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

Talk Story, Write Story demonstration project is a success story

I used my Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute fellowship this year to test my hunch that trained volunteers could successfully help financially challenged high school students write their way into college scholarships. If my theory was correct, others could do what I had loved doing, mostly alone, for nearly two decades. My Talk Story, Write … Continued

Documentary class in session at RJI with Professor Spike Lee

A highlight of my RJI stay happened last week, 30 feet from my office. Spike Lee gave a master class to documentary and photojournalism students. He was in Columbia, Missouri, to premiere “2 Fists Up: We Gon Be Alright,” a new ESPN documentary on racial unrest at the University of Missouri that uses footage from the … Continued