Goodbye Gutenberg

Winter 2006: Introduction

By Melissa Ludtke• December 15, 2006

Journalism is on a fast-paced, transformative journey, its destination still unknown. That the Web and other media technologies are affecting mightily the practice of journalism is beyond dispute. Less clear is any shared vision of what the future holds. Read more

Newspaper Gallery

By various contributors• Journalist’s Trade• December 15, 2006

This model #1 linotype machine, built between January and June 1893, was first used in the Baltimore, Maryland area. It was sold to The Rappahanock Record circa 1925. Newseum collection/gift, Mr. and Mrs. Read more

Caught in the Web

By Jon Palfreman• Features• December 15, 2006

As journalists, we think about what the Web means for work we do in reporting and disseminating news and information. Given its transformative capacity, we can regard the Web as a problem or we can see it as a potential solution to a broader problem that we would have had to face anyway. Read more

A Dinosaur Adapts

By Kevin Cullen• Features• December 15, 2006

‘Unencumbered by the need to squeeze words into a finite space, the Internet proved better for me, as the writer, and I'd argue for readers, too, than newsprint.’ Read more

Risk-Adverse Newspapers Won’t Cross the Digital Divide

By Chris Cobler• Features• December 15, 2006

‘Newspapers lacked the external vision necessary to see the vast range of opportunities created by the Internet.’ Read more

Capital Crisis in the Profitable Newspaper Industry

By Robert G. Picard• Features• December 15, 2006

Solving this ‘will call upon levels of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship infrequently found in newspapers in recent years.’ Read more

Newspapers and Their Quest for the Holy Grail

By Michael Riley• Features• December 15, 2006

Putting the Web first might be ‘the most difficult transformation in our mindset, but we should go ahead and flip our world on its head.’ Read more

Tired of Waiting to Move Ahead

By Geneva Overholser• Features• December 15, 2006

With plenty of ideas about how to move journalism into its digital time, a journalist tries to push the industry past its natural inclination to ‘voice the “no ways.”’ Read more

Media Convergence: ‘Just Do It’

By Ulrik Haagerup• Features• December 15, 2006

Changing people’s way of thinking is key to ‘the media revolution’ in northern Denmark. Read more

Navigating the Road to Convergence

By Ralph Gage• Features• December 15, 2006

‘Being small and a family-owned company are attributes that have helped us to become a multimedia news organization.’ Read more

Meshing Purpose With Product

By Philip Meyer• Features• December 15, 2006

Heeding the warning against forcing ‘existing quality standards into new technology,’ a journalist is cautiously optimistic about the digital future. Read more

Community Building on the Web: Implications for Journalism

By Craig Newmark• Journalist’s Trade• December 15, 2006

The founder of craigslist speaks about online lessons he shares with new media journalists. Read more

The Challenge of Community Building

By Gary Kebbel• Journalist’s Trade• December 15, 2006

Knight Foundation asks whether the community role newspapers play can be replicated by new media and offers to support those who show it can. Read more

Why Anonymity Exists and Works on Newspapers’ Web Sites

By Steve Yelvington• Journalist’s Trade• December 15, 2006

‘If we require real names in print, shouldn’t we do the same thing online?’ Read more

Are Journalists the 21st Century’s Buggy Whip Makers?

By William Dietrich• Features• December 15, 2006

Newspapers might vanish, too, if they continue to ‘dream of past dominance while taking their product and trying to fit it into their competitor's terrain.’ Read more

Vanishing Jobs at Newspapers

By William Dietrich• Features• December 15, 2006

RELATED ARTICLE “Are Journalists the 21st Century’s Buggy Whip Makers?” – William DietrichEmployment news at newspapers is bad, but just how bad depends on who’s counting. Between 1992 … Read more

We Can Adjust to Changing Demands, But Should We?

By Joe Zelnik• Features• December 15, 2006

‘People can adapt to anything if the order comes from the person who signs the paychecks.’ Read more

Evolving Definitions of News

By Tom Bettag• Features• December 15, 2006

‘Journalists may have thought it was necessary to set the old school aside to accommodate the new realities, but with the new realities there is no new ethic.’ Read more

Toward a New Journalism With Verification

By Bill Kovach• Features• December 15, 2006

‘This journalism must recognize that the distribution, the organization, and the sources of our work must change.’ Read more

Journalism and Web 2.0

By Francis Pisani• Features• December 15, 2006

‘Tomorrow’s potential readers are using the Web in ways we can hardly imagine, and if we want to remain significant for them, we need to understand how.’ Read more

Gathering Voices to Share With a Worldwide Online Audience

By Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon• Technology• December 15, 2006

‘Global Voices pulls together interesting threads of conversation and reporting from the global cacophony of blogging voices.’ Read more

The Global Voices Manifesto

By Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon• Technology• December 15, 2006

We believe in free speech: in protecting the right to speak—and the right to listen. We believe in universal access to the tools of speech. To that end, we seek to enable everyone who wants to speak to have the … Read more

Blogging News in China

By Luwei (Rose) Luqiu• Technology• December 15, 2006

‘In China, the Internet enjoys relatively greater freedom than other media. Even so, three of the articles I posted on my blog vanished without notice.’ Read more

Puzzling Contradictions of China’s Internet Journalism

By Fons Tuinstra• Technology• December 15, 2006

A journalist who has worked in China says that ‘the Internet has strengthened the power of the central government, not undermined it.’ Read more

Will News Find a Home on YouTube?

By Morris Jones• Technology• December 15, 2006

With little original news reporting surfacing on this Web site, ‘perhaps an important lesson learned is that tools don't make a tradesman.’ Read more

Myths and Realities of Convergence

By Randy Covington• Technology• December 15, 2006

‘… news organizations will be best served if they focus on stories—not delivery platforms.’ Read more

When Walls Come Tumbling Down

By Jim Kennedy• Technology• December 15, 2006

The Associated Press is making ‘radical adjustments’ to its news reports and business strategies in response to the Web. Read more

Enterprising Journalism in a Multimedia World

By John Solomon• Technology• December 15, 2006

With video, audio and interactive data, The Associated Press makes its investigative reporting accessible, useful to other news outlets, and compelling to its consumers. Read more

Confronting the Dual Challenge of Print and Electronic News

By Paul E. Steiger• Technology• December 15, 2006

‘To make best use of both editions, we need to be increasingly disciplined about what goes where.’ Read more

Feeding the Web While Reporting the Story

By Neil Chase• Technology• December 15, 2006

At The New York Times, multimedia storytelling is becoming more a part of the journalism and less of an afterthought. Read more

Taking the Big Gulp

By Jane Ellen Stevens• Technology• December 15, 2006

‘The Web is its own medium with its own characteristics. It is not newspapers. It is not TV news. It is not radio.’ Read more

Must-Read Books on the larger media environment in which journalism is practiced

By Jane Ellen Stevens• Books• December 15, 2006

To understand the larger media environment in which journalism is practiced—”the new ocean we’re swimming in,” as Jane Ellen Stevens calls it—she offers four must-read books: “The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed … Read more

Sights and Sounds of a Newspaper’s Editorials

By Susan Albright• Technology• December 15, 2006

An editorial page editor describes ‘a wide-open, creative new world for journalists who want to make use of new media and relate to newspaper readers in new ways.’ Read more

An Optimistic Plunge Into Multimedia Reporting

By Joe Howry• Technology• December 15, 2006

‘One columnist took on a controversial local issue and covered it in a way we'd never done before.’ Read more

Narrative Journalism in the Era of the Web

By Lee Hancock and Mark Miller• Technology• December 15, 2006

‘Once the idea of using footnotes took hold, the question became whether we could use them for more than their usual purpose of attribution …’ Read more

Finding New People to Tell the Stories

By Craig Cox• Technology• December 15, 2006

‘… progress in democratizing journalism doesn't necessarily translate into more or better news coverage—at least not yet.’ Read more

Letter to the Editor

By Vince Crunk• 21st Century Muckrakers• March 15, 2008

When the Web Feeds the Newspaper

By Eric Blom• Technology• December 15, 2006

The letter ‘i’ in iHerald stands for ‘interactivity, the individual and the Internet.’ Read more

Inviting Readers Into the Editorial Process

By Ellen Foley• Technology• December 15, 2006

In online polling about story selection, editors at the Wisconsin State Journal learn that ‘the readers who vote consistently do choose weighty stories.’ Read more

The Quickening Pace of Change

By Ellen Foley• Technology• December 15, 2006

In March 2005, David Stoeffler, then vice president of news for Lee Enterprises, issued a challenge to the company’s newspaper editors: Give me ideas that will revolutionize your paper. RELATED ARTICLE … Read more

The Digital Reach of a Newspaper’s Code of Ethics

By Dean Miller• Technology• December 15, 2006

‘It offers readers ideas and phrases to use in their criticism of our journalism, which has a way of sorting serious critics from simple haters.’ Read more

‘About This Story’

By Russell Frank• Journalist’s Trade• December 15, 2006

Newspapers work to make narrative journalism be accountable to readers. Read more

Plagiarism Goes by a Different Name on the Web

By Judy Muller• Opinion• December 15, 2006

A journalism class experiences firsthand ‘the slippery new terms being used in our slippery times.’ Read more

Teaching Journalism Students to Value What Is Authentic

By Brent Walth• Opinion• December 15, 2006

‘I thought by sheer will I could be the one teacher who led his students away from plagiarism.’ Read more

The ‘P’ Word in the Book Business

By Margaret Engel• Opinion• December 15, 2006

‘Newspapers constantly editorialize about other professionals hiding their misdeeds, but with this they were silent.’ Read more