Ryan Sholin

Tag: public-forum

  • Debunking the coulda-shoulda-woulda myth of online news

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    Ryan Sholin
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    I’m trying quite hard to stay out of the business of chasing after curmudgeons with a laptop in my hand, shouting “But you got it all wrong!” Trying. Quite. Hard. So let this be just a generic blanket response to a common misconception about the business of online news. The premise, as laid out in…

  • Keep your code of conduct out of my communication medium, thank you kindly

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    Ryan Sholin
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    Let’s be clear, here: There are trolls everywhere. On the letters to the editor pages of our newspapers, on every daytime television talk show, not to mention most hours of cable news, at the table next to us at the coffee shop, the halls of Congress, and yes, in the blogosphere.

  • Comment trouble at the Arizona Daily Star

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    Ryan Sholin
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    Danny Sanchez points out an explainer from the Executive Editor of the Arizona Daily Star on why comments were deleted from some stories: “While we created the reader comments feature to give readers a place to talk, StarNet is still our house. And our editors and staff simply do not want guests who make vulgar,…

  • How to juggle multimedia and Digg interactivity

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    Ryan Sholin
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    In two back-channel online news discussions this week, folks have been debating how newspapers should be gathering video and how they should handle comment moderation. The video discussion among Howard Owens, Mindy McAdams, and others, is notable because the question is no longer IF newspapers should be running video online (Yes) or HOW they should…

  • The truth about online community building at newspapers

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    Ryan Sholin
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    Let’s get something out of the way here. From an idealistic, do-gooder, journalistic point-of-view, building a community around/at/affiliated with your newspaper’s Web site is all about giving people a place to talk to each other, find like-minded individuals, debate, discuss, share, and participate in local and far-flung news. That’s great. In fact, it’s so great…

  • Don’t fear the user-created content?

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    Ryan Sholin
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    Do online news sites need to reinvent uploading and editing tools to gather user-created content? Steve Outing says no, making the case that YouTube, Google Video, and myriad third place finishers do the heavy lifting, hosting the video and spitting out the little block of code that a user can paste into a post in…

  • No really, listen to your readers

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    Ryan Sholin
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    Jeff Jarvis runs down another list of advisements to local news organizations trying to stay relevant online. “7. Start a Digg edition. Go ahead and make your front page. But allow readers to tell you what they think is most important on their front page and let that guide your resource and news judgments.” I…

  • So who do we lock in the room with a whiteboard and a laptop…

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    Ryan Sholin
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    …to figure out the answer to the $4.5 billion question: “What’s the new business model for newspapers?” At last night’s Who Needs Ink? panel discussion, everyone punted on that question, but Jerry Ceppos (to my delight) again insisted that newspapers need to stop screwing around and devote a large chunk of their staff to the…

  • This year’s big “duh”

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    Ryan Sholin
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    Last year, the big “duh” was the raging irrational debate over whether blogs were journalism. Answer? If you write journalism, it’s journalism. If you record journalism, it’s journalism. Doesn’t matter what medium you choose to display it in, doesn’t matter if you’re the San Jose Mercury News or Grade the News or Rocketboom — it’s…

  • Listen to your readers

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    Ryan Sholin
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    Last night at SJSU’s King Library, former Knight Ridder chief news executive Jerry Ceppos made a few points that brought together a few things I’ve been rambling on about lately: Newspapers need to jump into the online world with both feet. Take the governor off the engine and start devoting a larger percentage of your…