Faces of Black Men: Blending Pinterest, Tumblr for public engagement on race

Last month, Dori Maynard had just begun experimenting with Pinterest as a way to use images to counter stereotypes. When the shooting death of Trayvon Martin started making national headlines, she decided to combat negative media images of black men by offering a collection of photos of ordinary and extraordinary black men in her life. That caught the attention of Deanna Zandt, who launched a related Tumblr blog where others can contribute images on this theme. A similar project by Colorlines also is helping to bring attention to personal stories of racial profiling.

Here’s how these visually powerful social media tools can work together to help elevate the public conversation on contentious topics…

Training: A change agent for news organizations

The sad demise of the American Press Institute is a reminder of the newspaper industry’s lack of commitment to training and professional development - and why that’s one of its biggest mistakes as digital transforms the news landscape. But even without training budgets, newsrooms can implement training programs - here are some tips for doing that.

How to build your mobile news audience? New Pew research offers insight

Increasingly, people are turning to mobile devices to get news throughout the day. Thus, mobile was the big trend highlighted in this year’s State of the Media report from the Pew Project on Excellence in Journalism—which echoes other recent findings from comScore and elsewhere.

How can news and information publishers get ahead of the mobile wave?...