Recovering Journalist Blog

Some Context on Ezra Klein’s “News Site/Encyclopedia” Concept

It appears that the big project that led Wonkblog proprietor Ezra Klein to bolt The Washington Post for VoxMedia is to "build the world's first hybrid news site/encyclopedia," according to a job posting on VoxMedia's ProjectX site. The posting says Klein wants to "build and continuously update a comprehensive set of explainers of the topics we…

Introducing Newspeg — A New Way to Look at News

Do you get the feeling you're awash in a flood of news? The internet has unleashed a torrent of news sources, old and new, that we're all scrambling to make sense of and sort out. The old convenient package of news that landed on the driveway each morning or played on TV at dinnertime has…

“Audience First” and Other Lessons in Disruptive Innovation

When I arrived at the Lawrence Journal-World earlier this month, the first thing I told the staff was that we needed to think "audience first." Not just digital first; we had to consider every possible way that our audiences wanted to receive information from us–the Web, mobile, social, print, feeds, e-mail, whatever—and deliver news, info…

Falling Off the Wagon—And Into the Land of Oz

I started the Recovering Journalist blog six years ago because I believe strongly that the future of journalism involves a lot more than simply journalism. To be a complete journalist, it has become just as important to understand and appreciate the business of journalism. So I styled myself the Recovering Journalist and opined away on…

A Vision for the Future of Newspapers—20 Years Ago

It's becoming hard to remember life before digital news. We now take for granted instantaneous availability of news and information on devices ranging from desktop PCs to tablets to smartphones. We now break news, add commentary and interact with audiences on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Google has put access to an unimaginable collection…

The Chronology of Newspaper-Think

I recently worked on a project that involved examining the history of the newpaper industry's interaction with the challenges of the digital revolution and innovation over the past 20 years. Painful memories, for those of us who were there from the start—we've seen a lot of self-inflicted wounds and crappy executives. And I realized that…

More Must Reads

I started to write a post inspired by John Paton's terrific "Old Dogs, New Tricks and Crappy Newspaper Executives" speech last week (money quote: “Crappy newspaper executives are a bigger threat to journalism’s future than any changes wrought by the Internet.”), but realized that John railed against the newspaper industry's self-inflicted wounds far better than…

Must Reads

Where have I been? Well, let's just say I got tired of saying many of the same things over and over. Besides, other people sometimes say them much better. Two cases in point today: John Robinson, recently departed editor of the Greensboro News & Record and all-around smart, good guy, has gotten even smarter now…

In Defense of Jim Romenesko

Who would ever have believed that Jim Romenesko, the ace chronicler of journalism's foibles, would himself wind up the topic of a post in his own blog alleging malfeasance on his part. But incredibly, it's happened. Problem is, the alleged misdeeds being attributed to Romenesko are, not to put too fine a point on it,…

Newspaper Next, Five Years Later

Everybody in the newspaper business needs to read and think hard about Justin Ellis' Nieman Lab post mortem of the American Press Institute's Newspaper Next project from 2006. Then ask yourself: Why are you still thinking about it as the "newspaper" business? Because that means you weren't paying enough attention. Newspaper Next had its flaws,…

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