Fact: I keep coming across Web and smartphone tools that I’m interested in but forget about shortly after hearing about them.
Fact: When I need a tool, I come up shorthanded.
Fact: I love lists.
So to help me remember all the tools at my disposal, I’ve started a “Tools I Love” list on this site. You can find it above under “dash.” Read the rest of this entry »
It feels like everyday I come across a new “must-have journalism tool” to add to my ever-growing collection.
The challenge, though, is separating the tools that deserve the time from those that just suck time away.
The following are some that I’ve found worth the investment.
A few are relatively new to the scene, while others are oldies-but-goodies.
They help me make better use of Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds and help me create smart-phone apps and data visualizations — not too shabby for a programming neophyte.
Let me know about some of your must-haves, and I’ll hopefully get some more to add to my list. Read the rest of this entry »
They say it takes three to seven attempts to quit smoking before you really do.
What about attempts to consistently blog?
If the same holds true for both, then I’m good, though I’m sad that it has been so long since I was last on here.
Has it really been since September? Really?!?
When I wrote my last post, Steve Jobs was still alive, Rick Santorum was not (politically speaking) and the Occupy movement was a force to be reckoned with.
It’s been a while.
Well, hopefully my New Year’s resolution to blog more often will change that and my renewed effort will carry me well into 2012.
And one of the topics I hope to post about often is my other New Year’s resolution: to learn computer programming.
In early August, I wrote about California Watch’s Open Newsroom project, in which its reporters spread out around the state and set up shop in wifi-enabled coffeehouses.
The purpose was to mingle with readers, gathering story ideas while promoting California Watch at the same time.
I wanted to do something similar on my new beat covering Oldham County at the Louisville Courier-Journal and am happy to report that earlier this month I did.
The Courier-Journal dubbed the event “C-J on the Go,” and along with promoting the fact that I would be sitting around a coffeehouse for five hours in the newspaper and on my blog, we shot a promotional video, the link to which is happily no longer available online — being on video is not my favorite thing to do — and set up a live blog for me to update throughout the event. Read the rest of this entry »
I recently came across reporting advice in three of National Public Radio’s most popular shows.
Some of these episodes and clips may not be the most recent; I came across them serendipitously.
But they are definitely gems.
The first was This American Life‘s “Make Radio” page, which includes links to tips on reporting from some of the shows’ best contributors.
It also leads readers to Transom.org, which is “a showcase and workshop for new public radio.”
Unfortunately, some of the links on TAL’s page don’t work anymore, including videos of the man himself, Ira Glass, passing down his wisdom. Read the rest of this entry »
Google Voice is my new, impressive, close acquaintance who is on the way to becoming a great friend.
I signed up for Google Voice last week, and really started exploring it today. And so far, I like.
(I know I’m probably a little late to the game on this, but I figure that since I didn’t understand all the ins and outs of this until now, there are probably others who still don’t as well.)
Google Voice is free for the most part and allows you to forward calls to any number of phones using a number provided by Google.
I was initially intrigued for these reasons:
I love it when a movie pulls you in and won’t let you go.
I had that with “Howl” last night.
The movie came out last year and is a pseudo-documentary about beat poet Allen Ginsberg and the obscenity trial that followed the publishing of his famous poem, “Howl.”
Like the poem, parts of the movie are graphic — I’ll warn you. But much like what the poem’s supporters argued during the fracas that ensued following the poem’s publication, the “obscene” words and images in the movie are not used to be lewd and sensational but to describe how Ginsberg saw the 1950s society he was a part of. Read the rest of this entry »
I suppose it’s a little insulting that this strikes me and others, including the Nieman Journalism Lab, as innovative.
Going to where the readers are, making yourself available for coffee — groundbreaking to be sure.
But, really, I’m quite taken with this.
Earlier this week, California Watch, an initiative of the nonpartisan Center for Investigative Reporting, had its reporters spread out around the state — and even beyond — and set up shop in wifi-enabled coffeehouses.
They call it Open Newsroom, and this most recent one was its fourth to date. The idea is that reporters mingle with readers, gathering story ideas while promoting California Watch at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »
I want this above my desk at work.
During those bad days when the deadlines are coming at you faster than the work is getting done, when the only people calling are your editors wanting the story, when you’ve already worked eight hours and are surely going to be working several hours more — and then a train derails or your county council announces it lost all its money to an Internet scam or several prisoners just walked away from the jail — this kind of sums it up.
Yep, I need this.
the em dash 
30 before 30
In 30 before 30, blogs, coding, commentary, decor, entertainment, family, food, hobbies, journalism, literature, Louisville, music, my life, programming, travel on February 23, 2012 at 9:30 amA lot of things recently have made me reevaluate the person I am and where I’m at in my life — not the least of which is the fact that I’m turning 30 in October.
On one hand, I feel like I can still get into the head of the person I was at 22, when I was living in Bakersfield. But then again, I go over all the things that have happened since then and know that I must have changed.
And lately, I feel like I’ve slacked off on many of my hobbies and taking journeys, which is what made the decade following high school so much fun.
So this has been running through my head, and then I saw friend Maggie Creamer’s blog “Sometimes you need that.” Read the rest of this entry »