tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74124794360231466282024-09-16T16:32:57.031-07:00Little newsrooms practice high-impact journalism every day. Documenting what works -- and what doesn't work -- at community newspapers.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7412479436023146628.post-14218331880805933952012-04-10T00:08:00.000-07:002012-04-10T07:34:34.674-07:00

School Newspapers Online is a company that creates web sites for high school journalism programs. Starting at a relatively low cost of $600, a school can easily launch an slick-looking and easy-to-update website using the Wordpress platform. One problem. Companies like School Newspapers Online wouldn't exist if community newspapers were doing their jobs. SNO is filling a void that community

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7412479436023146628.post-85285508439869929492012-01-28T18:03:00.000-08:002012-01-28T18:16:18.325-08:00

Every newspaper I've been affiliated with, at some point, had some sort of reader rant line. In Manteca, we called it "Tell it to the Bulletin." In Turlock and Merced, it was "The Red Phone." The idea was that readers could call a phone number and leave a voice recording, and eventually that recording would be reviewed and transcribed for the print edition. You can imagine, in the days before

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7412479436023146628.post-61646901419339864312012-01-28T14:43:00.000-08:002012-01-28T18:16:59.323-08:00

Caspio's databases are great if you're hoping to immediately and drastically raise page views on your news website. There's a bit of a learning curve, but once you've figured out how to turn an Excel spreadsheet into a searchable database, you'll see instant results. And here's the cool thing -- a lot of times those databases can turn into pretty good news stories, so this isn't simply a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7412479436023146628.post-30836818320666464352012-01-25T22:40:00.000-08:002012-01-28T18:17:39.213-08:00

Local names and faces.  A publisher at a former newspaper couldn't get enough of 'em. Each morning, I counted each name and face that appeared in that day's edition of the paper so I could tell him that, yes, we were hitting whatever number he had determined was appropriate -- I think it was 300. It sounds ridiculous, but we were counting every name and face that we could find. It didn't

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7412479436023146628.post-10109195931893097932012-01-24T01:53:00.001-08:002012-01-24T09:54:07.045-08:00

Comics were the first thing to go in 2003 when I was asked to convert the daily Turlock Journal into a twice-weekly publication. The syndicates were too expensive for a small paper's budget, for starters. But even without the cost factor, it just didn't make sense for us. We were attempting to project a new image for the paper, and carrying those stale titles -- Charles Schultz died three years

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