OJR columns Archives - Author JD Lasica

The cost of ethics: Influence peddling in the blogosphere

As blogging comes of age, what ethical standards should bloggers follow when offered payments or freebies (schwag) for buzz? Editor’s note: I’m leaving these articles up as a historical snapshot. Most of the links below no longer work. t wasn’t long ago that bloggers and money had nothing to do with each other. But as the blogosphere exploded into the public consciousness over the past year – PubSub estimates there are more than 8 million Weblogs, or online journals – it was inevitable that the captains of commerce would latch onto this increasingly popular form of personal media. Blogging is growing up. For better, for worse. It has become common to see advertising on personal blogs. Major corporations such as

Balancing act: How news portals serve up political stories

Why do Google search results skew so heavily against John Kerry? This column appeared in the Online Journalism Review. Summary: Google News uses computer algorithms to identify top stories while Yahoo News favors old-fashioned human editors. But do Google’s automated search results display a conservative bias? n newspaper newsrooms, editors often go to great lengths to achieve a semblance of balance in coverage of the two major candidates for president. Some count the story inches devoted to both men. Others make sure that photo size and placement don’t favor one over the other. Journalistic fairness demands equal treatment. But what are the rules for online search engines, where millions of users are turning for their daily news fix? Does evenhanded

Transparency begets trust in the blogosphere

The openness of Weblogs could help explain why many readers find them more credible than traditional media. Can mainstream journalists learn from their cutting-edge cousins? At the Aspen Institute’s Conference on Journalism and Society in mid-July, a question was put to executives of major news organizations: Whom do you trust in online media today? Most answered with a list of the usual suspects: the Web sites of The New York Times, NPR, the Los Angeles Times.

Surf’s down as more users turn to RSS for browsing

Newsreader software continues to improve, allowing info-warriors better ways to find and assemble what they are looking for on the Web. RSS may be to the Web what TiVo was to TV. J.D. Lasica reviews the latest tools. These days it’s not easy being an infowarrior. As the number of blogs and niche news sites continue to soar, how do you keep on top of everything? While most Netizens still surf to Web sites to catch the latest postings, more users have found that to be a laborious, time-consuming way to browse. Instead they are installing “newsreader” software that constantly plucks feeds from Weblogs and news outlets and pulls them together onto a single screen.

Participatory journalism puts the reader in the driver’s seat

New forms of journalism let citizens become partners in the news By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review Over the past few years, the outlines of a new form of journalism have begun to emerge. Call it participatory journalism or one of its kindred names — open-source journalism, personal media, grassroots reporting — but everyone from individuals to online newspapers has begun to take notice. “It’s about readers participating in the editorial process, and it’s long overdue,” says Dan Gillmor, a blogger and technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, who is writing a book on the subject called “Making the News.” “People at the edges of the network are getting a chance to become more involved in traditional journalism

Digital editions: Friend or foe to new media?

In some markets, electronic replicas may replace free news sites A different version of this article appeared in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site. In the sprawling terrain of eastern Washington, the era of free local news on the Web is drawing to a close. The Spokane Spokesman-Review, long known for its innovative new media operation, plans to launch a digital edition this summer in tandem with closing off large portions of its Web site to non-subscribers. “Simply put, we’re tired of giving away today’s news for free,” says Shaun Higgins, the paper’s director of marketing. “We can’t afford free riders on our service. Otherwise, we’ll have to stop paying our staff.”

Portraying the graphic face of war

Photojournalists bring home the human dimension from the front lines By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review Visualize for a moment the defining images of World War II, Vietnam, the Gulf War. Photojournalists were there, serving as eyewitnesses to history and bringing home the harsh reality that war is about suffering, destruction and the death of innocents — not simply an abstract political conflict in faraway lands. Just as WWII belonged to the wire services, Vietnam to Life magazine and the Gulf War to CNN, the placement of news photographers with advanced digital equipment on the front lines of the conflict in Iraq suggest that photojournalists will again play a key role in shaping the public’s understanding of war. This time

How to use RSS feeds for news that comes to you

RSS feeds offer info-warriors a way to take the pulse of hundreds of sites By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review The explosion of weblogs and niche news sites poses a problem for any info-warrior: Who the heck has time to read all this stuff? Well, here’s one possible solution: news readers — a new crop of software programs that fetch updated dispatches from your favorite online writers, bloggers or news outfits. Instead of the hunt and peck of Web surfing, you can download or buy a small program that turns your computer into a voracious media hub, letting you snag headlines and news updates as if you were commanding the anchor desk at CNN.

Gear for the multimedia newsroom

How to meet the practical needs of digital journalists in the field By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review Every year at budget time, news organizations sort through the swarm of new technologies on the market, grappling with the question of how to outfit their operations to meet the needs of a multimedia age. A new generation of cool but practical digital tools offers print, broadcast and online journalists the chance to serve audiences that increasingly demand a more immediate, sophisticated news product. The Advanced Journalist Technology Project, an initiative of the Ifra Centre for Advanced News Operations, has been studying the technological needs of media organizations since 1998, when it put together its first list of NewsGear components. “Several of

Where Net luminaries turn for news

PopTech attendees send a cautionary signal to mainstream news publications By J.D. Lasica Online Journalism Review Late last week, while the Online News Association held its annual conference in New York, a handful of online journalists headed to a different kind of conclave, trekking to a scenic coastal village in Maine for PopTech, the annual gathering of Internet deep thinkers and technology heavy hitters. In between sessions, I asked some of the participants their views about the state of online journalism, the news sites they frequent, and their digital news habits. (For more on PopTech, see Dan Gillmor’s coverage and related photos.) If the digerati gathered here represent the leading edge of the Internet Age, reflecting where our wired society