Cultural publication ‘flirts with the Dark Side’ in Spain

El Pais announces the alliance on its website. (Updated Aug. 22, 2015; versión en español) The iconoclastic Spanish culture magazine Jot Down is a strange creature in many ways. At a time when people supposedly read little and do it rapidly, it publishes long interviews and essays. In an age of minute-by-minute updates and clickbait, Jot […]

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An exercise on usability puts theory into practice

At the end of a semester-long course in digital journalism, I asked my students at the University of Navarra in Spain to say what they thought was the most interesting or useful part of the course. The survey was anonymous, so I give it some credibility. The question was open-ended. The second-most-mentioned item was a […]

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Nonprofit journalism tries to make it in Spain

PorCausa is a new species of digital media for Spain: nonprofit journalism. Its founder and director, Gumersindo Lafuente, is a respected veteran of some of Spain’s most important media — El País, El Mundo, and the late lamented digital pioneer Soitu.es). Given the limited resources available, he runs the operation much in the style of […]

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‘Desktop is the new print’ as public goes mobile

Julio Alonso, director general WeblogsSL (James Breiner photo) BURGOS, Spain — In 2004, management consultant Julio Alonso got the itch to write about gadgets and technology. He started a blog and a year later that evolved into the website Xataka. Since then he and his partners have built WeblogsSL, a community of 36 websites in […]

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Mobile metrics are failing publishers and advertisers

According to eMarketer, half the digital ad spending this year will be on mobile, a total of $29 billion. Advertisers want to know if their messages are reaching the right target groups of people at the right time so that ad dollars are not wasted. Some people are better targets than others for messages about, […]

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8 practices of successful entrepreneurial journalists

Editor’s note: This post was updated 3 June with an eighth best practice. For the last seven years I have been interviewing and profiling successful entrepreneurial journalists in various countries of various  socieconomic classes. I’ve talked to publishers and editors with staffs of as many as a hundred as well as some one-man/one-woman bands. The […]

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Professors of The Book, students of The Smartphone

The Internet is a revolutionary tool of communication. Because of that, teachers of communication have to face up to the possibility that our models for teaching and learning are becoming less effective and relevant. Like many of my teaching colleagues, I have complained that students don’t read. Well, they do read, but in a different […]

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