Invisible Inkling

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

All About training

On print redesigns

June 24, 2008 – 7:20 am

Brothers and sisters in the print design world, you know I love you.
You bust your collective ass day after day to dress up content that may or may not be as award-winning as your design work, and in the end, you usually just get laid off for your troubles.  Because when management looks around that [...]

2000 strong at Wired Journalists

May 15, 2008 – 10:14 am

So many milestones this week…
Here’s another one:  Wired Journalists now has more than 2000 members.
The Ning-powered social network that Howard Owens, Zac Echola, and I created back in January has exceeded our expectations, in terms of numbers, interaction, community, and the learning/teaching that’s going on there.
Plus, it’s really bringing some people out of the woodwork.
I’m [...]

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 [...]

Your real competition

January 11, 2008 – 6:27 am

You *think* your competition is the guy at the TV station who always rip-and-reads your stories, or the reporter on your beat at the major metro from the big city 12 miles away, or that alt-weekly with the nasty cartoonist, don’t you?
Sorry, but that’s simply not the case.
Oh, sure, your ad reps and their [...]

Five ways to produce online news without asking the web guy for help

October 7, 2007 – 6:07 am

You don’t know what it’s like for the web guy at a newspaper.
All day long, requests and ideas funnel in his direction, with no end in sight, and little help.
Web guys, this is for you.
Reporters, listen up. Here are five ways you can put together something wonderful for the web without asking the web [...]