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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #51: Kramer, Rosen on Future of Print Papers; Brian Boyer Moves to NPR
Welcome to the 51st episode of the Mediatwits podcast, with Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali as co-hosts. This week we take a deeper look at the changes at various local newspapers in North America, lowering their print frequency from daily down to a few times per week. Is this an alarming trend or a natural evolution of newspapers as...
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Collaboration
How NPR, Public Media Use #PubJobs to Recruit Talent Collaboratively
Many organizations approach hiring like they do most other functions: as an individual sport. But when it comes to recruiting top talent in today's rapidly evolving media landscape, collaboration is necessary. As the director of talent acquisition for NPR, I believe that talent management is the engine driving public media forward -- and that this engine is best fueled by...
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Public MediaShift
How Social Media, Collaboration Fueled Reports on Australia's Refugees
An innovative Australian public journalism project has partnered student reporters and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation with a refugee support agency and a social media startup. The aim of the project, #ReportingRefugees, was to tackle problematic media coverage of asylum seekers and refugees in a volatile political climate in parallel with educating students to connect with a "citizens' agenda." The result...
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Public MediaShift
WBUR Helps Listeners Find Better Health Care Options
Martha Bebinger, a longtime reporter for WBUR in Boston, had been reporting on efforts to control health care spending in Massachusetts for years, but over the past year and a half to two years, interest in the subject intensified among listeners, she said, and it was time to help them be part of a conversation. And so Bebinger and WBUR...
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Public MediaShift
Public Radio Stations Make Space for Innovation at PRPC
What does innovation feel like? According to newly minted MacArthur genius Jad Abumrad, it's a bit like being chased by a tiger: visceral and gut-churning. Abumrad, the co-host of WNYC's ground-breaking show Radiolab, advised the audience at last week's Public Radio Programming Conference (PRPC) to seek out this life-or-death sensation. Innovation isn't always obvious, he explained in his keynote address,...
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RadioShift
5 Must-Have Apps for iPhone Radio Reporting
Having the right tool for any job is important, especially when your finished product is due right now. Since February 2010 I've been doing all my field production and reporting on my iPhone for all-news WTOP-FM and wtop.com in Washington, D.C. You can read my in-depth report on how I use the iPhone for reporting in this previous report for...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #4: Impressive, Creepy Apple; The iPhone Radio Reporter
Welcome to the fourth episode of "The Mediatwits," the new revamped longer form weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week's show is obsessed with all things Apple -- and iPhone. Apple had a blow-out earnings quarter, nearly doubling its profits and selling more iPhones than ever with...
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RadioShift
How One Radio Reporter Ditched His Equipment for an iPhone 4
It's been more than a year since I packed away my laptop computer, digital recorders, microphones, cables and cameras, and began covering Washington, D.C. with only my iPhone. When I first came to the top-rated all-news WTOP in 1997, the bag phone I carried weighed as much as a bowling ball. Reel-to-reel tape recorders (ask your parents) were the newsroom...
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Public MediaShift
IMA + SXSW = Major Discussion on Future of Public Media
Public media makers found a whole new crew to hang with at this year's Integrated Media Association (IMA) Conference on March 10 and 11. Fueling excitement was a new collaboration: The IMA preceded and then flowed into the interactive track of the SXSW festival on the 12th. Attendees at a Knight Foundation-supported array of SXSWi panels on news innovation and...
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World View
Will Freedom of Expression Hold in Southern Sudan?
JUBA, SUDAN -- "If someone from southern Sudan trusts you, they will tell you enough to write a book," said Cecilia Sierra Salcido, a Mexican missionary nun turned media entrepreneur who runs Radio Bakhita in Sudan. "We broadcast a special history series, as so much here has not been written or recorded, and so many people have stories to tell."...
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Public MediaShift
The Business of Public Radio: WNYC Bulks Up, Builds Out
New York Public Radio, which includes WNYC, the most listened to public radio station in the country, has in recent years developed a lot of ways to, in the words of CEO Laura Walker, "diversify revenue streams." It has increased its member base, used new fundraising techniques, attracted new grants, conducted capital campaigns to buy radio licenses and build new offices and studios, made financial investments, developed new sponsorships, increased web revenues, rented out its event space and more.
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Public MediaShift
While Others Shrink, KQED Expands Cross-Platform News
Last month, KQED News in San Francisco dramatically expanded the scope of its news coverage with a new website, an increase from six to 16 local radio newscasts and the addition of eight news staffers, including six producers/reporters, a developer and a social media specialist. Its expansion will continue over the next several months (look for a new news blog...
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Public MediaShift
Pop and Politics Blog Becomes Converged Radio Project
These days it's not so unusual for a public radio program to boast a companion blog. But few shows begin online and move to broadcast.Pop and Politics is the exception. Farai Chideya -- a high-profile public affairs reporter, novelist, and the former host of NPR's late and lamented African-American current events program "News & Notes" -- began the Pop and...
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RadioShift
NPR, SiriusXM Internships Steeped in Multimedia, Social Media
When you think about internships at media companies, you probably picture people fetching coffee, running errands, or worse. But some internships have taken a different tack, setting up specialized blogs, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages for their interns to help them understand new technology and spread the word about their programs. At NPR, the 40-plus interns put together a...
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World View
Local Radio Keeps Haiti Earthquake Survivors Connected
In two weeks, Haiti will be forgotten by much of the world. After foreign media leave, which will happen soon, only Haitian reporters will remain in the country as witnesses and a source of information. As it stands today, they are struggling just to keep their fellow citizens informed, which is often the case in the aftermath of a natural disaster.
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Public MediaShift
Lessons on Collaboration from EconomyStory, Election Projects
"Online: Content is king. I don't disagree. But collaboration is queen. In chess the king is the most important, but the queen is the most powerful." - David Cohn We in public media produce a lot of content, but historically we haven't had a lot of collaboration. That's been changing recently, and I'm fortunate enough to have a front row...
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Social Networking
Media140 Brings Old and New Media Together, With Explosive Results
Over 300 people gathered under the Media140 banner in a concert hall at Australia's national public broadcaster ABC in Sydney last week to consider the future of journalism in the social media age. Media140 is a newly formed global collaboration of journalists, academics and social media practitioners that is staging conferences around the world. The goal is to examine the...
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EducationShift
Revamped Journalist's Role More About Mindset Than Multimedia Tricks
With a new Web 2.0 service apparently springing up every week, it can be bewildering for a journalist trying to remain relevant in a digital age. Too often, new technology is seen as a burden that adds to an already packed workday. But while many journalists want to embrace new ways of reaching audiences, they flounder when it comes to...
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Social Media
How Journalists Are Using Twitter in Australia
Twitter became big news once journalists realized its power as a tool for breaking stories during the Mumbai Massacre in 2008. In the aftermath of the micro-blogging platform hitting the headlines, there was an explosion of professional journalists in the Twittersphere. This growth has been fueled by increasing mainstream awareness of the importance of social media to the future of...
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Thought Leader Q&A
BlogTalkRadio Lets Anyone (Including the Pentagon) Start Talk Shows
BlogTalkRadio CEO Alan Levy: "Three or four months into doing this, we started broadcasting live from Afghanistan, with an embed there named Scott Kesterson. Every Friday morning he would be live from Kabul or from Kandahar, and people could listen in and ask him questions. And the soldiers were listening to what was going on...Now, the Pentagon has a network on BlogTalkRadio. Now you know the medium has arrived when the Pentagon is embracing it."
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Weblogs
Journalists Consider Risks, Conflicts of Running Personal Blogs
Implementing strategies developed by millions of office workers who have honed the practice of flipping from computer solitaire to spreadsheets at the first sign of a lurking supervisor, I hid my blog from my co-workers. I had been a blogger for nearly four years by the time I entered the newspaper industry in 2006, and when I later accepted a...
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World View
How a Protester Pulled Off the Clandestine Radio Broadcast in Beijing
The voices of Chinese human rights activists can be heard on the radio. A former journalist describes the censorship she experienced, and a human rights activist explains the increasing crackdown on Chinese dissidents that has occurred these past few months. A former political prisoner complains about the appalling conditions in which he was held. Have the Chinese authorities gone wild and suddenly opened the airwaves?
more »Thought Leader Q&A
NPR Considers Convergence for Next Generation of Radio Reporters
The younger generation will be our future leaders. We hear that a lot in politics, but it also applies to media companies wondering who will be leading them into a digital future. National Public Radio has two programs -- Next Generation Radio (NextGen) and Intern Edition -- aimed at training young folks to do quality radio reporting the NPR...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
6 Reasons I'm Not Hooked on Podcasts
A year ago, Mark wrote about the factors that were limiting the growth of podcast adoption. Some of the problems include the difficulty in finding quality content, a lack of understanding of the medium, and a general impatience in getting podcasts to work. I can relate. Try as I might, I haven't been able to make podcasts a part of...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Last.FM, Jango, Pandora Trounce Music Discovery via Radio
Back before the Internet, listening to the radio was a one-sided experience. Beyond the occasional call-in request, music radio was about listening to whatever the DJs decided to play whenever they decided to play it. But a new breed of online music services are giving listeners access to music content on demand, and most are for free. Can these...
more »Digging Deeper
Collaborative Radio Shows Invite Listeners into Creative Process
Long before the term citizen journalism became trendy, ordinary citizens shared the stage for decades with professional journalists in talk radio. They collaborated, they cajoled, they ranted and they often added wit and wisdom to live radio call-in shows. But with the advent of the Internet, public radio shows are finding that websites -- and blogs in particular --...
more »Digging Deeper
'Frienemy' Google Not a Threat (Yet) to Traditional Ad Sales
If you browse through Google's job openings, the dozens of advertising sales positions -- from account manager of Print Ads in Chicago to account manager of Google Television in New York -- you'd think Google was a major media conglomerate that owned TV stations and newspapers. Instead, Google has been trying to take its automated online system for selling...
more »Satellite Radio
Satellite Radio Wants FCC to Save Them From Themselves
The two giants who provide satellite radio services, XM and Sirius, would like to merge in order to provide greater programming choices to consumers as a single entity, according to XM Chairman Gary Parsons in the Wall Street Journal. The Journal points out that the two money-losing enterprises will have to get by the hurdle of the FCC, which has a specific rule against the satellite radio companies merging. I thought the time was right for satellite radio to see a psychiatrist. The following is a partial transcript of its recent visit.
more »Open Source Reporting
Building the Ultimate Auto Media Center
When it comes to enjoying music or talk radio in the car, why does everything have to be so complicated? First, I have to spend time loading up my iPod with music or podcasts I've downloaded. Then I have to charge my iPod up with power. Then I have to connect my iPod to my car stereo's converter cable. Then I have to fiddle around with the iPod controls to find the music or podcasts I want to listen to -- and NOT while driving.
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