Community newspapers

Not all is doom and gloom in the media world. Consider this piece by Chris Stadelman, who went from being the managing editor of a daily, and later as a reporter for the AP, to being an owner and operator of the Parsons Advocate in West Virginia:

I had a choice when I left both Charleston and AP, something many mid-career journalists don't have right now. Reading the list of cutbacks on Romenesko every morning reminds me of the old Monty Python scene: "Bring out your dead, bring out your dead."

Community newspapers, especially weeklies in rural markets, are like the defiant character: "I'm not dead yet!" The ad bases are stable, the readers dedicated, the future solid if not spectacular.

All-platform journalist

Poynter's Romenesko had a link to a fascinating story by Philadelphia Week about a former Philadelphia Daily News photographer who is basically an all-in-one journalist covering the city on his site. He promotes his work through social-networking sites, but has yet to turn his labor into a money-making enterprise. He writes about his endeavors here. Apparently lots of people are paying attention and viewing MacMillan as an example of the future of journalism.

Pulitzer Prize Board: Now accepting online-only entries

Found the link to this on Poynter's Romenesko. The Pulitzer Prize Board announced today that online-only publications will be eligible to earn prizes in all 14 journalism categories. Online content from newspaper Web sites have been eligible to earn journalism's most prestigious prize since 2006, but online-only papers weren't allowed to enter and online-only entries were allowed in two categories: breaking news and breaking news photography.

"This is an important step forward, reflecting our continued commitment to American newspapers as well as our willingness to adapt to the remarkable growth of online journalism," said Sig Gissler, administrator of the Prizes. "The new rules enlarge the Pulitzer tent and recognize more fully the role of the Web, while underscoring the enduring value of words and of serious reporting.”

Is today's announcement another nail in the print media's coffin?

Came across an interesting article over at Poynter about journalists changing media platforms. The piece is timely considering the most recent class speaker, Christina Pino-Marina, and her experience going from reporting for a newspaper to reporting for a Web site to creating video online.

The article “More Journalists Switching Platforms to Work Online” gives several accounts of people who moved from newspapers, TV or radio to producing work for the Web, often for a competitor in a different medium. It was interesting to see newspapers going after TV reporters to help the paper with its online offerings or vice versa.

I also found it interesting that the sources saw their switches as moving from one job in digital journalism to another digital journalism job and not as switching mediums.

Newspapers are apparently adopting multimedia storytelling quicker than other organizations. The article also mentioned that papers seem to have trouble with picking up video skills quickly, which was something Pino-Marina touched on during her appearance in class.

One of the sources made the point that journalists must have a broad range of skills — writing, audio and visual — because of the Web. I got the impression from the article that it’s fairly common for journalists in one medium to easily transition to another, but I wonder if that is the case. Does anyone know? Perhaps it will become more commonplace to make such transitions in the future as the demand grows for journalists to have a wide range of skills.