There is a section of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics that deals with “Minimize Harm”. In this section, journalists can find suggestions to minimize the impact of certain types of coverage on the general public. The reason…

It would seem that journalists have embraced social media wholeheartedly. There is no shortage of journalists on Twitter. Most journalists produce content for blogs and share links to their posts across social bookmarking sites, right? That’s what I thought too.…

Unfortunately, there are a lot of talented PR professionals out of work right now. It’s a sign of the times. When revenues are down, organizations have to layoff talented people. It’s one of the hardest things a manager has to…

I get this question all the time. How is PR changing and what can I do to adapt? For starters, everyone that’s asked that question is on the right track. It’s the ones that don’t ask that question that I…

Should you use Facebook for PR? This has been one of the more popular post suggestions from Journalistics readers. The answer really depends on your definition of “PR” specific to the question. I’m going to assume that most people are…

The majority of PR agencies saw revenues decline in 2009, according to a recent PRWeek article based on a year-end survey of PR agencies conducted by StevensGouldPincus. The survey polled 157 agencies and found 63.7 percent reported revenue declines from …

A new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that much of the “news” people receive contains no original reporting. Said another way, only a few traditional outlets report on the news, the rest repeat…

What makes a great online newsroom? For starters, news. If you have plenty of compelling, relevant, timely, engaging, exclusive or otherwise sensational news to share with the media on a regular basis, it probably doesn’t matter what your online…

A popular blog meme for the end of the year is the “greatest hits” post. Since this is our first year with the Journalistics blog, we figured it was a great time to look at the posts you liked most …

If you read Journalistics a lot, you know we love us some journalism. We know you love journalism too. The truth is, there are a lot of other journalism blogs and websites out there that do a better job at…

It’s that time of year again. Time for making predictions for the year to come. As I look back on 2009, I’m amazed by all the progress I’ve seen with regard to the evolving news industry, and the practice of…

Want to get a professional journalist fired up? Tell them how much you love citizen journalism and how it’s going to put them out of a job. Sure, it’s a sweeping generalization, but every time I talk mention citizen journalism…

Too many newspapers have gone belly-up over the past year, but that’s not because we don’t like reading them. A recent Integrated Newspaper Audience study from Scarborough Research found that 74% of U.S. adults (nearly 171 million) read a newspaper…

Much of the news we get from local papers originates from wire services. This is the end result of multiple studies conducted over the past couple of years, a few of which are summarized in this excellent post by Nikki…

I’m tired of seeing the small community newspapers go under. Times are tough and traditional business models no longer sustain small publishers in small markets. It appears that most small publishers, particularly in smaller markets, lack the resources and knowledge…

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks. I can’t think of a better day to thank all of you for your continued support of Journalistics. Since launching the blog this past spring, more than 50,000 of you have shown up…

More than 12,000 times every month “how to write a press release” is searched on Google, delivering more than 49 million search results. Is that the right question to ask? What about “are press releases effective?” That…

There should be no question that Twitter has arrived as a legitimate medium for mass communication, particularly with regard to the rapid dissemination of news content by professional and citizen journalists alike. Twitter may also be the best way to…

You hear a lot of talk about press releases as a PR tactic, but what about the media alert (also commonly known as a media advisory)? Before the days or email and Twitter, media alerts were the short form way…

If you haven’t participated in a #journchat discussion yet, you’re missing out. The quality of the discussion is better than ever, as Sarah Evans has continued to build a strong, dedicated and passionate community around current topics in journalism, public…

Twitter is in the process of rolling out a new feature called Twitter Lists, which will enable all users to create private or public lists of Twitter users as they see fit. I’ve been playing with this feature for…

The Media Management Center, Northwestern Univeristy, recently published “Life Beyond Print: Newspaper Journalists’ Digital Appetite” which found almost half of today’s newspaper journalists think their newsroom’s transition to digital is moving too slowly. Most newspaper journalists have warmed to…

Not too long ago in my career, I was pretty convinced I would pursue the APR (Accreditation in Public Relations) someday. At the time, I remember thinking how well-respected APRs were. They always seemed to be the ones giving all…