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category archive listing Category Archives: skills

David Cohn: Pushing journalism frontiers

May 7, 2008 – 7:49 pm

At the NewsTools 2008 conference last week, I had a chance to sit down with one of the emerging luminaries of entrepreneurial, experimental journalism. David Cohn runs the BeatBlogging project for NewAssignment.net, and he also works with NewsTrust . Plus, he runs a great blog of his own and is a constant presence on [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in blogs, business, careers, collaboration, community, conversational media, innovation, interviews, journalism, media evolution, processes, social media, social networks, video | Comments (2)

Geneva Overholser: Transparency Trumps Tradition

May 5, 2008 – 8:01 am

On Saturday I attended an event held by the Northern CA chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. I was covering the keynote panel, “New Money, New Media, New Hope,” live via my amylive Twitter account. Fellow journo and Twitter user Saleem Khan submitted a couple of questions for me to ask the panel. However, [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in blogs, business, credibility, interviews, journalism, problems, processes, video | Comments (0)

Journalism: A Toxic Culture? (Or: Why Aren’t We Having More Fun?)

April 28, 2008 – 11:58 am

Despair, Inc.

Remind you of any journalists you know?…

(NOTE: I originally posted this article on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits. But I thought Contentious readers might be interested in it, too.)
Most of what I do is help journalists and news orgs wrap their brains around the Internet. Generally I enjoy that work. Lately, though, I’ve been getting quite [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in Media Musings, careers, collaboration, community, credibility, culture, emotions, events, fun stuff, journalism, media evolution, mindset, problems, solutions | Comments (1)

Breaking Out of the Echo Chamber

April 20, 2008 – 3:20 pm

OpenDemocracy, via Flickr (CC license)

What might this Malian girl and I have in common, and what might we learn from each other? How could we know if we can’t really connect?

This morning I listened to an excellent Radio Open Source interview. Host Christopher Lydon was talking to Global Voices Online founder Ethan Zuckerman and GVO [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in Conversations, Net Effects on Society, Resources, community, conversational media, critical thinking, culture, mindset, news, personal, problems, processes, psychology, social media, social networks, society, solutions, tools | Comments (9)

New J-Skills: What to Measure?

April 10, 2008 – 10:02 am

Berbercarpet, via Flickr (CC license)

Journalism sudents need the right tools — and skills — for the kinds of careers and opportunities they’re really going to be making for themselves.

Picking up on my post yesterday, Univ. of Florida journalism professor Mindy McAdams challenged me (and her other readers) to translate my quick list of what j-schools [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in Content Style & Business, General, Labels and Metadata, PR & marketing, Resources, Strategy, Wikis, blogs, business, careers, collaboration, community, content management, contributed content, conversational media, creativity, credibility, critical thinking, culture, distribution, education, experience, forums, innovation, journalism, media evolution, mindset, mobile, networking, news, processes, projects, research, search, services, social media, traffic, transparency, world | Comments (15)

Where’s Your “Personal Brand,” and Why?

April 4, 2008 – 9:10 am

There are lots of different ways to brand yourself.

Yesterday my colleague Jim Kukral wrote about why he’s decided to focus on centralizing his personal brand. He wrote:
“My biggest mistake from the past 7-years or so was not building my personal brand on my own blog hard enough, earlier enough. Some may wonder why someone like [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in PR & marketing, blogs, business, careers, conversational media, search, serendipity, social media, social networks | Comments (5)

Conversational Media Mindset 101

March 2, 2008 – 8:39 am

Gaetan Lee, via Flickr (CC license)

Is your wetware due for an upgrade?

On Monday I’ll be co-presenting a session on “Future Tools” at the Knight Digital Media Center seminar: Best Practices: Editorial/Commentary in Cyberspace. My fellow presenter Leslie Rule (who runs KQED’s Digital Storytelling Initiative) and I will be explaining to a room full of [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in Amy's Adventures, Conversations, Strategy, community, conversational media, events, journalism, media evolution, psychology, services, social media, tips | Comments (1)

How and why to get started with blogging: The REAL answer

December 19, 2007 – 10:47 am

afkatws, via Flickr (CC license)

Don’t just start blogging. Spend some time scoping things out first.

Almost daily, people e-mail me to ask me for advice about their online-media careers. I just got such an inquiry this morning. It started out pretty typically:
“I found your Contentious.com recently. I’m very interested in online writing as a career. Can [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in Conversations, blogs, business, careers, community, conversational media, experience, media literacy, social media, solutions, tips | Comments (8)

Why blogging conferences is so damn hard

November 9, 2007 – 1:47 pm

Think it’s easy blogging a blogging conference? Think again.

(UPDATE: If you’re reading this post in a feed reader, you may see a big block of spam below. Sorry about that — my blog has been hacked. I’m working to fix it.)
The thing about conferences is that, in my opinion, it’s really damn hard [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in blogs, events, mobile, problems, productivity, psychology, social media, solutions, stress, tools | Comments (4)

Skin in the media game: Smart investing in the attention economy

October 15, 2007 – 12:22 pm

Ian Ransley, via Flickr (CC license)

Do you treat online media like a spectator sport, or do you really have skin in this game?

Recently, my Poynter colleague Roy Peter Clark caused a stir with his article Your Duty To Read the Paper. There, he wrote:
“I pose this challenge to you: It is your duty as [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in business, creativity, education, experience, journalism, media evolution, media literacy, mobile, social media | Comments (2)