How to make your newspaper great

Super cool journalism links from About.com

newspaper_cat_6616, originally uploaded by doviende

Tony Rodgers has these great links to great writing about several aspects of the journalism biz. Enjoy:

• A New York Times reporter in Detroit. Find out why journalist Charlie LeDuff gave up a star studded career in the Big Apple to work for his hometown paper.
• The last man standing. Go inside The New York Times’Baghdad bureau for a look at a shrinking number of journalists still covering America’s unpopular war full-time.
• The top 10. Editor & Publisher names its top newspaper industry stories for 2008.

Making sure your stories add up: math resources for journalists

Casio COLLEGE FX-100 Pocket Calculator, originally uploaded by psd.

Not long ago, I was asked to provide some resources for reporters when tangling with math (particularly the numbers involved in county and municipal budgets) in their stories.

The Net is a great source of information with sites dedicated specifically for this purpose.

When it comes to local budgets its important to remember what a former boss of mine used to call the “pocketbook issues”.

It’s one thing to tell readers that millage in their community will increase next year. It’s another to tell them how much more they will be paying on their real estate taxes or at least how much they will increase for the average homeowner in the community.

Be similarly specific when dealing with sales, per capita or income tax increases. These specifics are what most people pick up a local newspaper for in the first place.

Here are a set of online resources to help math challenged English and Journalism majors with the most likely math issues you’ll come across when reporting the news:

• Numbers in the newsroom. A great site for figuring rates, percentages, percentage changes and averages. Don’t EVER leave readers to figure these out for themselves.
• Math and statistics for journalists. This website focuses heavily on rations and percentages with additional resources and even math drills to test proficiency.
• A definition of millage. Remember here to always ask a local municipality for what a mill represents based on local property values. It will vary. To report a tax increase simply ask what the assessed value of an average house in the community would be and how much taxes would increase on such a home.
• A chart to calculate property tax. This site goes at things a bit differently giving a chart to help calculate property tax. Remember, the success of using such a chart will depend upon determining the amount of a mill in your community.

Why this blog exists

GEISHA READING A NEWSPAPER -- or, Real Geisha are Not Air-Heads, originally uploaded by Okinawa Soba.

So why a blog about improving newspapers, and why now?

 

After all aren’t newspapers on their way out, replaced by online media just like this for a new generation of readers? Well, not in my opinion.

 

If you have any doubts about the viability of the industry, just take a look at this.

 

About a year ago, I became the managing editor of a small group of weekly newspapers and I’m convinced the medium isn’t ready to go the way of the dodo just yet.

 

The purpose of this site, then, is to discuss, for the benefit of newspaper professionals across the country and around the world, what can be done to invigorate the industry in a time of Internet competition and shrinking markets.

 

We hope to look at:

• How newspapers can be the most compelling product possible in this increasingly competitive media environment
• How newspaper professionals can use the best in new technologies to optimize the gathering of news, the selling of advertising, the organization of resources and the delivering of content.
• How we can embrace instead of competing with the new media and its ability to build audience, revenue and community for our traditional product.
• How journalists and other print professionals can use ever shrinking resources to reverse the trend of shrinking readership and a shrinking market.
• How print media professionals can reverse the trend of a dying forum for sharing of journalism and community information by taking a fresh look at both the revenue and content possibilities of newspapers in the 21^st century and innovating for a new era and new audience in the digital age.

 

Hope to see some contribution to this blog in the form of comments and some online community resources soon to be set up. To help support our efforts, consider making a contribution through our “contribute to this blog” setting at the top of the page.