Molding Young Minds at UALR High School Journalism Day

Much thanks to the Sonny Rhodes and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock for inviting me to speak during two sessions of UALR’s annual Journalism Day event, which took place Thursday.
Andrew DeMillo of The Associated Press gave the event’s keynote address on “Why Journalism Matters,” and other session leaders included Frank Fellone of the [...]

The Friday Week in Review: You Lie! Edition

It’s Friday, and time for another long look back at a brutal week in politics, sports and the Web. We’re going to try for a reasoned, respectful debate here, so no shouting! But feel free to call us out in comments if we start going on about death panels. Remember: There remains some significant details [...]

Video: Google News Offers Tips, Best Practices for Editors, Publishers

This 15-minute video is totally worth your time if you’re a publisher, editor or Webmaster looking to optimize your news content for Google News. In it, Maile Ohye of Google talks about best practices and answers frequently asked questions about how Google News crawls, indexes and ranks news stories in Google [...]

Media Notes: Inside Saline Debuts; ‘FaceFriend’ Announced; Local, Local Local!

Please excuse us while we navel-gaze. The latest bits from around the media world, Arkansas and beyond:
Airheads – Blake Rutherford guests today on 103.7 The Buzz from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tune in for a taste of the his new radio show, starting this weekend.
Web Jones -  Whit Jones, the former editor of the [...]

Fresh Meat in the Arkansas Blogosphere: Welcome the Blog Hawgs

Welcome to the Blog Hawgs, a new Arkansas-based blog covering “sports, politics, pop culture … and other stuff.” In their grand opening post today, the blog’s writers, Adam Butler and Brett Kincaid, say they want to provide mix of sports and political coverage. And they’ll get rolling this week an SEC football preview:
We’ll run down [...]

Update: Lottery Commission Issues Advertising RFP, Takes Action on Staff Salaries

The Arkansas Lottery Commission today took action to reign in staff salary spending, passing a motion requiring its personnel committee to approve of the hiring of any staff position that pays more than $80,000 per year.
ArkansasBusiness.com Assistant Internet Editor Mark Carter was live-tweeting for Capsearch from the meeting, and his reporting is available here. Also: [...]

Lock Down: The Democrat-Gazette Takes Free News Off the Web in Northwest Arkansas

It had to happen sometime.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette announced Sunday that, starting Aug. 5, its northwest Arkansas newspaper edition will no longer offer free access to print edition stories on the Web. Like content on the state edition of the paper at ArkansasOnline.com, NWANews.com will be accessible to paying subscribers only.
Publisher Walter Hussman, who’s been praised [...]

Jim Karrh On Social Media and Making It Work For Your Business

Arkansas Business marketing columnist Jim Karrh this week takes a look at social media and how to make it work for you business. Social media has been the business topic du jour, but info about 1) deciding whether social media is right for your company and 2) how to choose what social media channels to [...]

Online Journalism Tools and Generational Conflicts at AABP in Minneapolis

The WiFi at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Minneapolis is a little wonky (making me eager for iPhone’s new tethering abilities), so I’m tapping this entry out via my handy WordPress app. This summer’s annual conference of the Alliance of Area Business Publications has been interesting, with sessions on social media, search engine optimization, online [...]

Rupert Murdoch: No More Paper & Ink Printing in 20 Years

I’ll let these quotations, from Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch, stand without comment. You guys can make of it what you will.
I can see the day, maybe 20 years away, where you don’t actually have paper and ink and printing presses. I think it will take a long time and I think it’s a generational thing [...]