WebU

Top 27 or so Internet Tools for Journalists, (or if not "Top" then at least mildly useful or interesting or something like that)

There was a big turnout for Wordstock, the annual journalism conference held at Ryerson University's School of Journalism in Toronto this past weekend, an encouraging sign in troubled times. Attendees seemed about evenly split between working, full-time journalists, and freelancers, and students. After a morning keynote (which I was lucky enough to deliver) the day was divided into three sessions offering 5 different workshops in each - a pretty jam-packed day. In addition to the keynote, I ran sessions on Blogging (jointly with Spec city hall blogger, Nicole Macintyre) and internet tools.

I've already posted my slides from the bloggings session (which was, thanks to Nicole, an animated, thought provoking session) and today I'm putting my Top Ten Internet Tips for Journalists. If you'd like a simple list with live links, I've posted them here.

Presenters included people like Steve Buttry (former American Press Institute trainer and now the editor-in-chief at the Cedar Rapids Gazette), freelance writer Paul Lima, current and former colleagues Phil Andrews (Guelph Mercury - Small Markets) Thane Burnett (Toronto Sun - Short Features), Jon Wells (Hamilton Spectator - Novel Writing) and Kevin Scanlon (Toronto Star- Copy editing). And a big thanks to Bryan Cantley who retired from the Canadian Newspaper Association this past summer but has carried on organzing this monster.

I'll post slides from my keynote and an abbreviated version of my text a little later this week. Right now I have to get ready for two days of teaching I'm doing at the Western Producer, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Bill

New Job - New Blog Coming

Please accept my apologies for the hiatus — I spent two glorious weeks on-vacation and off-line at a cottage beside a small black mountain lake in the Laurentians and then returned and jumped into a brand new role with my paper and our chain (TorStar). For the next long while I'll be part of a core team building, installing and training staff on a brand new (massive) content management system that will create a common, chain-wide newsroom. Of a sort. It's an exciting and challenging job and as a bonus it means I don't have to commute. (Cue the Hallelujah Chorus.)
I will be continuing in a training role at my paper and the chain, albeit in a very different, and reduced role than my WebU project management. I'll also continue to do some outside teaching, consulting and presentation. Plus, as soon as I can elbow aside the stacks of program and application manuals and get a bit of free time I'll be rebuilding and migrating this blog.
I'll be at Ryerson University's Wordstock conference next weekend (Sept 20th) and will be giving the keynote ("Fish on Bicycles - why can't newspapers get the web right?") and two sessions, one on 10 Essential Internet Tools for Journalists and the other on the Joys and Pitfalls of Beat Blogging. And then I'm off to Saskatoon to run two days of training with the folks at the Western Producer, something I'm really looking forward to.
Over the next week I'll blog about and post some of the slides from, those presentations - which won't be nearly as good as being there, but will give you at least some sense of what I'm doing. I'd love to hear any criticisms in  advance of the presentations themselves. Simply hit that comment button below.
Here's the first of those presentations, this one on Beat Blogging - which I'm co-presenting with Hamilton Spectator's most popular blogger, city hall reporter Nicole Macintyre.
Bill