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

Models for preserving news archives that long served the industry leave digital content in peril

Edward McCain, digital curator of journalism at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, spoke about the growing loss of born-digital content at Dodging the Memory Hole: Beyond NDNP, a meeting of concerned archivists, journalists and other stakeholders held on Sept. 16 in Washington, D.C. Below are his remarks. How many of you read George Orwell’s novel … Continued

RJI announces its 2015-2016 class of fellows

From exploring journalistic opportunities for wearable technology to helping smaller community newspapers provide digital services for advertisers, the ninth fellowship class of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute continues RJI’s commitment to nurturing and strengthening journalism’s service to citizens and their communities. This year’s residential, nonresidential and institutional fellowships were chosen from among 225 applicants … Continued

RJI Fellow’s oral history website shares stories, challenges and inspirations of female journalists

An oral history website chronicling female journalists’ fight for gender equality in the Fourth Estate launches today. Herstory tells the stories of 34 veteran female journalists and the challenges, struggles and triumphs they faced in a historically male-dominated profession. The women were interviewed as part of the 2013-2014 RJI Fellowship of Yong Volz, an associate … Continued

Potter listening tour of community newspapers begins this month

Walter B. Potter Jr. — donor of the Missouri School of Journalism’s Walter B. Potter Fund for Innovation in Local Journalism — will be visiting community newspapers in Missouri this month and next as part of what’s known informally as The Potter Listening Tour. The tour name is inspired by trips politicians sometimes take to … 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

Columbia Missourian covers True/False Film Fest using 3-D imaging

The Columbia Missourian took a new tack on “in-depth journalism” by offering its readers 3-D images of costumed participants in the True/False Film Fest in Columbia, Missouri. Missourian photographer Mike Krebs used a Structure Sensor 3-D scanner from the MU3D project to create detailed images of festival participants just before the event and then shot … Continued