Jon Marshall’s News Gems blog at SPJ.org has been a quiet, consistent resource, chronicling high-quality reporting for more than three years.
Marshall is moving on to other endeavors:
“As we reach the end of 2008, I wish I could say that things have gotten easier for journalists. Of course they haven’t. But after producing this blog for three and a half years, I’m heartened by the tremendous stories we’ve had the honor of showcasing, from the first News Gem about nola.com’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina to brave reporting of the Iraq War to groundbreaking investigative scoops and beautiful profiles, narratives, photos and videos. I worried at first that there wouldn’t be enough good stories to fill the blog on a regular basis. I’ve had the opposite problem: too many great stories and not enough time to highlight them all.”
Good luck to Jon, and a note to the SPJ: Don’t take down the blog, leave it up as an archive — it’s a tremendous list of stories that should stay in place. Better yet, keep the blog going with new contributors. I’ve enjoyed it, and learned from it.
A quick survey about comments on your news site
I have a little theory.
It’s my opinion that commenters — or anyone, really — is the most civil when they’re speaking in public and everyone can see who they are.
So, I think that news site commenters/readers are most civil on news story comments, then blog posts, then message board threads. When I popped off about that on Twitter this morning, a bunch of you said “p’shaw” (to paraphrase).
So let’s gather some data, shall we?
This short survey is also posted at Wired Journalists. If you’d like to share it with your friends and colleagues without sending anyone to Wired Journalists or my blog, you can access it directly at http://tinyurl.com/civilcomments
I’ll share the results in a few days.
Thanks in advance!