By Geoffrey Baum: A message from USC Annenberg Journalism School director Geneva Overholser: Thank you for your interest in OJR. The fast-moving changes in digital media are more compelling every day, and they remain an important area of focus for the USC Annenberg School for Communication. We are committed to keeping the archives of OJR available online and are exploring ways to continue the School's efforts to increase understanding about the revolutionary transformation of news and info

By Robert Niles: After a decade, the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication has suspended publication of OJR. One of OJR's goals over the years has been to help mid-career journalists make a successful transition from other media to online reporting and production. I'm pleased to say that USC Annenberg will continue to provide support in that area, through the Knight Digital Media Center. I encourage OJR readers to click over to the KDMC website and its blogs,

By Robert Niles: The past decade has brought the journalism industry some of its darkest moments. On the business side, management teams that grew used to local monopolies could not react swiftly enough to protect their market share as thousands of online competitors emerged. Revenue tanked, readership declined and layoffs became a seasonal task at many newspapers. On the editorial side, many newsrooms blew or missed one major story after another, from the Whitewater "scandal," hitting the sn

By Robert Niles: OJR now allows its registered members to maintain individual blogs on OJR. Just click the "Post Blog Entry" link near the top of the right navigation rail to get started. OJR's editors and I will read all the submissions, then select ones to go on the OJR front page feed. You can find links to all the most recent reader-submitted blog entries under the "Recent Blogs" header on the right rail. You can start a free blog just about anywhere on the Web, from Blogger.com and b

By Tom Grubisich: The headline on the Wall Street Journal story about the Washington Post's widely watched venture in local-local journalism on the Web was unambiguous: "Big Daily's Hyperlocal Flop." So how bad actually is LoudounExtra.com? Let's look. On the LoudounExtra homepage, I am greeted with this above-the-fold spread: My squinting eyes try to read the reverse-type blurb, but before I can finish, a new image/blurb is automatically rotated in the space. After figuring out

By Eric Ulken: Which campaign will get to 270 in November, and how will they do it? The L.A. Times has built an interactive map that allows readers to create and test their own electoral vote scenarios, and then embed those scenarios in their own sites. (Sample after the jump.) We're hoping to improve on this as the campaign heats up, perhaps adding demographic info and data on past elections by state. Would love to hear suggestions.

By Robert Niles: For this week's discussion question, I'd like to hear about the academic preparation OJR readers had for their career. Obviously, being housed by and paid for the Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California, OJR's not exactly a neutral forum for this question. One might suspect that we'd have a larger-than-expected number of j-school folk hanging around here. But we do get a fair number of readers who did not come up through the traditional journal

By Chris Jennewein: In architecture, less is more, and the same appears to be true for video news gathering. The simple Flip Video camcorder heralds a time when every journalist carries a video camera.I bought a Flip Video camcorder for my wife for mother's day. At under $150, it was a bargain. But the primary motivation was having a camera she sould depend upon. Our simple DV camcorder took great video, but seemed to always need charging, or a new tape, and thus wasn't available at the spur of

By Robert Niles: My friend Sree Sreenivasan asked members an online journalism e-mail list for reaction to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's interview with the Washington Post, published this morning. Specifically, Sree asked for reactions to this statement from Ballmer: "In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down -- my opinion. Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is

By Robert Niles: ... the industry has a problem.You'd think that journalists would be the biggest news hounds around. For the most part, you'd be right. I was talking with some of my Annenberg colleagues at a journalism conference last month, and one asked how many hours a day we each spent reading and watching the news, whether in print, online or on TV. The consensus? About four to five hours a day. But there is one exception to this potential rule: Many journalists despise TV news. They hate

By Robert Niles: Just got the word that Online News Association executive director Lori Schwab has left the organization. So the ONA is now looking for a full-time administrator for the group, which conducts an annual conference for online journalists, mostly from newspaper-dot-coms, as well as administers the Online Journalism Awards.In the meantime, former ONA executive director Tom Regan has returned to the post, on a temporary basis. Regan, an online journalism pioneer in Canada, ran the ONA

By Robert Niles: What's the best typeface for displaying text on the Web? I'm sure that many of you have your favorite studies, focus groups and/or personal biases to defend your choice. And we'd love to read about those in the comments.For the undecided, I've provided a one-line sample of each, using a style call for those typefaces. If you do not have it on your machine, the line likely will render in either Arial (OJR's default) or whatever your browser is set to serve in lieu of Arial. (Upda

By Robert Niles: What's the best typeface for displaying text on the Web? I'm sure that many of you have your favorite studies, focus groups and/or personal biases to defend your choice. And we'd love to read about those in the comments.For the undecided, I've provided a one-line sample of each, using a style call for those typefaces. If you do not have it on your machine, the line likely will render in either Arial (OJR's default) or whatever your browser is set to serve in lieu of Arial.Here i

By Eric Ulken: Thought I'd share with OJR readers a project I've been working on: Last week the Los Angeles Times launched a database of California's military dead in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Read more...

By Robert Niles: I wanted to let you know that, in addition to taking a day to observe Memorial Day, here in the United States, I've been spending my time this week doing a bit of work on OJR's publishing system. You might notice a few tweaks and changes over the next few days, as I install improvements to our system.The intent is to both allow readers easier access to the content we have available here on OJR, as well as easier ability to contribute content to the site. Read more...

By Richard Whitmire: Commentary: The president of the National Education Writers Association takes a look at recent news coverage, and finds it troubling.

By Robert Niles: If others are stealing your content online, there are simple ways that you can find them, and then shut them down. Here's how.

By Robert Niles: Independent online news publishers need to keep publishing costs low when they are starting out. Here's an audio hosting solution that might help keep bandwidth costs down.

By Jim Wayne: Q & A: Michael Tunison reflects on how his double writing life earned him a pink slip—and an annoying nickname.

By Robert Niles: Commentary: A few moments of advance thought can help determine whether a new blogging tool will enable a vibrant community, or open yet another empty forum.