The best journalism schools in the country are now providing genuine opportunities for students to do authentic reporting. However, the most valuable of these are more than just classroom exercises that live and die by the academic calendar.
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How Smaller Gets Bigger
Posted by Jan Schaffer on May. 10, 2011 in Articles | Columbia Journalism Review
“The future of journalism will be a tale of smaller and smaller organizations making a bigger and bigger impact,” asserts Lisa Williams, founder of Placeblogger.com. I couldn’t agree more. They will rise and fall, collaborate and compete, succeed and fail — and be replaced by new startups.
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Ten Steps For Any News Startup
Posted by Jan Schaffer on Jan. 1, 2011 in Articles | Quill
Professional journalists are launching scores of news startups around the country. Some cover community news, others hone in on special topics; some cover state government, and others aim to generate, and often share, investigative stories.
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First Read: Follow the Breadcrumbs
Posted by Jan Schaffer on Nov. 1, 2009 in Articles | Columbia Journalism Review
News consumers are telling us something. We should listen. If we really want to reconstruct American journalism, we need to look at more than the supply side; we need to explore the demand side, too. We need to start paying attention to the trail of clues in the new-media ecosystem and follow those “breadcrumbs.” I don’t hear from any of those consumers in
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When Community Residents Commit ‘Random Acts of Journalism’
Posted by Jan Schaffer on Dec. 1, 2007 in Articles | Nieman Reports
In rural Dutton, Montana, 80 people showed up last fall, wooed by a notion of starting a local news site for this newspaperless town of 375 people. Months later, the community celebrated the launch of the Dutton Country Courier, DuttonCC.org.
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Construct Your Community’s Info-Structure
Posted by Jan Schaffer on Nov. 13, 2007 in Articles | Newspaper Association of America
In 2005, Lisa Williams launched a hyperlocal news site for her newfound community of Watertown, Mass. Writing with wry, self-deprecating humor, she called it h2otown.info and it was an instant hit.
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Citizens Media: Has It Reached a Tipping Point?
Posted by Jan Schaffer on Nov. 1, 2005 in Articles | Nieman Reports
New media initiatives emerge when citizens feel ‘shortchanged, bereft or angered by their available media choices.’
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Civic Journalism—Growing and Evolving
Posted by Jan Schaffer on Mar. 1, 2005 in Articles | Nieman Reports
Civic journalism is growing and evolving rapidly because it makes a deliberate attempt to reach out to citizens. Civic journalism can take the form of town meetings–“real” or “electronic”–or watching CSPAN, going on-line or attending focus groups.
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Reporting on Race: Building a New Definition of ‘News’
Posted by Jan Schaffer on Sep. 1, 2003 in Articles | Nieman Reports
A report on race reporting by civic journalists highlights some common approaches.
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Ten of the Many Things I’ve Learned Since Abscam
Posted by Jan Schaffer on Sep. 1, 2002 in Articles | Survival Guide For Women Editors
As a federal court reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, I got a tip one Friday that something big was going to happen that would “involve the Halls of Congress.”
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