Mclellan Blog | Knight Digital Media Center

Community Journalism Executive Training: October at KDMC

News for Digital Innovators

Tue, June 26, 2012 | 12:00 a.m. PDT

This October 40 community and investigative news publishers will receive expert guidance on business and market challenges through an executive training program offered at [email protected]...

Mashable contest: How has social media impacted your local community?

News for Digital Innovators

Fri, June 22, 2012 | 12:00 a.m. PDT

by Amy Gahran

June 30 is Social Media Day, an annual celebration from Mashable, a popular tech news site. Today Mashable announced a contest that’s highly relevant to community news outlets that use social media…

Non-traditional providers bring quality and dimension to community news

Community News Leadership 3.0

Thu, June 21, 2012 | 4:14 a.m. PDT

by Michele McLellan

As more and more non-traditional actors take the stage in providing news and information in local communities, it's valuable to get past the either-or journalist-vs-citj argument and look at who actually creates value. A new report for The Chicago Community Trust offers significant evidence that information providers outside mainstream media have much to offer.

Knight announces six “networks” News Challenge Winners

News for Digital Innovators

Wed, June 20, 2012 | 12:00 a.m. PDT

by Amy Gahran

This week the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced the six winners of the first 2012 round of the Knight News Challenge. These projects leverage existing networks to create new ways to inform and engage communities…

Time for a better breed of local/mobile ad network for community sites

Community News Leadership 3.0

Tue, June 19, 2012 | 6:23 p.m. PDT

by Amy Gahran

Theoretically, community publishers and local advertisers have much to gain from the rise of mobile advertising. But so far there’s a huge practical obstacle: the way the mobile ad market works isn’t very friendly to the little guys. Yet.

Text alerts for community media: Tips for getting started

Community News Leadership 3.0

Tue, June 12, 2012 | 4:40 p.m. PDT

by Amy Gahran

Text message alerts are a potentially powerful, effective way to keep your community engaged with your news and information wherever they are—and regardless of what kind of phone they have or whether they have a data plan. But there are plenty of ways to do text alerts wrong. Here are some tips for getting started safely and smart…

New Facebook plugin for WordPress: Expand community engagement on your site

News for Digital Innovators

Tue, June 12, 2012 | 12:00 a.m. PDT

by Amy Gahran

Many community and niche media websites rely on the WordPress content management system, and on Facebook as a key community engagement tool. A new plugin announced today makes it easier to integrate Facebook features into Wordpress sites…

Engaging communities by putting context up front

Community News Leadership 3.0

Wed, June 6, 2012 | 5:14 p.m. PDT

by Amy Gahran

Journalism isn’t really about articles; it’s about empowering people by informing and engaging them. The article (or its audio or video equivalent) is a powerful format—but it’s mostly a one-size-fits-all artifact of non-interactive, space-limited print media. And it doesn’t always meet a community’s true needs for engagement.