Here’s what I’ve been reading about freelancing, writing and the online news business I’ve been reading this week: On writing: How do you learn to write – From a literary agent, writer and book editor. 5 tips for citizen journalism from ProPublica’s new ‘crowdsorcerer’ 16 things you learn in j-school – Journalism basics You don’t […]
WordCount Q&A: Steven Walling, wiki boy wonder
At 21, Steven Walling has accomplished what some writers twice his age are still trying to figure out: how to make a living as a digital freelancer. Despite his youth, Walling took a very old fashioned path to get where he is today. Fresh out of high school, he took whatever paid writing work he […]
Best of WordCount: Oregon edition
I live and work in Portland, Oregon, and this weekend’s Best of WordCount is dedicated to the area’s burgeoning media community: Can the techies save the news? – If the scene at the recent BarCampPortland III meet up was any indication, that could very well be the case. The Smalltown News – Small newspapers are […]
Digital media business news recap for week of May 15
The week’s highlights from the freelance world and digital media business: Standing up for writers – Today is the 2nd Annual Writers Worth Day. Lori Widmer, a Valley Forge, Pa., writer, dreamed up the campaign to help writers and other freelancers do a better job negotiating fees and standing up themselves. I’m down with that. […]
Digital media industry week in review, for May 8
The week’s highlights from the digital media business: Imprisioned U.S. freelancer ends hunger strike – Roxana Saberi, the freelance broadcast convicted of spying in Iran ended a two-week hunger strike after Iranian authorities agreed to hold an appeal hearing for her next week. The Iranian-American freelance broadcast reporter was arrested in January and convicted of […]
Can the techies save the news?
If you think reporters, editors, newspaper pundits, Sam Zell and the Sulzberger family are the only ones worried about the fate of the media business, you haven’t spent a Saturday morning with a room full of geeks. At last weekend’s BarCampPortland III meetup, the assembled developers, programmers and Web 2.0 entrepreneurs were just as concerned […]