#11 – John Wenzel, arts and entertainment reporter, The Denver Post

Arts and entertainment reporter John Wenzel writes about popular culture for both the print and online editions of the Denver Post. A Dayton, Ohio, native, he has written for RollingStone.com, Vice.Com and other entertainment outlets. He’s also the author of “Mock Stars,” a Speck/Fulcrum nonfiction book.

John Wenzel

John Wenzel of the Denver Post

One of the Post’s online success stories is the HeyReverb music and culture blog that Wenzel co-editted with pop music critic and entertainment editor Ricardo Baca.

“At first, it wasn’t that different than most music blogs,” Wenzel told It’s All Journalism Producer Michael O’Connell. “We weren’t thinking of ourselves as competition for the larger music blogs out there.

HeyReverb made a name for itself through its music reviews, columns and coverage of local bands and national acts that come through town. In addition, the site sponsors recording sessions of local acts to create unique content for its readers to download. All this has helped it to become a one-stop shop for music and entertainment content for the greather Denver music scene.

“As it’s grown through the years and as we’ve added contributors and sort of rewritten our mission statement, it’s really become more than a music blog, more than a local music blog and a culture site,” Wenzel said. “Something that’s moving a little bit more in a direction like a Gawker media blog or New York Magazine’s Vulture site.”

As a significant link in the Digital First Media chain, the Denver Post is traveling the path of many legacy news outlets, trading its print-only tradition and embracing the new “digital first” mantra. It’s not an easy road to travel, but Wenzel sees postive strides being made online, especially in the arts and entertainment arena, in securing a new audience for the Post’s content.

“We want to offer things that sort of reinforce the brand that we like to think we’ve help to develop, which is younger, kind of hipper, more connected, more social media savvy,” Wenzel said.

You can follow Wenzel on Twitter at @johntwenzel

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#10 – Taking old school radio, mobile — WTOP reporter Neal Augenstein shares how

One Washington, D.C., reporter has taken mobile reporting to the extreme. For the past 2-1/2 years, Neal Augenstein of WTOP Radio has done all his field production on one device — his iPhone.

Neal has been a reporter at WTOP since 1997. The iPhone presented an obvious advantage to his everyday challenge of filing from the field. The iPhone was lighter than carrying recording equipment and a laptop. It also proved easier to get information to the audience, via Twitter or an audio clip on SoundCloud.

(Photo: WTOP)

The audio quality from the iPhone, Augenstein says, is just about as good as using the standard recording equipment.

In the WTOP Newsroom, you’ll often hear Augenstein coaching interviewees over the phone how to use their iPhone to record the interview he’s about to do. Instead of doing the interview over the phone at his desk, Augenstein takes the moment to teach others how to use their phone as a recording and editing tool. And by doing so, gives them an active role in the piece that will be on the air on WTOP.

Neal also shoots photos and videos on his iPhone. He keeps a blog where journalists can learn more about recording and editing in a mobile format.

Continue Reading …

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#9 – ONA MJ Bear Fellow Tricia Fulks on taking the freelance leap from print to documentary (Video)

Hollow is an interactive documentary “for the community, by the community” of McDowell County, W.Va.,  a once-prosperous community built on coal. The project is a combination of user-generated videos, video profiles, slideshows and interactive data.

(Photo courtesy of Tricia Fulks)


Tricia Fulks, Hollow’s story director, is a native West Virginian. She says the project is a chance to address the “horrible stereotypes” of West Virginians she sees in the media. By giving video cameras to community members, the project is also a chance for locals to address these stereotypes.

“We really hope to engage them, empower them, [have them] be able to tell their own stories,” she told “It’s All Journalism.”

Continue Reading …

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#8 – WNYC’s John Keefe on how to find and tell stories with data

The Internet gives us access to data and lots of it. But how can journalists use this information effectively, both in reporting and in storytelling?

WNYC, the local public radio station in New York City, has been creating useful, interactive and pretty nice-looking data visualizations on topics ranging from the prevalence of stop and frisk incidents by neighborhood to elections broken down by geography and demographics to the number of people who use the subway leading up to a Jay-Z concert.

John Keefe, senior editor, data & journalism, WNYC (Photo by Marco Antonio)

It’s All Journalism Producers Jolie Lee and Michael O’Connell talked to John Keefe, who leads the WNYC’s Data News Team.

He shares how he became one of the country’s leading data journalists and what news outlets are using data effectively to enhance their storytelling.

Keefe discusses what went into WNYC’s innovative election coverage, from its 30 Issues in 30 Days examination of the issues behind the 2012 election to Debate Bingo!, an interactive game that allows viewers to play along with the candidates during the 2012 presidential debates.

Keefe also shared this list of resources for those looking to pick up some data skills or searching for new ways to tell stories using data.

Resources for data journalists

Before becoming a data journalist, Keefe led WNYC’s news operation for nine years. Prior to that, he worked at two Wisconsin dailies, Discovery Channel Online and was the president of a digital production company. He’s also a member of the board of directors at the Online News Association.

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#7 – Journalism entrepreneur Dan Oshinsky talks Stry.us and helping fellow reporters

On his blog, Dan Oshinsky describes himself as “a reporter … entrepreneur, lover of start-ups … frequent troublemaker and builder of awesome stuff.”

But his main interest is telling stories.

Dan Oshinsky talks to It’s All Journalism about the two projects he founded, Stry.us and Tools for Reporters.

Oshinsky’s current focus is Stry.us, a start-up that grew out of a reporting project through his work as a Reynolds Fellow at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism.

Inspired to act

In 2010, Oshinsky was inspired by the stories coming out of Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. He saw this as an opportunity to write the long-form, personal stories he wanted tell. So, he quit his job, packed his cameras and notebooks and headed to Biloxi, Miss.
Continue Reading …

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#6 – 140Elect’s Zach Green on social media’s influence in the election

Zach Green has been closely following the 2012 presidential campaign. He’s the co-founder of 140Elect.com, a company that provides social media strategies for political campaigns. He says in this election cycle the battle for the White House will be fought in the Twitterverse.

Zach Green talks to It’s All Journalism about Twitter use during the 2012 presidential campaign.

“A lot of the national debate happens on Twitter,” Green said. “So, if there’s a breaking story, if there’s a controversy, if a campaign needs to get a quote in, if they need to change the national debate in any way, it always happens on Twitter.”

Green spoke to It’s All Journalism Producers Megan Cloherty and Michael O’Connell about what we can expect in the final weeks leading up to Election Day.

According to Green, both presidential campaigns are using Twitter differently — President Obama’s team are tweeting a flurry of “jabs” while Governor Romney’s campaign is looking for the Twitter equivalent of a knockout punch.

“What we’re seeing is Obama will be sending more messages overall, it will get more reach,” Green said. “When you look at individual messages, Romney gets more retweets per tweets, which is one metric.”

While Green doubted anyone’s mind would be changed by the contents of a 140-character tweet, he said Twitter is proving to be an effective platform for the campaigns to get their message out to the right people, i.e., members of the press who rabidly follow the Twitter-stream.

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#5 – Steve Buttry, Digital First Media, Part 2

Steve Buttry, the community engagement editor with Digital First Media, was writing on his blog as far back as 2009 about the importance of newspapers adopting a mobile first outlook.
Steve Buttry
“If I were to update now,” Buttry said, “I would say you need a digital approach that is device flexible. That it’s going to work on mobile, that it’s going to be thought-through for mobile, but it’s going to work on your desktop computer, your laptop computer, your tablet.”

In the second part of his interview with It’s All Journalism Producers Megan Cloherty and Michael O’Connell, discusses the importance of mobile thing, developing a first strategy and what the future of journalism may look like.

Listen to the first part of the interview with Steve Buttry here.

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#4 – Steve Buttry, Digital First Media, Part 1

When you talk about digital-first newsrooms, one of the first names that’ll come up is Steve Buttry’s.

Buttry is currently the director of community engagement and social media for Digital First Media newsroom at the Journal Register Company, which has daily and weekly newspapers in nearly 1,000 communities in 10 states.
Steve Buttry talks to It's All Journalism Producers Megan Cloherty and Michael O'Connell
“Clearly there’s a demand for a newspaper, but I don’t think there’s a demand for a company that’s focused on newspapers,” Buttry said, when asked about the future of journalism. “So we’re going to be a company focused on digital, and for the time being we’ll put out a newspaper too. That’s a complete change in your culture, your workflow, your thinking that we’re trying to bring about to our companies.”

That process is not without its challenges. Recently, Digital First Media’s CEO John Paton announced the Journal Register was filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the intent to seek a quick sale.

The announcement triggered a wave of “I-told-you-so’s” from digital doubters and concern from new media proponents.

Buttry remains upbeat about the future of Digital First Media.

“It doesn’t change the strategy and, in fact, I think we will see, after we come out of bankrupcy, that we’re very close to having the sort of operation we need to move forward,” he told It’s All Journalism. “It’s one of those ugly business necessities to get where we need to go.”

In response to the haters, Buttry added: “I hope that after we come out of the bankrupcy and have financial success that they’ll note that we were right and they were wrong.”

Buttry is also the former director of community engagement for TBD.com, a news site covering Washington, D.C. He’s been in the news business for about four decades.

He’s been a reporter, editor and writing coach for the Des Moines Register, Kansas City Star and Times, Minot Daily News and Omaha World-Herald. In 2010, Editor and Publisher magazine named him Editor of the Year for his work with the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

Buttry also blogs about media issues at The Buttry Diary.

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#3 – Pam Maples & Anthony Moor, ONA Conference co-chairs


The Online News Association’s annual conference has been a mirror to the shifts and tremors of the journalism industry meeting the Internet. In 2002, the few hundred people who attended the conference learned about transforming the newsroom with “really cool Flash applications,” said ONA 2012 co-chair Anthony Moor.

That interest in newsroom transformation is still a topic of discussion, but it’s become a subset of a much broader discussion about the journalism industry, Moor said.

This year’s conference in San Francisco (Sept. 20-22) will include product showcases, new technological tools, journalism start-ups and — the focus this year — storytelling.

It’s a return to the basics that Moor and cochair Pam Maples say show the desire among people to maintain the integrity of journalism, regardless of how that information is being shared.

“I actually think we’re just getting into the really exciting part of this disruption of our business,” Maples said. “It’s absolutely still scary for a lot of journalists and there’s a lot of legitimate concern about where we go and how we sustain it and the financial questions. But I think we’re deep enough in it where we’re starting to see stuff come out that’s really focused on preserving some of those core values but doing it for this modern age.”

About the guests:

(Photo courtesy of ONA)

Pam Maples is the innovation director at the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University.

Previously, she was managing editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where she led the integration of print and digital. Under her leadership, the publication was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. Maples was also assistant managing editor at the Dallas Morning News, where she had won a Pulitzer as  team for international reporting.

(Photo courtesy of ONA)

Anthony Moor is the director of editorial operations at Yahoo! Last year, he led the company’s local news efforts.

Previously, Moor was deputy managing editor of interactive at The Dallas Morning News. He has also worked as editor of the OrlandoSentinel.com.

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#2: Ethan Klapper, Huffington Post

Ethan Klapper is a political and social media junkie. So, with the 2012 presidential election heating up, the Rye, N.Y., native is in the thick of things as Huffington Post’s social media editor for politics.

“What goes out on social media is really becoming part of the story itself,” Klapper said. “And I do sincerely think you are missing things if you are not following this kind of story on social media, especially with the elections.”

Ethan Klapper

Ethan Klapper

After the 2008 campaign, pundits were crediting much of Barack Obama’s success on his mastery of social media. They predicted a mass adoption of social media by candidates, Facebook and beyond during subsequent elections.

“I think you saw it very clearly in the 2010 mid-term elections, especially among Republicans who were trying to make up this big deficit that they had on digital campaigning and trying to match what the Democrats had put out in 2008,” Klapper said.

Through the summer, the two presidential campaigns have been hesitant in their postings on Twitter.

“People are very message-conscious on the Internet, in general, in these campaigns,” Klapper said. “And in the 24-second news-cycle we’re in, any kind of weird posting, any kind of potentially off-message thing will get disected and will become immediately the story of the day. So people are very, very cautious. That’s why you’re seeing one tweet a day from the Romney campaign and not many more from the Obama campaign.”

That being said, there’s still plenty of action for the political and social media junkie to follow, Klapper told It’s All Journalism.

Klapper’s People to Follow on Twitter

Prior to joining “HuffPo,” Klapper was an online editor at the National Journal and wrote for Media Bisto’s blog 10,000 Words. He was also a social media intern at the National Journal in 2011 and interned for the Journal News in Westchester, N.Y.

Klapper graduated from American University in 2011 with a degree in communications and journalism.

Follow Klapper on Twitter: @HuffPostPol (Huffington Post Politics) and @ethanklapper

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