Journalism Will Not Die

If you are not following @jasonfalls on Twitter or reading his blog Social Media Explorer, you should. He is one of the best minds out there commenting on social media. He is also a great writer and keeps the discussion entertaining.

An excerpt from The Future of Social Media by Jason Falls

"Journalism Will Not Die - Media is changing because of social media, but as much as I've picked on old-school journalism, there's still a need for accuracy, ethics and quality in reporting. Newspapers may very well die. Traditional media outlets that don't shift their focus to a web-first approach certainly will. But journalism will never go away. We need it as a society because it keeps our world - government, industry and more - honest. Where will the journalists go? That I'm not so clear about, though it will certainly be in web-centric opportunities. But all the social media evangelists and bloggers in the world can't tear down one of the world's most noble professions."

Agree/disagree? What do you think?

Tools: Zemanta.

Here's a few words from Andraz Tori, the founder of Zemanta, on how his research tool can help you. (Follow him on Twitter: @andraz)

"Here's a proper answer, mostly compiled from what our users said:

-it lets journalists do research while they are writing (by checking out related articles - widens journalist's horizon)

-it makes it easy for readers to do further discovery on their own (in-text links for in-depth info and related articles for other views and thoughts on the topic)

-it reduces journalist's non-creative workload (images, tagging)

Bottom line is: Better articles both content-wise and form-wise while reducing the workload."

Here's a screenshot from the tour of Zemanta.

From the trenches: John E. McIntyre (Baltimore Sun)

A thoughtful post from John E. McIntyre of the Baltimore Sun offering advice for surviving and thriving in the modern newsroom. Read the full post here. 

His six points are great:

1. Show your work.

2. Work on what matters.

3. Make yourself useful.

4. Don't let writers evade responsibility.

5. Write about what people want to read.

6. Don't give up the ship.

Tools: TweetBeep

TweetBeep is a great service. You'll be sent updates as any search parameters you define are Tweeted.  You can get results on your own name, or any city, subject, etc. Great for hunting for info and contacts within the Twitter Universe. Don't have a Twitter account? Go to Twitter.com and sign up. (Then be sure to follow @pressconnect, you know, now that we helped you out.)

The Next Newsroom.

There's some great discussion going on at The Next Newsroom. The basis of the discussion is built around the following six principles:

1. Place community at the center.

2. Make innovation a priority.

3. Publish to all platforms.

4. Collaborate with others.

5. Promote transparency.

6. Create a sustainable business model.

Number 1 is definitely in the right place on this list, and I would generally agree with the other five. What do you think?

Tools: Twellow

Twellow  analyzes and categorizes Twitter entries for easy consumption. It's a great real-time source for scanning Twitter noise for information and for finding new people to follow.

Here's an example of a Twellow search for "newspaper".

Back to School Blog.

Washington Post writer Michael Alison Chandler blogs about going back to high school algebra.

Cheers to Chandler for her conversational, frank writing.

Boo to the Post for forcing users to sign in before posting a comment.