Invisible Inkling

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

All About new-media

Links that redefine news

February 19, 2008 – 12:24 pm

Wednesday night, I’ll be speaking with Steve Sloan’s New Media class at San Jose State University.
I’m planning to show off some of the best of your work.
Yes, you.
I’m looking for online news sites and projects that stray from the traditional definition of news.
I’m assuming these journalism students get enough Gloom & Doom handwringers from other [...]

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 [...]

If you don’t get unbundled media, you’re not selling attention*

September 30, 2007 – 8:57 pm

Command-and-control, top-down, masthead mass media is dead.
Seriously.
It’s over, and the readers/users/viewers won.
And without getting all “Information wants to be free,” I’ll just say that if you don’t get what Howard** and Zac are talking about here, it’s time for you to start understanding it.
Take Howard’s advice, young journalists:
“Blogs should be a daily routine for every [...]

The fundamentals of structured data

September 6, 2006 – 2:26 pm

Still wondering how to cram all these cool new Web-based tools and toys into your newspaper’s content management system? What, you mean it didn’t come with a database to manage all those user-submitted photos you’re getting through your MySpace page?
Even if you’re not quite that friendly with the social-networking set yet, chances are you’ve [...]

New Media class at SJSU

August 22, 2006 – 10:35 am

Journalism 163, taught by Steve Sloan and Cynthia McCune (at least one section - are there others?), opens for business at SJSU this week. It’s hard to give this thing a name, and I don’t want to contribute any more than I already have to the handwringing and head-scratching over what it should be, [...]