A new interactive map now shows broadband access throughout the state of Texas. You can check out broadband availability for any city, and even any specific address, in the state. The map shows that 96 percent of Texans can access broadband, but that still leaves out about 250,000 homes. Be sure to surf through the entire website — it contains loads of information on every county in the state, including detailed broadband-availability maps of your county. The maps are a project of the Texas Department of Agriculture. The department’s news release quoted commissioner Todd Stapes as saying: “High-speed Internet is directly related to business development and is a critical lifeline to vital services like telemedicine and education. Every Texan should have the opportunity to drive in the fast lane on the information superhighway; however, some Texans are stuck on a dirt road. This new statewide broadband map will help us bridge the digital divide for rural communities and households that remain unserved by broadband service.”
Categories
Blogging a newspaper redesign
Here’s a blog you’ll definitely want to follow. It’s by Broc Sears of the Center’s staff; Broc is also a professional in residence in new media at the Schieffer School of Journalism. Broc is leading a team of students who are redesigning the Daily Skiff at TCU, but he has done something that lots of community papers can emulate when they do a redesign — he is blogging the redesign, asking the campus community for input. A university is much like a small community, and a university newspaper is community journalism — TCU, for instance, has a campus community of about 10,000 students, faculty and staff. Broc and the redesign team have taken the campus community on the redesign journey, and it’s very much worth following. It’s amazing how much the campus has followed the blog — it’s a great way to get the community to identify with the newspaper and to buy in to the whole redesign effort. When it’s all over, Broc will be writing a blog for the TCCJ website on how, and why, to do a redesign “in public,” but for right now, this one is worth following.
Categories
Google lists top thousand
If you’ve ever wondered what sites get the most visitors on the Web, wonder no more. Google has compiled the list. No. 1: Facebook, with 540 million unique visitors.
Our friends at the Motley County Tribune in Matador are sponsoring a writing contest that may interest Texas journalists. It’s the Douglas Meador Writing Contest, named for the long-time, celebrated editor and publisher of the Tribune, who died in 1974. Publishers Laverne Zabielski and Larry Vogt tell what they are looking for: “We are interested in stories of those who came to the American West after 1850 and those who were here when the pioneers arrived. We want stories with authenticity, lively details, and a sense of place that capture the spirit of the land and highlight and celebrate rich traditions, struggles and accomplishments.” The website above gives all the information you’ll need for entering.
Categories
Avoiding errors in news copy
You’ll want to read this one and then post it in several places around the office, and maybe put it in your online stylebook (if you don’t have one, that’s another issue to address). There are actually 44 tips for reducing errors, and they’re down-to-earth, common-sense ideas. Like #3: Always find the first reference to a person in copy. Make sure that on first reference you have a first name and title, and doublecheck to make sure the first reference hasn’t be omitted rearranged or deleted in trimming copy. To which I would add: Make sure the reporter hasn’t omitted the first name of the mayor, just calling him Mayor Smith on first reference. Simple stuff, but really valuable as a review for new employees.
Categories
Why Internet startups fail
Alan Mutter’s always-interesting blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur, draws some conclusions about Internet start-up news operations that are certainly of interest to Texas newspapers who may someday face competition from online-only media (some already do). The bottom line, Mutter says, is that frequently the startups are run by journalists who are interested primarily in producing a good news product. In other words, the focus is on good journalism rather than building the business model and focusing on how the startup will make enough money to survive. Journalists who start these Internet operations frequently assume that good journalism will make a way for itself. To borrow from the baseball movie, they assume that if you build a quality news medium, the readers will come and so will the advertisers. But they’re so busy with journalism, they neglect the how-am-I-going-to-make-any-money-off-this end.
If you’re trying to get a handle on just what the options are for traditional media companies like yours in a new media world, check out this article. The options briefly outlined by the article are these: (1) Erect a paywall. (2) Put up a semi-permeable paywall (a fraction of articles are free to encourage readers to become paying customers). (3) Implement a metered system, where readers can read a certain number of articles a day and then must pay for further access. (4) Remain free – to try to get more readers and thereby create a site where advertisers will want to appear. (5) Create a better value for advertisers – in effect, turning the newspaper’s advertising department into a miniature advertising agency that offers creative advertising solutions. This article summarizes the various options out there right now, and it will help you think more concretely about what your online future may hold.
This is one of those sites you could spend hours and hours with. And should. Michelle McLellan, a Ph.D. student at the University of Missouri, has compiled a list of new local news providers. And maybe more importantly, she has categorized them in a way that helps to see what kind of news sites are being produced. Some are hyperlocal sites in large cities, but many are in small towns or are citizen journalism efforts. Why should people at Texas community newspapers pay attention? Well, some experimental sites in the Lone Star State are mentioned (check out http://impactnews.com/contact-us/about-us, for example), and many of the sites are a treasure trove of ideas for developing your own website.
The blog Lost Remote has published what the bloggers consider to be the five stages of new media acceptance. You can probably look back at your own experience with anything from the Web to Twitter and find yourself on the list. Here they are:
1. Denial: You believe the new app is useless, doesn’t apply to community journalism, or definitely won’t make any money for your newspaper.
2. Disbelief: You read about the app’s use at other newspapers and can’t believe people are wasting their time. And even if it IS working for them, you know it won’t work in your town or at your newspaper.
3. Trial: OK, you decide you’ll give it a brief trial since so many others are doing it. But you are pretty sure nothing will come of it.
4. Acceptance: It works! Readers are following you on Twitter. Your website is getting hits from your Facebook page!
5. Piousness: You run into your friends at TPA meetings and tell them that anyone who doesn’t have a Facebook page is hopelessly behind the times. You call the Center’s Andrew Chavez and ask if he wants you to “give a testimony” on the success of your website at the next workshop.