I’m starting what I hope will become a WordCount Friday feature, a recap of news and commentary on freelancing and the media business as reported by other blogs and news outlets this week. Happy reading: The case for independent news sites as profit-makers – David Westphal, a senior fellow at USC’s Annenberg’s Center on Communication […]
As optimists tell, it's a great time to get into journalism
Most of the news coming out of the newspaper business is glum, worse than glum actually. Lay offs. Shrinking ad pages. Financial instability. Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service recently dropped their rating of New York Times debt because of the paper’s declining revenues. Imagine that, the Grey Lady a junk bond. But not […]
US News, CSM join parade of pubs going online only
Add US News & World Report and the Christian Science Monitor to the list of publications that are dropping their print editions and going online only. According to this report from the Washington Post, US News will continue to publish a print once a month, but the issues will be consumer guides, like its popular […]
Journalism awards add online categories
As news moves online, it’s begetting new forms of interactive story telling and causing professional journalism groups that run annual awards programs to expand their definition of excellence to include them. In the latest instance, the Association of Health Care Journalists is adding an online category to their four-year-old Excellence in Health Care Journalism awards. […]
National Press Club hosts forums on future of news
A year-long series of forums on the future of the news business rolls into Portland next week, courtesy of the National Press Club. The Washington D.C. professional journalist organization will host a forum on Tuesday, Oct. 21, at the University of Oregon’s newly opened Turnbull Center in downtown Portland. The stop comes in the middle […]
Doonesbury's Redfern gets laid off from the Post
Everybody in the newspaper business is getting laid off. Even Rick Redfern. Redfern, the fictional investigative reporter in Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic strip, is getting canned by the Washington Post after 33 years on the job, according to a story line that debuted in the strip this week. He’s one of the lucky ones, Redfern’s […]