Robert Niles: March 2009 archive
Seven essential resources to help protect your website from technical attack
March 27, 2009
Kevin Roderick publishes the widely read and highly acclaimed (among Los Angeles-area journalists, at least) blog LA Observed. But this week, Roderick's been living a Web journalist's nightmare. Earlier this week, many Web browsers started blocking access to his website, following Google's determination that LA Observed included links to sites that were distributing malware - malicious code that could infect readers' websites with viruses and other nasty stuff.Roderick ultimately traced the problem to ads running on his site, and took that section down while he worked with his hosting provider to purge the links. A day after clearing the site, Google cleared LA Observed, and traffic is able again to flow normally to Roderick's site.
I don't want to write about Roderick's specific situation, beyond using it as a peg to remind all independent online publishers of the importance of keeping an eye on the tech side of publishing.
Tools such as Blogger and Moveable Type have allowed writing with no tech training to become popular and self-sustaining online publishers. But tech gremlins can attack anyone, and even novices need to pay attention to the threats.
In that spirit, here are seven essential resources for online publishers who don't want to get burned: More...
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Start with the public schools to build a successful local online news start-up
March 20, 2009
A short while ago I had the pleasure of meeting with some local journalism graduate students, who are working to create an online news site covering the Los Angeles suburb of Alhambra.You'll find Alhambra a few miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Despite its proximity to the center of LA, the community is lost in the local media landscape. The Los Angeles Times ventures there only for feature and major crime stories. The Pasadena newspaper covers a few of its high school sports teams. Council? School board? Church activities? Lots of luck finding frequent stories about those. So there is an opening here for an entrepreneurial group of journalists, or journalism students, to provide regular coverage for a community that could use it.
Like many communities around Los Angeles, Alhambra is diverse, and that diversity sometimes impedes public discussion. The community includes a large percentage of people who's primary language is Spanish or Mandarin, in addition to those who primarily speak English. This group includes students proficient in each language, giving them the opportunity to create a publication that is not limited to serving only part of the Alhambra community.
But where to begin? That's the question I addressed when I spoke with the group. And it is a question that many journalists now face, as they consider a change for traditional print newsrooms to "hyperlocal" and community online news start-ups. More...
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Life, online, after the Rocky Mountain News
March 11, 2009
When Denver's Rocky Mountain News closed last month, hundreds of journalists found themselves looking for work. Some of them, though, aren't waiting for another newsroom to call. They're busy building their own, online.OJR talked this week with Steve Foster, up until last month the Rocky's assistant sports editor for interactive, who has launched his own effort [America's Fish] to provide an online home for several other former Rocky reporters and columnists. Foster is a graduate of the University of South Dakota who has done stints at the Longmont (Colo.) Daily Times-Call and Chicago Sun-Times, in addition to the Rocky Mountain News.
Foster has helped build a collection of WordPress-powered sites that are provided a new home for the Rocky's former sports cartoonist and major-league baseball beat staff, among others. His efforts provide one blueprint for other journalists who soon might be facing the same situation, as other newspapers around the country slip toward closure. More...
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Essential reading for journalists caught in the meltdown
March 4, 2009
Lost amongst the angst and anger over the bankruptcies running through the news business like a cold through a kindergarten is the wisdom that a few smart voices have offered, and continue to offer, this industry. Not everyone was caught asleep by what has happened over the past few years. If the people running the nation's newspaper companies had listened to those voices before, more newsrooms would be thriving now. If they would listen now, perhaps more newsrooms could be saved.Here are four essential articles from the past two weeks that anyone concerned about the future of news should read. They do not speak with unanimity, but do provide a sample of the voices that ought to be leading any discussion about the future of journalism online. More...
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