Invisible Inkling

Ryan Sholin on the future of newspapers, online news and journalism education.

All About journalism

Inventing journalism

February 17, 2008 – 11:13 am

I’ve been reading Guns, Germs & Steel for months now.
(I take these bound paper items you people call ‘books’ slowly sometimes.)
There’s a number of striking stories about technology, innovation, and invention in the chapter I’m in the middle of right now. One of those stories is about the QWERTY keyboard layout, which was actually [...]

Six questions about ReportingOn

February 9, 2008 – 10:01 am

Journalism.co.uk asked six questions about ReportingOn.
I answered them.
“4) Why are you doing this?
I saw a need to connect reporters to each other. So much local news lacks context, lacks a clear idea of where a local event fits into a larger trend, whether we’re talking about drunken driving or school funding or foreclosures.
Twitter has been [...]

Introducing WiredJournalists.com

January 22, 2008 – 10:07 am

At the end of 2007, Howard Owens* published a blog post outlining a year-long program he called 2008 objectives for today’s non-wired journalist.
A few of the objectives:

Become a blogger.
Start shooting your own pictures.
Do the same with video.
Join social networks.

Howard soon started fielding e-mails and requests for guidance from reporters looking to take him up on [...]

Participation counts.

December 17, 2007 – 8:51 pm

If you’re in the online news business, you’re in the participation business.
If you’re a journalist, starting conversations is your job.
So what are you doing standing on the sidelines?

Start blogging here: wordpress.com
Start sharing your photos here: flickr.com
Start sharing your bookmarks here: del.icio.us
Start developing a social network here: facebook.com

That’s the bare minimum.  What are you waiting for?
Participation [...]

Vell, Zaphod’s just zis guy, you know?

June 6, 2007 – 6:47 am

I got the IM interview treatment from Bryan Murley over at Innovation in College Media last night. Hopefully I don’t come off sounding like I have two heads and three arms, if you know what I mean.
Regular readers of this blog (all three of you) have heard most of what I said, er, typed, [...]