Author

About the Author
Michael O’Connell has been writing, editing and producing new stories for print and the online environment for more than 35 years. Currently, he’s the senior digital editor at Federal News Radio in Washington, D.C. For the 10 years, he’s been one of the producers and is the host of the It’s All Journalism podcast, which is available for download every Thursday on Apple Podcasts and on the PodcastOne network. He speaks regularly at journalism conferences about podcasting, and, in June 2017, Routledge Taylor and Francis released his new textbook, Turn Up the Volume — A Down and Dirty Guide to Podcasting. This fall O’Connell will put his research to practical use when he teaches a podcasting class in the weekend M.A. program in Journalism and Digital Storytelling at American University.

Better News: Iconic southern newspaper undergoes digital-first transformation

The News Reporter of Whiteville, North Carolina is one of those iconic southern newspapers. Founded in 1896, the paper has a long history of serving rural Columbus County, including winning a Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service for its coverage of the Ku Klux Klan in 1953. Les High is the third-generation owner of The…

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384. Memes, manifestos and 4chan — making sense of a toxic online culture

Dale Beran first heard about 4chan around 2005, when he began seeing referrals from the website to a first-generation web comic he was working on. Later, he encountered some of the people behind 4chan at the Otakon anime convention in his hometown of Baltimore. “Back then, they were talking about stuff like ‘memes’ and “trolling…

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383. Public good vs private enterprise: sustainability in local news

Should readers pay for local news as a private enterprise or should local news be subsidized with government funding? News sustainability experts pondered this question Monday during a policy discussion at Gallup World Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The event was timed to coincide with the release of a new report from Gallup and the Knight…

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Better News: Post & Courier uncovers new revenue with mini-publisher model

The Post & Courier of Charleston, South Carolina was in dire straights. Its traditional revenue streams — print advertising and circulation — were in decline and the newspaper needed to find a way to reverse that trend — and fast. The Post & Courier‘s solution, according to Executive Editor Mitch Pugh, was to take a…

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Better News: Amplifier highlights Charlotte through its diverse music scene

When Joni Deutsch arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina to become the podcast lead at NPR station WFAE, she wanted to create something that captured the city’s unique identity beyond just football and banking. To that end, she launched Amplifier, a biweekly podcast that highlights the region’s diverse music scene in September 2018. In early 2019,…

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372. Algorithms are changing how journalists do their jobs

Nick Diakopoulos is an assistant professor in communication studies and computer science at Northwestern University where he’s also the director of the Computational Journalism Lab. In addition, Diakopoulos the author of Automating the News: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Media. Recently, it was announced that he is joining Jeremy Bowers’ team at The Washington Post to develop…

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