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Robert Niles

Pasadena, California

A long-time math and computer geek, Robert Niles turned to journalism after graduating from Northwestern University and deciding he couldn't stomach becoming a management consultant. But the lure of marathon coding sessions proved too strong. Robert soon quit his job writing editorials for a red-state newspaper, and he began making websites instead.

Robert started with online tutorials showing other journalists how to use math and data, then branched out to niche sites on theme parks and the violin. These sites often involve readers as reporters, inviting them to contribute to the sites' coverage.

The Online News Association and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism honored Robert's ThemeParkInsider.com in 2001 with an Online Journalism Award for Service Journalism. The Webby Awards named the same site a finalist for Best Guides/Ratings/Reviews Site in 2005.

Robert also has worked as a Web editor, editorial writer and reporter for several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, (Denver) Rocky Mountain News, Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald and the (Bloomington, Ind.) Herald-Times.

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These articles are the work of their author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of nor an assignment by OJR.

Goodbye

June 16, 2008
After a decade, the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication has suspended publication of OJR.

One of OJR's goals over the years has been to help mid-career journalists make a successful transition from other media to online reporting and production. I'm pleased to say that USC Annenberg will continue to provide support in that area, through the Knight Digital Media Center. I encourage OJR readers to click over to the KDMC website and its blogs, if you are not already a regular reader there.

I am hopeful that OJR will continue to live at the KDMC, and that the publication might be revived under the KDMC's blogs.

The decision to suspend OJR for now means that I have left the University of Southern California. But I am not going offline. I will continue to write, daily, about new media and journalism at my new website, SensibleTalk.com. I hope that many of you will click over and visit me there.

Finally, on behalf of OJR, I want to thank you. Thank you for your readership, tips, corrections, kind words and support. And I want to wish you success as you work to build engaging, informative and sustainable websites, to better serve your audiences.

So... in that spirit, I suppose that I will borrow a classic sign-off from the world of journalism, one that's been borrowed by another recently:

Good night, and good luck. More...

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McClatchy Washington bureau shines as bright example for online journalism

June 13, 2008
The past decade has brought the journalism industry some of its darkest moments. On the business side, management teams that grew used to local monopolies could not react swiftly enough to protect their market share as thousands of online competitors emerged. Revenue tanked, readership declined and layoffs became a seasonal task at many newspapers.

On the editorial side, many newsrooms blew or missed one major story after another, from the Whitewater "scandal," hitting the snooze button on the global warming alarm, the emergence of al Qaeda before 9/11, the Bush administration's phony case for war in Iraq, to the abandonment of mortgage lending standards that inflated a housing bubble.

But not every news organization blew it. Indeed, as journalism has suffered some of its darkest moments over the past decade, a few news organizations stand apart for their bright triumphs. On the Washington beat, perhaps no single news organization so often has gotten the story right as the McClatchy Washington bureau.

From providing one of the few domestic voices to consistently challenge the Bush administration's bogus claims before the Iraq War (The New Yorker being another), to dogging the administration over the politicalization of the U.S. Justice Department, the bureau, and its website, www.mcclatchydc.com have become the must-click destination for readers thirsty for clear, accurate, spin-free reporting. The bureau will publish this weekend an in-depth investigation of the situation at Guantanamo Bay, where the United States has been holding alleged terrorists, in violation of due process rights, according to a Supreme Court ruling this week.

I spoke with McClatchy Washington Bureau Web editor Jim Van Nostrand by phone this week, and asked him why McClatchy's had such success, and why the bureau took the unusual step of launching its own, stand-alone website. An edited transcript of our conversations follows. More...

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OJR launches individual reader blogs

June 10, 2008
OJR now allows its registered members to maintain individual blogs on OJR.

Just click the "Post Blog Entry" link near the top of the right navigation rail to get started. OJR's editors and I will read all the submissions, then select ones to go on the OJR front page feed. You can find links to all the most recent reader-submitted blog entries under the "Recent Blogs" header on the right rail.

You can start a free blog just about anywhere on the Web, from Blogger.com and beyond. And many of you likely already have a blog. So why would you post anything on OJR?

It's simple: for the readers. A front-page post on OJR will reach several thousand readers via the website, our e-mail newsletter and RSS feeds. OJR readers aren't your average Web surfers, either. They include editors, entrepreneurs and bloggers at many top newspaper and independent news websites.

So, if you want to draw the industry's attention to some really neat new work from your shop, you want to comment on something you've seen in the industry that's bugging you, or you want to rant or rave about a new tool or widget you've tried, we think OJR provides a pretty good platform for you to do that. More...

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Question of the week: Going to journalism school - yes or no?

June 8, 2008
For this week's discussion question, I'd like to hear about the academic preparation OJR readers had for their career.

Obviously, being housed and paid for by the Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California, OJR's not exactly a neutral forum for this question. One might suspect that we'd have a larger-than-expected number of j-school folk hanging around here. But we do get a fair number of readers who did not come up through the traditional journalism ranks. So perhaps that will even things out a bit.

Follow the headline link to vote, and to see the results. Then, in the comments, we'd love to hear your thoughts on journalism school. Let's give some advice to the students, and prospective students, reading OJR. Is a j-school degree necessary, or even helpful, to writing or publishing online? If you don't have a j-school degree, do you wish you did? And if you do, do you now wish you'd majored in something else?

More...

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Writing print's epitaph - v6.5.08 (service pack 3)

June 5, 2008
My friend Sree Sreenivasan asked members an online journalism e-mail list for reaction to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's interview with the Washington Post, published this morning.

Specifically, Sree asked for reactions to this statement from Ballmer:

"In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down -- my opinion. Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form."

Okay. Here goes... More...

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When journalists hate journalism...

June 4, 2008
... the industry has a problem.

You'd think that journalists would be the biggest news hounds around. For the most part, you'd be right. I was talking with some of my Annenberg colleagues at a journalism conference last month, and one asked how many hours a day we each spent reading and watching the news, whether in print, online or on TV. The consensus? About four to five hours a day.

But there is one exception to this potential rule: Many journalists despise TV news. They hate watching it, they hate producing it, and, given the opportunity, they turn it off and ignore it.

My journalism students this semester went off on this topic in class one day, raging about the rigid format, the simplistic reporting and cynicism that they found in TV news reports.

The message that I heard from my students is similar to the one I've heard from people I have met in dozens of online communities - they are fed up with traditional journalism narratives and conventions, especially ones that emphasize conflict without resolution.
More...

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Regan returns as ONA executive director

June 3, 2008
Just got the word that Online News Association executive director Lori Schwab has left the organization. So the ONA is now looking for a full-time administrator for the group, which conducts an annual conference for online journalists, mostly from newspaper-dot-coms, as well as administers the Online Journalism Awards.

In the meantime, former ONA executive director Tom Regan has returned to the post, on a temporary basis. Regan, an online journalism pioneer in Canada, ran the ONA as a part-timer from 2004 to 2006.

Congratulations to Tom, who is one of the sharpest people I know in the field of online journalism.
More...

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Question of the week: What's the best font for the Web?

June 1, 2008
What's the best typeface for displaying text on the Web? I'm sure that many of you have your favorite studies, focus groups and/or personal biases to defend your choice. And we'd love to read about those in the comments.

For the undecided, I've provided a one-line sample of each, using a style call for those typefaces. If you do not have it on your machine, the line likely will render in either Arial (OJR's default) or whatever your browser is set to serve in lieu of Arial. (Update: I didn't adjust the type sizes for the example below, and some typefaces work better with larger sizes, so please consider that when comparing the typefaces.)

Here is an example of Arial.