It’s an old line, but David Skok said it bears repeating: Skok is digital advisor to the editor-in-chief of the Boston Globe, and a former Nieman Fellow. He spent his year at Harvard studying and collaborating with the creator of disruptive innovation theory, Clayton Christensen. They co-authored an article about disruption in the news industry. […]

For decades the Russ family of Austria has run a successful newspaper and printing company. Their flagship publication was the dominant player in Western Austria, but in the 1990s Eugen Russ, the company’s managing director, saw the digital future coming. He began visiting Silicon Valley and studying disruptive innovation theory. Russ realized he needed to […]

Innovation. It’s a word thrown around at lot in journalism today. There are innovation editors, teams, vice presidents, programs, and chairs at journalism schools. The New York Times produced a widely dissected internal innovation report. At a time of massive disruption and transformation, innovation is an imperative for news organizations. But it’s also a vague […]

The final step in successful innovation involves gathering feedback, measuring it, and using that to direct how you change and evolve your approach and/or product. This process ensures that projects, products and initiatives proceed based on data and user behavior and feedback. Develop iteratively Kareem Amin, the head of product at News Corp, is working […]

The Boston Globe recently launched a new website focused on Catholic news and information, a coffee blog, a site covering technology and startups in the Boston area, a redesign of Boston.com, and a new political site, among other initiatives. But David Skok, digital advisor to the editor-in-chief, says people should not focus on all of […]

As so much in the world of news and information changes, the fundamental bond of trust between journalists and the communities they serve is one of the few things that doesn’t. In fact, its importance has grown. One of the most important ways journalists and news organizations earn the trust of the public trust is […]

One important way to build trust in reporting is to show the audience the sources it relies upon. There are several ways to do this. I. Share source material Digital platforms don’t suffer the same time and space constraints as print, television and radio. This freedom offers new opportunities to incorporate and disclose source material, […]

Journalist Dan Gillmor likes to say, “my readers know more than I do.” Implicit in Gillmor’s axiom is a reminder that journalists shouldn’t think of people only as consumers. The people we serve have collective knowledge and expertise that can vastly improve the work we do. Digital platforms make this easier. The key is to find […]

One of the oldest and most hallowed forms of transparency in journalism is attribution. You link what was said to the person who said it. You cite your sources. You provide a roadmap that leads back to all the people you spoke to, the documents you read, the other articles and research that helped form […]

When an earthquake struck Los Angeles in March 2014, the Los Angeles Times was able to quickly publish an article that contained basic data about the quake. At the bottom of that story was an interesting disclosure: This information comes from the USGS Earthquake Notification Service and this post was created by an algorithm written […]