Easy way to post PDFs online

Just discovered a free way to easily post PDFs online -- newspaper pages, documents, whatever. It's called ISSUU. You upload your files, organize them and then they give you a code to imbed in your Web site.

The Northern Star today published an investigative piece about expenses related to NIU's trip to the Independence Bowl. Our students used ISSUU to post scanned PDF files of all the expense reports obtained via the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. Readers then can page through them and it looks like a booklet.

ISSUU makes its money by including advertising on the side of the screen. Or, you can buy the pro edition and eliminate the ads.

So, who knows how long this will be around, but for now it's a good thing to add to your online toolbox.

Contest approacheth

Just a heads-up that NINA's annual contest is approaching. Entry materials will be mailed to your newspapers in the next several weeks. We'll also post materials here and on the regular NINA Web site. The contest period is May 1, 2008, to April 30, 2009. Entry deadline will be June 30. Winners will be announced during our October Fall Conference.

More soon.

The future of investigative reporting

Last night's NewsHour on PBS included a discussion about the future of investigative reporting. One of the interviewees was Deborah Nelson, one of America's best investigative reporters and, we're proud to say, a Northern Star alumna.

Looking at the list of Pulitzer winners announced Monday, Deb said: "By a year or two from now, we won't have this kind of investigative reporting."

There were lots more interesting comments. Here's the transcript.

"Covering School Shootings"

I wanted to call your attention to an online package we've been privileged to help compile, along with our counterparts at the Collegiate Times, the student newspaper at Virginia Tech. It's an educational project for the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, an organization that has been immensely helpful to us since the NIU tragedy of 2-14-08. The package is called "Covering School Shootings."

It's a comprehensive look at how both student papers covered their respective tragedies, and what lessons were learned. It's not graphic, but I'll caution you, it's some emotional stuff.

Pulitzers announced

The Pulitzers were just announced. Look here. Several smaller newspapers won, which is fantastic.

A press kit you can't refuse

Item from my friend and former student Derek Wright of the Northwest Herald:

Did anyone see the article about the “Godfather II” video game press kit that was sent to journalists to review? The care package contained a set of brass knuckles, which are illegal. EA is in a bit of trouble for mailing weapons to the news media.

Here's the story from video gaming site BigDownload.com.

Reinventing the newspaper

From Today's Wall Street Journal: An interesting column by L. Gordon Crovitz about creative, not-so-new approaches to newspapering. Key point:

If readers would prefer more-compact city newspapers, a less-is-more approach could help cut newsprint, printing, distribution and other costs that don't add to the journalism. Newspaper editors could craft a new, forward-looking role for print, alongside the what's-happening-right-now focus of digital news.

Lead of the year

Maybe the best lead I've read this year, from John Keilman of the Chicago Tribune. The story's about a public library in Schaumburg adding "offensive body odors" to its list of prohibitions. The lead:

Patrons of the Schaumburg Township District Library have never been allowed to bring in the noise. Now they can't bring in the funk.

Whole story is here.

NINA Spring Conference

Here's a reminder about our NINA Spring Conference on Friday, April 24 at NIU-DeKalb. The registration deadline is this Thursday, April 16. Cost is $20 and includes light breakfast. You can pay at the door, but we do need you to register by this Thursday so we get an accurate count for the food. Contact me to register.

Full info about the conference is HERE.

More encouraging words

Here's an encouraging story on a gloomy, rainy Monday. It's from the Raleigh News & Observer and it's about how college students prefer to get their news from print newspapers. That's something we've seen in no uncertain terms here at NIU, too. Key quote:

"Anybody can blog, which is great. But if it's in a paper, it's prestigious."

Well, this is good

Hey, some good news! From today's Wall Street Journal:

Ariel Investments LLC has more than doubled its holding in Gannett Co. -- to 12.5% -- marking a rare display of confidence in the beleaguered newspaper industry.
Gannett shares leapt 39% on the news, rising $1.06 to $3.75 in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading ...

Google: We're good for newspapers

Here's Google's side of the argument over whether aggregators like Google and Yahoo should be able to link to AP stories on newspaper sites. It's a thorny legal issue.

Google lawyer Alexander Macgillivray wrote:

"For news articles we've crawled and indexed but do not host, we show users just enough to make them want to read more -- the headline, a 'snippet' of a line or two of text, and a link back to the news publisher's website."

Which I guess is the same thing I just did here. The difference, I'm afraid, is that a whole lot of people scan those quick summaries on Yahoo or Google and never follow the link. So the newspapers and other news organizations do all the heavy lifting, and the aggregators quickly summarize it and then get the traffic and revenue.

All of which, I guess, renders newspapers the news wholesalers and aggregators the news retailers. Except the wholesalers aren't getting paid by the retailers. So before long, this model collapses.

Resource for job hunters

Just stumbled onto this today: CubReporters.org lists entry-level jobs and internships for journalists. I've also added that to our NINA Job Hunters Guide.