Nick Bergus Thoughts on what media do, and can do better, and other things

In Monday’s Corridor Business Journal is the first of what we plan to be a monthly media column that I will write with John Goodlove. In this installment, we wrote about the recent announcement that The Gazette is restructuring its newsroom, and the following staff uneasiness. Mr. Goodlove is a grizzled newspaper veteran while I’m [...]

Today I’m reminded of a lesson I learned in a reporting 101 class: People die. People do not pass away. They do not meet Jesus. They do not cross over. They are not lost. People die.

It’s offical: Fev at “Headsup: The Blog” agrees with one of my previous admonitions.

The day after Thanksgiving is usually a slow news day but never fear, dear journalist, there is a HUGE cultural event that demands coverage! Time to throw everything you got at it! Luckily you had the forethought to build a database. Now make sure you’ve got a Twitter hashtag set. Then, on Friday, get some [...]

I missed this because my feedreader is purpetually at 1000+ unread items, but I would be remiss if I didn’t link to Mindy McAdams’s reponse to Dan Conover’s 10 reasons why newspapers won’t reinvent news. I was overly optimistic when I took issue with some of Mr. Conover’s assertions. Ms. McAdams is, of course right. [...]

On Xark, Dan Conover lists 10 reasons why he no longer believes newspapers will be significant players in the reinvention of news. It’s a pessimistic piece and I can’t say that I fully disagree with him. I think I’m just more hopeful (some might say naive). First are his reasons; my responses follow. 1. Newspapers’ [...]

Ralph Gross remembered the glory days of The Des Moines Register and he didn’t like what it had become. “Thirty years ago,” he wrote in a 2005 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, “I would pass in front of the Register building and with great pride read a display that said: ‘The Des Moines Register has [...]