October 24, 2014
Local Fix: Making Time, Community Tools, Revenue Everywhere and Poetry
One Good Idea: Create a Collaborative Election Night “Open Newsroom.” The NJ News Commons is working with students, faculty, hyperlocal publishers, nonprofit journalists and more to build and maintain a live election map for anyone in the state to use as the results come in.
Infiltrating People’s Habits
At Nieman Lab, Joseph Lichterman, looked at how Time magazine is “infiltrating people’s habits” to better engage readers and drive traffic. And Alexa Schirtzinger writes over on Medium that “The most forward-thinking media companies are obsessed with audience, with truly understanding whom they’re serving, and why.”
An “All-of-the-Above” Revenue Strategy
In an interview with Baratunde Thurston on his AOL webseries “Funded,” web video star and producer Issa Rae explains that her success has been due to the fact that she “had a grasp on my audience, could cater to them, listen to them.” Rae used YouTube ads, crowdsourcing and even a surprise celebrity connection to fund her work. By staying independent and small, Rae understood how to serve a specific audience and grow into new revenue streams over time. Rae’s web series “Awkward Black Girl” has been so successful that she is now expanding and helping others produce web videos.
Make Friends With The Clock
In an article from 2002, Poynter offers advice for “making friends with the clock.” Part of getting a grip on your time is stopping other people from wasting it (here are some tips). Another strategy focuses on breaking up big projects into smaller achievable goals. Alexander Charchar calls this “eating an elephant” and it is is the idea behind the “Getting Things Done” method of time management. Here is a great overview of GTD specifically for journalists.
Poetry and the Press
There has been a long running and interesting debate about the intersections and conflicts between poets and journalists. Scott Gregory, of This Land Press, argues that “Poetry helps us confront the news.” At the Guardian, Roy Greenslade asks “Which tells the greatest truth – poetry or journalism?” Nieman Reports has two pieces on how poets and journalists can learn from each other. And at the Boston Globe, poet and journalist Howie Good reflects on how “Journalism has an emphasis on compression, clarity, urgency — all values that I’ve carried into my poetry.“
