By Nicole Blanchett Neheli The use of metrics and analytics is having a significant impact on news practice. I know this because I’ve spent years researching the use of audience data for my PhD. This included spending time in six different newsrooms within four different media organizations in three different countries, interacting with 69 participants,…
BY NICOLE BLANCHETT Journalists often have strong opinions about the most important roles of journalism, such as being a watchdog for society, even if they don’t always perform those roles. I know this because I used to work in a newsroom. Sometimes, I developed stories or produced newscasts that shared critical information for the community.…
By Nicole Blanchett Neheli Media logic is an underutilized theory that examines content production—including news—and how the processes that support the creation of such content impact information sharing. Eventually I’m going to talk about a baby-goat disco…so keep reading if theory’s not your thing. To give some context, media logic falls under the symbolic interactionism paradigm…
With a significant portion of the audience arriving at news sites via social media and search, the imminent death of the homepage is a common refrain. One senior digital manager told me he was expecting the “death of the homepage revolution” to hit his market at some point, but it hadn’t yet. He might be…
There is a common, disparaging discourse surrounding the relevance of the pageviews metric. I’ve heard pageviews called everything from passé to obsolete. Those descriptions may hold true in some environments. But in your average newsroom, pageviews aren’t passé—they’re a priority. I know this because over the past 10 months, for my PhD research, I’ve talked…
Fake news is now such an ubiquitous term I’m not sure it holds much value anymore. Not because it isn’t an issue, but because it doesn’t mean the same thing to different audiences. Those tired of hearing U.S. President Trump throw it around in response to stories he doesn’t like pretty much ignore it; those…
The use of analytics is now entrenched in news practice. But do journalists really understand how to utilize them? Maybe not…based on the sea of material I’m reading for my PhD literature review. So, to help those who need or want to know more about how analytics work and their impact on news practice, I thought I’d share…
What are the chances a group of second-year community college students could create a website that is internationally recognized? Apparently, pretty good. #WhatAreTheChances–a project examining how income, gender, mental health, and race can impact a GenY’s opportunities–is the latest site developed in Sheridan Journalism Broadcast’s Online News Production class, a course I co-teach with Cheryl Vallender.…
This story was originally posted on J-Source back in 2011, but is no longer available on that site. I reposted it here after a friend requested to use it in an ethics class. “The best bear story ever.” That was the subject line of an e-mail I recently received. The focus of the story was…
As a journalist, I’ve occasionally been told things that were “off the record.” But I was astonished to hear those words from legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. I was standing an arm’s length from the Pulitzer-Prize-winner, live-tweeting as he spoke on camera about the state of journalism. About 15 minutes in he said, “This is…
Teaching Gen Ys is a challenge. First off, you have to capture their attention when students can access myriad interesting conversations and games on their computers and phones while you natter on at the front of the classroom. And often, it seems like you’re in a room full of people who have high expectations about…
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