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News Leadership 3.0 Blog

Don't miss KDMC's news leadership blog, where newsroom leaders discuss the challenges and opportunities of transforming their news organizations into creative, adaptive, multi-platform engines of journalism and information, written by veteran journalist Michele McLellan.

Robert Niles

Pasadena, California

Homepage: http://www.robertniles.com/

A long-time math and computer geek, Robert Niles turned to journalism after graduating from Northwestern University and deciding he couldn't stomach becoming a management consultant. But the lure of marathon coding sessions proved too strong. Robert soon quit his job writing editorials for a red-state newspaper, and he began making websites instead.

Robert started with online tutorials showing other journalists how to use math and data, then branched out to niche sites on theme parks and the violin. These sites often involve readers as reporters, inviting them to contribute to the sites' coverage.

The Online News Association and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism honored Robert's ThemeParkInsider.com in 2001 with an Online Journalism Award for Service Journalism. The Webby Awards named the same site a finalist for Best Guides/Ratings/Reviews Site in 2005.

Robert also has worked as a Web editor, editorial writer and reporter for several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, (Denver) Rocky Mountain News, Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald and the (Bloomington, Ind.) Herald-Times.

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These articles are the work of their author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of nor an assignment by OJR.

Happy holidays, from OJR

December 23, 2008
We're about to take a short break here on OJR, reappearing after the New Year's holiday, but I first wanted to take a moment to wish you a very happy holiday season and to thank you for reading OJR.

It's been, uh, an interesting year for OJR. But I think I can say, without doubt, that if it were not for your very public support of the site, OJR would not be here at its new home at the Knight Digital Media Center. So, thank you.

As we enter the new year, I would like to renew my invitation to each of you to become a writer for OJR. OJR readers are (almost exclusively) new media and journalism professionals, people who are doing what we write about here. More...

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Newsrooms must get active to survive the economic meltdown

December 19, 2008
The past few weeks have seen the newspaper industry accelerate toward a previously unthinkable collapse. The Tribune Company (one of my former employers) filed for bankruptcy. E.W. Scripps put the Rocky Mountain News (another one of my former employers) up for sale, and might close the 150-year-old Denver paper should no buyer be found within the month. The Wall Street Journal reported that Detroit's two newspapers would stop home delivery on certain weekdays. (Their websites would update seven days a week.) Rumors continue to swirl that the Miami Herald is next up on the block.

The financial trouble throughout the industry is leading many to consider a future without newspapers. Or, at least, without newspapers as we now know them. LA Observed's T.J. Sullivan asked "Ever wonder what the world would have been like if Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein hadn't uncovered Watergate? I fear we'll learn the answer in the next couple decades."

With all due respect to T.J., I fear that we already know the answer. Because we've been living in that world for the past 10 years already, a time when traditional journalists failed to uncover emerging scandals and to warn the public about abuses of power at the highest levels of government and industry.

Allow me to suggest that the U.S. news industry's collective failure to accurately portray the world over the past decade has done as much, if not more, to drive readers to the Internet than any inherent attractiveness of this new medium. If existing news businesses wish to have any hope of surviving the current downturn, in any medium, they cannot continue to perform as they have over the past decade. More...

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An online journalist's guide to entering the Pulitzer Prizes

December 12, 2008
Set one more milestone along the road toward the convergence of the online medium with the rest of the field of journalism.

This week, the Pulitzer Prizes announced that it will accept entries from online-only news publications. The highest honor in American newspaper journalism now is simply the highest honor in American written journalism. Print and online, at last, will be judged as one.

Of course, I'd argue that distinction between the media long since been lost among our readers, the public. News is news, regardless of its medium. People will turn to the news sources that are, for them, the most informative, engaging, immediate and convenient. But I'll let other wax about the cultural significant of the Pulitzer decision. Today, allow me to address a more practical matter...

How do you nominate your website for a Pulitzer Prize?

Many print veterans are familiar with the entry process. But many worthy bloggers and online reporters won't be. And putting a site up for a Pulitzer isn't as simple as pasting your best URLs into an online form. A Pulitzer win, however, could catapult an online-only news site, fighting for attention in a hyper-competitive news marketplace, into a leading position in its market. The $10,000 cash award also could help plump the lean budgets at many online news start-ups.
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The top gifts for online journalists, 2008 edition

December 5, 2008
Last year, OJR presented its list of top gifts for online journalists, and today we continue the tradition with this year's list.

In recognition of the current economy, we've kept all the items on this year's list under $200, so we won't be talking about the laptops, digital cameras, video equipment and other goodies that many of use want, but that would break a bank account faster than being bought by Sam Zell.

Feel free to e-mail this list to your friends and loved ones (or print it out for the Luddites), if you're the type of person who never can come up with a list on your own.
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Things to be thankful for: Creative insubordination

November 26, 2008
What kind of journalist can start his or her own news website?

The simple answer is "anyone," of course. Fire up Blogger, and you are there. But which journalists will be able to build a site that grows into financial success and stability, one that secures an enduring source of funding, whether it be advertising or non-profit support?

That class of individuals, alas, is much smaller.

Some colleagues and I were talking yesterday about how to identify potential journalist entrepreneurs. The last folks on that list, I said, would be the "team players" whom corporate managers love to put in charge of important new projects.

Whoops.
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Ad networks can help online news start-ups take first step toward profitability

November 19, 2008
Let's continue with the thought that David raised Monday, and talk about first steps toward making a for-profit news website start-up work.

Today, I'll be writing about ad-supported news websites, as opposed to subscription-based publications. (We've written about those on OJR before, but they are far rarer to find than ad-supported sites.) Since we're talking start-ups, too, we'll operate under the assumption that you, the publisher, do not have a dedicated ad sales team working for you, pitching your site to potential advertisers.

Let's also stipulate that profitability for a start-up demands publishers to minimize the expense side of the ledger. Initial ad revenue for a news start-up - no matter how well designed - likely will be meager, so going it alone (or with a small partnership) and spending little on development and reporting will help keep expenses manageable. More...

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Add original functionality to original content to build Web traffic

November 12, 2008
OJR long has enjoyed a strong following among newspaper website managers and employees. So don't think that we've forgotten about you when we write about start-ups and independent online news efforts. I think there's much that newspaper-dot-coms can learn from the "little guys," ideas and innovations that they can bring back to their papers in an effort to keep them competitive in their news marketplaces.

But let's not forget, either, some of the advantages that newspapers bring to these markets. Over the next couple weeks, we'll be bringing you blog posts from newspaper website editors whom I've asked to share some of their recent successes. If you a newspaper website editor with a story to share, too, please, feel free. You can post to the site directly, or e-mail me and tell me your story so that I can post it to the site.

Before we get to those stories though... a challenge, if you will.

Newspapers often focus on their newsrooms, and even, sometimes, their sales staffs when looking for strengths that they bring to their local markets. But what about their IT departments?

Great content build traffic for a day. If you want to keep that traffic, you must continue to add new great content. But great functionality builds traffic, too. And keeps it for far longer than content does before it needs to be refreshed.
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Online publishers need new heroes in the battle for community relevance

November 7, 2008
Picking up from my piece on Wednesday....

The Obama campaign did not build its social network in isolation. In many communities, it built upon an existing "netroots" of progressives that had developed over the past several years. That network, in turn, developed in frustration with both the Bush administration, as well as the new media coverage (or lack thereof) of that administration and its Congressional allies.

Markos Moulitsas, a j-school graduate with a law degree and an Army stint behind him, bootstrapped what might be the most influential of all progressive netroots websites, DailyKos. His new book, "Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era" offers a blueprint for political activists, one that well complements the Obama strategies I wrote about on Wednesday.

But Moulitsas' book teaches important lessons to would-be journalist entrepreneurs as well. I e-mailed Kos about his book, and point out some of its many lessons, after the jump. More...

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