

Competitors build ‘news hardware’ for the home

How many computers did you use before 8 a.m.? Researchers call this “ubiquitous computing,” when computer chips, screens and connectivity are so established in our everyday routines that we cease to conceive of the individual products as being computers.