Ideas

Combining paid editorial staff and community contributors, readers are taking note of Sacramento Press.  And the business has also developed a regional ad network to support the bottom line.

A Laurel to Len Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson for a comprehensive review of developments in the journalistic ecosystem.

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 this report.

Never before has the idea of a free press meant so much to everyday Americans. It’s not that the country is under siege by a runaway tyrant or that we have rampant corruption or government by secrecy. Rather, the idea of a free press is taking on new meaning in a nation where, increasingly, small towns and rural areas, exurbs and even suburbs ...

What imaginative stuff the winners showcased yesterday at this year’s Knight-Batten Symposium and Awards for Innovations in Journalism.

Since June, when J-Lab released “New Media Makers,” its new study of grant-funded media projects, we’ve tracked another $7.5 million awarded by foundations to support or jumpstart news and information initiatives around the country.

Is it important for news to survive – or news organizations? See today’s New York Times for a sampling of opinions.

The first U.S. forays in citizen media began in earnest only in 2004. Now, as 2008 comes to a close, we need to stop referring to citizen journalism as a monolithic phenomenon and pay closer attention to the many ways it’s evolving.