"Well, uhm...Why should I? What's in is for me?", I politely inquired.

Reporter Josh Davidsburg piped up, "It's social networking", as though he was speaking someone who was a little Facebook impaired...true enough I guess.

"Josh, I know what Facebook is, but still the question, what's in it for me? I mean why should I?"

And here's the thing. No one ever really fully answered that question. My son and daughter are on Facebook, that I know. And I know there are plenty of actual adults, not just teens and 20-somethings, who are also on Facebook. But can anyone explain to me what one actually does there? I mean, is it an easy way to keep up with people that you'd otherwise not see or communicate with? That would be pretty cool, though it also assumes the idea that people you know and want to communicate with, are also on Facebook. Would it enable me to stay in better contact with my taciturn emailer son? I don't know, maybe. I hear he'd have to "friend" me..... I might really enjoy it...I mean, I heard a lady in the grocery line ahead of me say, "All this computer stuff, I just don't fool with it." I wanted to tell her that she was missing out on some things that might make her life better, that she really could do it, and should become computer literate. I remained mute, of course. Nothing worse than a tv person telling you should be doing. The audacity.

Sooooooo, I put it to you. Are you on Facebook? Do you like it? What do you get out of it, and is it worth my time and trouble? Take a lot of time?

And on to the blue screen of death....it's started showing up more and more often when I turn on my laptop at home. So far, I've been able to restart her (a Dell), and it goes away, but the fatal error thingie is kinda scary. And I didn't do anything.....just closed all the windows I had opened and then gently closed it. Is my computer starting to breathe very shallowly....you know what I'm saying...is it...dying? Noooooooooo....I love it, and though it's a few years old, surely it has some life left in it. Any ideas on what I should do to it?

  Anyway, it's Friday(♥)....there's Artscape this weekend..always fun...and sweaty. Stay cool, be nice and come home safe. Cause we miss you....

This may not be anything extremely new, and it may not make sense for everyone, but it makes a lot of sense for this company and I thought I should share it here. Let me know what you think.

A social media newsroom is basically an extension of a company's website where journalists and bloggers can go to pull press releases and all the factual information, images, audio and video clips to use in their coverage.

In many ways, a social media newsroom looks and functions like a blog, and for good reason; blogs are extremely efficient in delivering information in a way that is flexible, easy to navigate and they put the most recent stuff up front.

For a primer on social media newsrooms, download SHIFT Communications' template for a social media newsroom here: http://shiftcomm.com/, or visit Ford Motor Company's online newsroom for a good example of what a social media newsroom looks like. If you know of other examples you wish to share, please feel free to post them in the comments.

While it's not unusual to have RSS feeds delivering new posts to the company's online newsroom via reader and email, in this case I thought it would help increase the incentive to subscribe if subscribers were promised early delivery of the new posts before they showed up on the public site.

Rather than having the traditional RSS feed that delivers new posts via reader and email at the same time as the post shows up publicly, this feed would deliver the company's news to subscribers first, offering a 6-hour lead time to journalists and bloggers interested in breaking a story.

To do this, I asked Ross Johnson of 3 Point 7 Designs and co-owner of Ingenex Digital Marketing if it were even possible, since I have a strange tendency to think that I can do anything. Luckily, he said it could be done.

Basically, Ross said, you would have to have two identical sites -- one private and one public. When interested visitors to the site sign up to receive automatic updates, rather than subscribing to the RSS feed for the public site, they would instead receive updates from the private one.

There would just be a little feed switcheroo. The public site could then be automated to post the information on a 6-hour delay after the identical information on the private site posts.

Since timeliness, and the ability to 'scoop' the competition is one way blogs and news publications add value to their readers, this way, they could have their posts up and stories filed before the release hits publicly.

But, this got me thinking that other special nuggets of information could be distributed from the private feed as a means of adding value to being a regular subscriber.

And, beyond being a regular feature to an online newsroom, bloggers, and traditional media outlets could also have the potential to do something similar, thereby giving people more incentive to subscribe to their information since they receive something over and above what is posted on the public site.

Maybe others are already doing this, I'm not sure. If so, how does it work for you? Do you foresee any problems that I may be overlooking?

Please, let me know your thoughts and many thanks in advance!

Whew.

It was a great (long) weekend, and I thoroughly enjoyed having M&D with me. We ate great food, experimented with fizzy lemonade and vodka, bought some new wine, spent time with Christine, her boyfriend and his family, and did a little shopping, too.

After sending Mom skyward Tuesday afternoon, I took a few hours to just sit. I reclaimed my spot on the couch, the spot where Dad planted himself and his damaged foot. (Back on July 4th a rock opened up his heel and left him with six stitches. Owy.) The house was cool and dark, quiet and serene. I didn't fall asleep, but I was tempted. Instead, I read and thought about the four-day weekend that was about to expire.

And so it begins ...

The work day began with my official weigh-in for our newsroom Get Fit challenge. The post below this one provides details. I was slightly happy to see I didn't weigh as much as I thought (at least by this scale). The idea of curbing my bad food habits and upping the exercise quotient has been a long-time coming. I'd really like to slide back into my favorite size 6 jeans, so I'm hopeful the peer setting will keep the motivation running through me for the next four months (and beyond).

Here's to Day One!

Proposta de Sarkozy de segundo referendo na Irlanda sem grande receptividade. BBC

UE quer subir imposto do tabaco para baixar consumo. El País

Espanha ratifica Tratado de Lisboa. El País Sarkozy propõe adiamento da reforma da Comissão para convencer irlandeses num segundo referendo. Le Monde Barroso confia que não haverá mais rejeições ao Tratado. SIC

União Europeia lamenta morte de Bronislaw Geremek. Euractiv

Dois dias depois da criação da União para o Mediterrâneo, líderes europeus, do Norte de África e Médio Oriente celebram dia da Bastilha. BBC

Posição do G8 pode forçar sanções da ONU ao Zimbabwe, acredita Brown. SIC

Três mortos em atentado à embaixada dos EUA em Istambul. CNN

I know, I know. The large-scale firing of journalists and editorial staff isn't exactly new to the industry – but the notion that 'it happens once in a while' doesn't appease me much. Everyone from longtime hacks and bright-eyed newbies would be right to feel a little gun shy. It would appear, to me at least, that the staff jobs simply aren't there any more. It's almost a year ago now that I left a relatively secure job as a staff journalist at the SCMP in Hong Kong. I have filled the time between then and now with completing a Masters in International Journalism while freelance subbing and I can't complain. But with the course 90% completed (the remaining ten being my as-yet-unwritten tour de force thesis), I'm now being forced to ask myself how I am going to approach next year.

As much as I love sub-editing, it's an easy trap to fall into and not one I want to fall into yet. Like any young journalist I'm dreaming big; staff job at a foreign bureau for one of the wire agencies. But I'm also starkly aware that I can't romanticise the job beyond what it physically is. The halcyon days of print journalism (with regard to staff jobs) are very distant. There are freelancers who make a very comfortable living; one girl I worked with in HK is having to turn away work from different would-be employers. However when it's good it's good – I can imagine when it's bad, the financial strain may be hard to bear. Staffers cling to their jobs for dear life and rightly so. There are literally thousands of us freelancers chomping on the bit, eager to be in their seat.

Stepping away from my own situation for a moment and looking at the industry as it stands around the world, with print sales slumping, I ask: Where do we go from here? Before this alleged recession crept up upon us, print sales were already responding badly to online sentiment that saw people logging on to read instead of buying to read. I'm guilty of it, most people are. Papers are driven by ad sales, but advertisers like numbers and by numbers, I mean circulation. It's a symbiotic and sometimes unfortunate relationship.

These unwanted mass exoduses often sound like the stuff of urban legends. I recall a few years ago being told about a mass firing at the SCMP itself and if my memory serves me correctly this was followed by another few hundred layoffs at the Far Eastern Economic Review.

No staff job is ever 100% secure. Not in the journalism industry or any other industry really. Yes, journalism has evolved and news content isn't solely generated for a print audience. There are possibilities out there in the digital world. But even then, the jobs are thin on the ground. It's a time for being on edge and I can understand that. Looking to the future, I wonder if the era of the staffer is dead – and if the expanding pool of freelancers will come to resemble a river of salmon, frantically fighting to get upstream.

Moscovo terá apoiado assassinato de Litvinenko, garantem investigadores britânicos. BBC

França apela à união contra a imigração ilegal. Le Monde. Ministro espanhol do Interior satisfeito com Pacto Europeu de Imigração. El País

Greve provoca cancelamento de mais de duas centenas de vôos na Alemanha. BBC

We need more people in this industry like Amy Webb. If you haven't heard about the 30-Day Newsroom Innovation Challenge which she announced on her site the other day, you have to check it out. It's a fantastic idea.

And, remember, a while back when I wrote a post about kicking Rob Curley while he's down. This is exactly the sort of thing he should be doing to avoid being kicked again.

Anyway, the point of the contest is to help one newsroom, free of charge, who is struggling to innovate. Webb is a consultant to online media companies and organizations and has been working in the digital realm for more than a decade.

It's 4th of July weekend. In the spirit of unshackling the newspaper industry from the tyranny of outdated business models, I've decided to hold a contest. I'm proposing a 30-Day Newsroom Innovation Challenge. I'm willing to offer my consulting services to help a beleaguered newsroom through the process of innovation. I will meet with your newspaper's publishers, editors, web-site and print-side staff and even your local readers. I'll facilitate brainstorming sessions and devise a set of strategies that you can implement right away to help monetize your content and motivate what's left of your staff. At the end of our 30 days together, we should hopefully have short-term and long-term plans for publishing your content and for stabilizing your resources.

She is doing this, it appears, in the wake of news about media companies making huge cutbacks in staffing levels, which she argues may not be necessary. She places a high priority on local reporting. But, like everyone else, she recognizes that the business model we all apply is not working and won't work as more of us enhance  our digital presence.

I believe very strongly that if newsroom culture changed for just a month, to allow free-flowing brainstorming and fast-track implementation of new strategies, we might just find a workable business model that doesn't necessarily involve scrapping entire sections of the newspaper or laying off a quarter of your staff.

The rules and how to enter the 30-Day Newsroom Innovation Challenge can be found here. Good luck.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Are We Living in a Perfect Storm for Print Media?
• A view into the future
• Why Craigslist Isn't the Problem
• Is There No Balance Between New & Old Media?
• Intractable Business Model Conflicts

It got me thinking.

It's all very well deciding how you want journalists of the future to think about producing stories, but what is the best envrionment in order to enable that to happen?

Last year Mark Glaser over at MediaShift outlined his vision of how a multimedia "new newsroom" (NNR) might operate.

He talks of journalists being platform agnostic - choosing different mediums dependant on the qualities of the story and community input.

Not every story would get the multimedia treatment. That determination might be made by editorial staff at the start of the story idea, or it could be made on the fly depending on what media comes in from the community. The important overriding credo is that NNR will deliver the news in whatever way the community craves and is economically feasible, including online video, audio, print, online, mobile, TV or radio. Each locality will decide what’s necessary to meet their needs.

This pretty much aligns to my idea of the newsroom of the future - not everyone will be able to create media on all platforms equally well, but they will all have a good idea of the pros and cons of each and how they benefit a story.

But understanding the benefits of multiple platforms needs someone to use these platforms regularly. Training only goes so far. If you do not use YouTube or Facebook, for example, how can you really understand how they can be used in story telling?

The same is true of different hardware. Learning how best to tell a story through a PC, may have some differences to communicating it via a Mac. And it will certainly be different to telling it via a Nokia mobile and different again on an iPhone.

But when a large organisation invests in IT, there is usually a bulk deal agreed to supply one particular type of technology to all staff.

This might lead to homogenous tech landscape in an office which, I think, may put journalists at a disadvantage when it comes to innovating.

So, what platforms should be made available to journalists in their newsrooms?

Well, being someone who LOVES gadgets and will also be working in newsrooms I am, of course, a bit bias.

I'd like to see an array of Macs and PCs, lots of podcasting tools, access to iPhones and other mobiles and (and here is where I might be going a bit too far) access to a range of gaming platforms.

I'd like to see newsrooms have Wiis!

And yes, ok, that might be so I can play Wii Sports during my lunchbreak. But gaming consoles are also no longer just for gaming - many people watch DVDs, listening to music and surf the Internet through them.

Perhaps it isn't such a mad suggestion that journalists should be learning how people might experience their work over these platforms as well?

It's rather late to talk about this, but I'm gonna talk about it anyway. Hehe.

I'm done with OJT! Hooray for that! It's been 14 days since I last stepped on the grounds of GMA but the hangover sort of remains in my head.

It was one heck of a ride to work with people in the media. With all the hustle and bustle (and tension) I had to deal with everyday, I learned a very important lesson which, I think, would be very essential to me at this tumultuous time - FOCUS.

I never really thought that OJT could be very complex and stressful, much worse than being in the workplace. I always had to work double time with seconds passing like bullets, I couldn't even find time to comb my hair. LOL.

It was then that I got the most unsolicited remarks, got yelled at by some bitchy reporter for a wrong lead I noted, and tried hard to build rapport with a supervisor who just didn't give a damn. Screwed all the shit though, for it was also then that I learned to be strong-minded and do multi-tasking to the best of my ability.

I took multiple calls at the same time, tried freakin' hard to note every needed detail despite the noise of the place. And yea, I learned to work pretty well with noise.

My other tasks included patching incoming calls to the anchor on air, monitoring the rival station's news, recording reported leads on a logbook, loading advertisements and assisting anchors.

At the end of each day, after 11 hours of working, I just wanted to be on bed and sleep.

The media indeed is one the busiest industries in existence.

I'm not quite satisfied with my grade (damn, I deserve more), but I still consider my OJT experience a pleansantly crazy one. Sure I have a bug up my ass about my supervisor, nonetheless I’m glad to have worked more than a hundred hours with GMA.

Proud to be Kapuso, eh?

Líderes cipriotas acordam criação de um estado único. Euractiv

Professor universitário norueguês libertado do cativeiro das FARC. SIC

BCE sobe juros para "ajudar a garantir estabilidade dos preços". Público

By asking the question; "who in your organisation edits and processes video?" I hope to get some ideas on how to streamline the workflows of  busy newsrooms coping with this often time-consuming task.

It was interesting to see that the debate about where this activity sits is also featuring on David Dunkley Gyimah's blog where he poses the question Digital Journalist versus Integrated Multimedia Video journalism which one's the future?

And comments: "Some outfits however interpret digital journalism as video journalism so on a pedagogic level herein lies a crux."

So far a few respondants to Twitter and Plurk have come back to me to say that the VJs themselves (generally print reporters who've been trained) now carry out the video editing and associated work to get their video reports online.

What's your experience? Does your newsroom see it as the VJ's job? Do you consider it as a production function and if so how do you manage that? Do you have a special unit which takes responsibility?

All responses gratefully reecive - by all means email me if you want to comment off-the-record. I won't be blogging any individual's experience (or naming, names) just seeking some wisdom!

Jean-Claude Trichet avisa que inflacção pode explodir. Público

Comissão Europeia quer facilitar acesso a cuidados de saúde a nível europeu. BBC

Presidente polaco pode ratificar Tratado de Lisboa se Irlanda também o fizer. Le Monde

The 21^st century brought change. It's helped to create and cultivate a new era of technology. Since the inception of the world-wide-web, newsrooms have had a quicker, more creative and efficient way of communicating.

The journalism industry has been faced with the inevitability of change: newspapers, and many newsrooms have or are in the process of reinventing themselves, not only to survive, but more importantly, to remain relevant.

Brown has lived through this change.

"The Internet, by far, has been the biggest break though in the newsroom," he says.  "The information gathering process has been sped up so much more due to technology." 

He explains that conducting research on the Internet is much more convenient and quicker.  When Brown first began his journalism career nearly 18 years ago, digging for news entailed a lot more work.

"First of all the Internet wasn't even here. Back then we didn't even have computers. We wrote all of our scripts on electric typewriters. The gear we were carrying around was a lot heavier and more cumbersome, the editing was a lot different, and it wasn't as exact as the non-linear stuff we do here," says Brown.

In today's society, it's hard to imagine life without the Internet, especially in the newsroom. Resources are at hand for reporters with a simple click of a button. The Internet has provided a voice for millions of people, even connecting the community together. The Internet is also an extremely economical tool that can help save money and time.

Many people continue to speculate the future of print newspapers. As technology becomes more advanced, people become better acquainted and more accustom to convenience. Many newspapers have converted the daily-paper-circulation onto their website for those who don't purchase the local paper. However, high fuel prices have forced more than a handful of major companies to discontinue home-delivery of newspapers. Until newspapers completely converge to the web, people will continue to speculate.

The Internet has many benefits that the newsroom, and many people across the world are taking advantage of.  It offers the unique ability to combine several different elements from traditional media. For example, users can read articles in depth just as they would a printed article, listen to audio like the radio; and even watch video like television.

Technology has allowed many newsrooms, nationwide, to become technology innovators--rather than technology adopters.

For example, for first time parents out there, take a look back at the day you dropped off your first-born at his or her first day of kindergarten. The media industry has reached a moment of self-examination. The public is growing and discovering new freedoms and ideas. Living in a world filled with infinite information offers new opportunities, choices and challenges. Newsrooms who accept, learn and adapt to change have the ability to become affective, while bringing people and communities closer.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, more than 70 percent of Americans use the Internet at least once a month, and the average user is online for nearly 12 hours per week. The Internet has changed the way we communicate, view politics, and attend class and meetings, do research, and interact far beyond the borders of our country.

The KBTX web channel developers are aware that the web has become a vital source, if not the only source for some viewers to receive their daily dose of the news.

Developers work day-in and day-out to inform the community with the most up to date content on the stations web channel. Most of the time, the stories are posted to the web channel before they make the air. Followed by each posted story, is the option for viewers to make comments, and voice personal opinions about that story. Comments, both good and bad, provide feedback from the community.

With this, the newsroom can become more knowledgeable about the demographics within the community, and also become informed about what the community likes or dislikes. Throughout the newscast at KBTX, the anchors promote the web channel, ensuring viewers they can view clips of the newscast on the web.

For example, on Monday afternoon, anchors announced on-air, the launch of a new and free, online-classifieds website called "fleajockey.com." 

Shortly after the announcement, Zack Morgan, a web content manager, came into the newsroom and said,  "Nearly 15 people have registered for ‘fleajockey' from the time Steve made the announcement, that was in a seven minute period." 

Word travels fast, and with both mediums working together, efficiently, people become more informed. Like Marshall McLuhan says, "The median is the message."

Many media outlets urge people in the community to become citizen journalists. In other words, citizens within the community can share community events, photos of a wreck, and even personal photos on the stations web channel. The web channel at KBTX has a special section called "Eye on You."  The page is devoted to community involvement, giving citizens the opportunity to be heard and recognized in their community. Each person has a different outlook, or ‘lens' that they view the world with, and given this opportunity, other citizens in that community can become educated with a new view on life from different perspectives.

Blogs are yet another way that dozens of newsrooms can virtually interact with the community. Blogging has become a very influential component of the Internet, and their importance is growing exponentially.

 "Blog" is a shortened form of "web log," and it stands for a web site that keeps a log of people's thoughts, actions, and their reactions to other people's thoughts and actions. Journalists and citizen journalists, nationwide are jumping onto the ‘Blogging' bandwagon. Many are even taking their blogs to the next level equipping them with audio and picture slideshows, and video.

Electronic media is the future of journalism. Some people don't know what life is like without the web, others would rather not know what life is like with the web. Either way, as more seasoned journalists retire, newsrooms are seeking young professional journalists who are equipped with a strong knowledge of the web.

Journalism schools across the country are putting emphasis on Electronic Media in order to prepare students for the future of the journalism industry. Students are learning how to work as a One-Man-Band, Backpack Journalists, Mobile-Journalist (MoJo), or even Video-Journalist (VoJo). All of these names combined, share the same definition: a Television Journalist who shoots, writes, edits and voices his/her own stories.

Over the years the One-Man-Band concept has become more popular, gradually creeping its way into the larger markets around the nation.

"I sent out 18 resume tapes before I got a first call, and I have a friend that works in Tyler she sent out 23 tapes before she even got her first callback," says Jordan Meserole, a KBTX photographer. "Don't expect to graduate and have your first job handed to yah. It's brutal but it's true."

Jordan has one leg up on other photographers because he's not only a news photographer, he's also a great, creative-writer and reporter.  Call it what you will, but, independently mastering all of these skills, will make you become a more desirable asset to a media outlet and the future of journalism.

Good night and good TV

July 1, 2008 | High-profile anchor firings, "terrorist fist bumps," late-night Central Park meth busts: You'd think that a TV show set in a newsroom would write itself. But American television has been strangely lacking in scripted shows about the nightly news. Thank goodness for Canada, because in the mid-'90s and the early part of this decade, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. aired "The Newsroom," probably the best and funniest television show ever made about the news business -- and the perfect highbrow satirical payback for people who are tired of listening to Fox News talking heads.

In the spirit of reinvention and cost cutting, The Record will reduce its office space and begin to focus on the emerging practice of Mobile Journalism (MoJo).

The relocation of staff from the Hackensack newsroom to the remaining eight news sites is proposed to be complete before January 2009.

Given the loss of one newsroom, the organisation will also assign thirty MoJos to the field where their daily routine operations will be performed using laptops and mobile phones.

MoJo, now technologically viable, is increasingly being seen by the news industry as a cost efficient, practical and necessary addition to a news team. It allows journalists the freedom and ease to move---fully equipped---to wherever they need to be at a moment's notice.

The combined initiatives of this particular operational change is estimated to save The Record $2.4 million per year.

The full story is here.

Novo golpe sobre Tratado de Lisboa. Presidente Kaczynski diz que "não há motivos" para assinar a lei de ratificação do documento. BBC

Inflacção de 4 por cento na Zona Euro é preocupante, diz Jean-Claude Juncker. Público

No regresso dos jogadores, Espanha celebra vitória no Euro 2008. El País