Month: April 2008

Getcher angry journalist t-shirts!

T-Shirt: Journalists get laid (off)I’ve got to give big credit to Kiyoshi Martinez for giving psychological relief to an entire industry. Not only has the AngryJournalist.com gripe board taken off, but now Martinez is selling some of the most hilarious journo shirts ever made.

But of course, most of the shirts are reminiscent of Howard Beale’s “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it any more” rant in ‘Network’.

Angry ink-stained wretch shirts here.

[Tip ‘o the hat to Gannett Blog.]

Instamatically download, combine newspaper front page PDFs

Newspaper page fronts

37Signals today highlighted an uber-useful Mac OS X Automator script that pings the Newseum’s repository of newspaper front PDFs and combines them into a single PDF for your viewing pleasure.

If that doesn’t make printing out and talking trash about your competitors’ A1 choices at the daily news meeting a breeze, I don’t know what does!

[37Signals – Newseum Automator script]

Guide to surviving journalism as a high-tech industry

Lisa Williams has written what may be one of the best posts about how to adapt to an increasingly technology-driven journalism world.

Lisa, the Placeblogger founder who has a foot planted in both media and technology worlds, impressed the heck out of me at the ONA conference in Toronto when she illustrated how journalism is becoming a high-tech industry. Now I know you’re thinking right now: “Well, I already know we’re becoming high-tech,  Danny. I’m always looking around for new web tools I can use for our site.”

However, journalism becoming a “high-tech industry” doesn’t simply mean we’re using the latest gizmos and knick-knacks to deliver news. It means we’re experiencing a fundamental change in our values, culture and business practices — changes that are more pervasive than you may initially realize. Check out Lisa’s post for some prescient advice on how to deal with it.

[Lisa Williams: Ten Things Journalists Should Know About Surviving In a High-Tech Industry]

The case for using Twitter

Technology columnist and Sentinel coworker-o’-mine Etan Horowitz outlines on his blog how and why journalists should start using Twitter.

Etan writes:

“If you are a technology journalist, you need to start using Twitter. And regardless of what you cover, you should sign up for Twitter. It’s where the people you cover are hanging out and communicating and it will help you build sources, promote yourself, get story ideas and keep your finger on the pulse of the community you cover.”

Etan’s post follows a post by Charles Cooper on CNET about how journalists haven’t taken to Twitter.

Here in Orlando, I, along with the breaking news staff, are the keepers of the Orlando Sentinel Twitter feed. Twitter has been a great opportunity to reach a new, tech-savvy audience and provide a service that many folks tell me is valuable to them. Besides, where else could you get away with rickrolling readers on April 1? (See: “ Family of manatees discovered in Lake Eola”)