The UNC School of Media and Journalism’s Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media is pleased to announce the third round of the UNC Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative and is…
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For Education NC, taking part in the second cohort of UNC’s Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative proved a fruitful path, pivoting the four-year-old digital organization’s thinking about audience engagement and leading to…
UNC School of Media and Journalism Assistant Professor Steven King has been awarded the University’s prestigious C. Felix Harvey award for his work on “Adventure Squad,” an augmented reality video…
Revolutionary new technologies are compelling news organizations to recreate their business models or be left in history’s wake. The Strategic Digital Media Entrepreneur by Knight Chairs Penny Abernathy and JoAnn Sciarrino is packed with practical insights and guidance on all aspects of the business of media. Click here to explore case studies, videos, and essays by media leaders that will help you develop your own digital strategy. New material added weekly.
As a former managing editor for commodities at Dow Jones Newswires, Terry Wooten identified the kinds of trends that would move markets. In this case study, Wooten discusses how new digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain are transforming the way organizations practice journalism.
Andaiye Taylor discovered that she had a passion for reporting stories about her hometown, Newark, N.J. In 2013, she launched Brick City Live, an online news startup that quickly won awards and community acclaim. The experience took such a toll on its founder that she nearly shut it down. Here is what she discovered during that process, and why she’s now on track to increase year-over-year revenue fivefold.
In this case study, Rick Thames – who led newsrooms as an executive editor at The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina and the Wichita Eagle in Kansas – explores how news organizations can use metrics to understand both the needs and expectations of its readers.
In this case study, William R. “Bill” Barker – Florida southwest regional president for Gannett and the USA Today Network – discusses how media entrepreneurs and leaders can survey the competitive landscape for opportunities that drive growth.
Throughout history, newspapers have had to adapt to constantly changing business conditions. University of North Carolina Media Researcher and History Instructor Erinn Whitaker examines how innovation and disruption drive news…
Introduction Facebook began 2018 as one of the hottest tech stocks to buy and ended it at $131.09 per share, down 25.7 percent for the year. Less than six years…
Steven King, assistant professor with the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, based in the UNC School of Media and Journalism, developed 3D modeling of a well-known Raleigh…
Two concerning and contradictory findings about local news attitudes emerged from a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday. While half of Americans say local media don’t cover their communities, almost…
As the #MeToo movement amplifies dialogue about the prevalence and impunity of sexual assault throughout the nation, Carolina Public Press has led a collaborative effort among 10 other news organizations…
EBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar founded Honolulu Civil Beat with the intention of it using a for-profit subscription model. But public reaction changed the nature of its business.
Assistant Professor Steven King and his team recently took part in an exciting endeavor, creating a 3D model of London’s Hope Gardens, a temporary housing development built from shipping containers, for Quartz’s 2050 Project. The 2050…
UNC Media Hub recently featured Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics Penny Abernathy’s research in its story “Threat of ‘news deserts’ in North Carolina is changing the media landscape.” The article…
A group of students convened on the third floor of Carroll Hall last week to learn the facts of fact-checking from some of the best in the industry. “Fact-checking is…
Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics Penny Abernathy was a guest on PBS NewsHour Jan. 31. She joined host Judy Woodruff and fellow guest Steve Cavendish, editor of the Nashville Banner, to talk about the dangers news deserts pose for…
Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics Penelope Muse Abernathy appeared on the Arizona PBS show “Arizona Horizon” this week, where she talked about her research on U.S. news…
Ten media organizations representing the spectrum of the industry took part in a Jan. 22-23 UNC Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative gathering at the UNC School of Media and Journalism, focusing on…
Take a listen as Penny Abernathy talks news deserts and how local media can continue to succeed in the 21st century’s changing media landscape in this interview with WCHL’s “Focus Carolina”…
Margaret High grew up in the newsroom of the Pulitzer Prize-winning News Reporter in Whiteville, North Carolina. She’s the fourth generation in a newspaper family. Her great-grandfather, grandfather and father…
Read the preface of the new report by Penny Abernathy, The Expanding News Desert, below and then check out the rest of the report and find out if you live…
Reveal/The Center for Investigative Reporting will be coming to North Carolina June 18-19 to train journalists and students in the art of data reporting. Emmanuel Martinez, data reporter for Reveal/CIR,…
Japanese telecommunications conglomerate SoftBank, which last year purchased the $70 billion investment firm that manages the largest newspaper chain in the US—GateHouse—may be considering the addition of another large newspaper…
Closures and mergers of hundreds of newspapers in recent years are leaving city and county communicators across the country without a reliable news platform to reach residents. This is not…
Spotlight on Research Engaging News in a Partisan Age A podcast with Talia Stroud Talia Stroud visited the UNC School of Media and Journalism on April 27 to give a…
How can we revive and restore trust in the media? University of North Carolina Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics Penelope Muse Abernathy outlined how to help save…
UNC School of Media and Journalism students had a taste of working in a start-up accelerator during the semester in Teaching Associate Professor Kate Sheppard‘s “MEJO 463: Creating Tomorrow’s Products.”…
Ten media organizations have been selected to learn how to engage audiences and create sustainable revenue streams as part of the year-long UNC Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative starting on April 30,…
On April 5, the UNC School of Media and Journalism welcomed Paul Volpe to campus to share his experience working as the executive editor at POLITICO and, previously, as a…
Knight Chair Penny Muse Abernathy delivered the 18th annual Huck Boyd Lecture in Community Media last week to an audience of journalists, media executives and concerned Kansas citizens. Afterwards, Abernathy appeared…
Interested in helping save community newspapers? The UNC Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media is hiring a paid intern to research community newspapers between May and August, 2018….
By Knight Chair Penelope Muse Abernathy There’s been a lot of buzz in the press recently, including Nieman Lab, Washington Post and DFM Workers prior to and following Politico’s recent…
Did declining newspaper circulation give president Donald Trump a boost in the 2016 election? A Politico special report found a clear correlation between low subscription rates at the county level…
What’s Happening in Newspaper Ownership: January-March 2018 This is one of a series of quarterly updates about changes in newspaper ownership, based on the research conducted by Knight Chair in…
Spotlight on Research Is the Digital Content Bubble About to Burst? Questions with Tom Nicholls One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in the academy and in…
The integrity surrounding elections systems has become a hot topic and as a result, experienced data reporters are increasingly in demand. Ryan Thornburg wants to help build spaces where students,…
Steven King, Chief Innovation Officer of the Reese News Lab and the Emerging Technologies Lab, spent his Spring Break in Austin, Texas, at the South by Southwest festival (SXSW) where…
The Reese News Lab at the University of North Carolina’s School of Media and Journalism is seeking a full-stack news application developer to help build and maintain new media products…
Jed Williams ’10 (M.A.) lives and breathes the business of local media. On February 6, Williams returned to the UNC School of Media and Journalism leading a group of media…
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Innovation & Sustainability in Local Media is pleased to announce the second round of the UNC Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative and…
Emerging technologies like augmented and virtual reality, 360 video and artificial intelligence are sweeping some media companies by storm, but the majority of newsrooms have not yet committed their limited…
As part of Melody Kramer’s fellowship last fall, she has written a report detailing information gathered from speaking with journalists and newsrooms across North Carolina about how they use data…
Spotlight on Research The impact of mythology and technology on how journalists gather information Questions with Zvi Reich and Yigal Godler One of a regular series of articles that highlights…
Now that the dust has settled from last month’s elections, let’s consider how newspaper ownership shapes election coverage. Last year, Knight Chair Penelope Muse Abernathy and her research team looked…
A couple months ago, we ran a story about a course in entrepreneurship and innovation taught in the Reese News Lab here at the UNC School of Media and Journalism. The…
When Ryan Thornburg was approached by WUNC’s Fletcher Fellow Liz Schlemmer for help on interactive graphics, he knew exactly how to help. Schlemmer was working on a story about teacher…
Over the last decade, there have been significant shifts in how news is packaged, how news is consumed and how news is paid for or sold. But, how have hiring…
For the past decade, the number of family-owned newspapers has drastically dropped as the business of owning print media becomes less profitable. The vast majority of newspapers are bought by…
NC-Votes.org launches this week with the goal of finding ways to make public election data useful to citizens and journalists who want to better understand North Carolina’s dynamic political environment….
Since August, Reese News Lab Fellow Melody Kramer has interviewed journalists across North Carolina and compiled research for the Carolina Data Desk. Open data is a resource currently underutilized by community…
The Nation magazine recently published an article by Julie Reynolds featuring Penelope Muse Abernathy’s research into newspaper ownership. The article also features North Carolina newspaper The Pilot — which just…
To an outsider, “MEJO 463: Creating Tomorrow’s Products” might appear to be more at home in the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. But to anyone involved in the news and…
Alexis Barnes graduated in May 2017 from the UNC School of Media and Journalism with a specialization in multimedia. She now works with the Emerging Technologies Lab. Over four days,…
Penelope Muse Abernathy, Knight Chair in Journalism & Digital Economics, will lead a series of workshops at the Texas Center for Community Journalism at Texas Christian University this Friday, October…
Spotlight on Research A Broader Framework for the News Industry Questions with Annika Sehl One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in the academy and the profession…
An industry changing as quickly as the journalism and media industry must develop new ways of doing business in order to survive. Open data may be a very significant piece…
Recent hurricanes in Texas, Florida and Mexico have made this year the worst since 2005 in terms of number of storms and storm strength. In parts of eastern North…
Over the summer, five recent UNC-Chapel Hill School of Media and Journalism graduates led projects at local media companies in North Carolina to help them embrace new technologies and respond…
Earlier this year, the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media hosted a symposium entitled “Thwarting the Emergence of News Deserts” at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. The program for the symposium…
The team behind the groundbreaking reports covering the dramatic shifts in the media business is hiring! The Research Assistant will support the Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics…
The UNC School of Media and Journalism and Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media welcome Melody Kramer to the Carolina Data Desk team. She is the first Reese…
The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi published a story investigating East Palo Alto and the hole leftover by a disappearance of local newsrooms, or a “news desert.” When newsrooms shutter, how…
Penelope Muse Abernathy spoke with Oliver Broudy on his podcast Let’s Be Reasonable about the reasons behind the downsizing of community newspapers, and in this case, the Hampshire Gazette. While…
Spotlight on Research A Broader Framework for the News Industry Questions with Seth Lewis One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in the academy and the profession…
Spotlight on Research Who Reads Local News? Four Questions with Lee Shaker One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in the academy and the profession on the…
Melody Kramer (update: now a Reese News Lab Fellow!) wrote for Poynter about News Voices: North Carolina, a new initiative supported by The Democracy Fund with the goal of stronger collaboration…
Spotlight on Research How Facebook Reshapes Journalism Questions with Taylor Owen One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in the academy and the profession on the emerging…
Eight news organizations in North Carolina — including digital startups, radio stations, TV stations and newspapers — have been selected to participate in a program launched by the Knight-Lenfest Newsroom…
Spotlight on Research How Can Newspapers Spur User-Generated Content Questions with Michael Zeng One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in the academy and the profession on…
The live stream has concluded. Watch the discussion on Youtube. Schedule 11 a.m. Welcome Susan King, dean, UNC School of Media and Journalism 11:10-11:30 a.m. A conversation with Penny…
Spotlight on Research Freedom of Information Act: exploring issues, solutions Four Questions with David Cuillier One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in the academy and…
Spotlight on Research Examining the Future of Local Solutions Journalism Four Questions with Andrea Wenzel One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in the academy and…
Spotlight on Research What do high school students think of the First Amendment? Four Questions with Kenneth Dautrich One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in…
Spotlight on Research Online News Startups Seek to Fill the Local News Void Four Questions with Matthew Powers One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in…
The Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media will present a symposium entitled “Thwarting the Emergence of News Deserts,” on Tuesday, March 28, at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.,…
Spotlight on Research Can small community newspapers successfully launch digital ad agencies? Four Questions with JoAnn Sciarrino One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in…
As I wrote in our recap, Reese News Lab interns are working to create sustainable media products for Chatham County this semester in partnership with UNC’s new Center for Innovation…
Spotlight on Research How Healthy is the News Ecosystem in Your Community? Four Questions with Philip Napoli One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in…
Spotlight on Research Who should pay for local public affairs journalism? Four Questions with Christopher Ali One of a regular series of articles that highlights research in the…
Spotlight on Research Comparing media ownership models, and the future of “all-digital” news models Four Questions with Merja Myllylahti One of a regular series of articles that highlights…
Spotlight on Research What Happens to Political Participation in Communities When Metro Papers Pull Back? Four Questions with Sarah Cavanah One of a regular series of articles that highlights…
A twice-weekly with a storied history, The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.) is one of the few remaining locally owned community newspapers in North Carolina. In the past two decades, the community newspaper…
Newsroom moves and the newspaper crisis: space, place, and cultural meaning The buildings where newspapers were published in the 20th century were often iconic structures. They stood out on the…
This is a periodic update of major sales and acquisitions that have occurred since the publication of The New Media Baron and the Emerging Threat of News Deserts. The report…
What is the value to society of investigative journalism? In his new book, Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism (Harvard, 2016), author James T. (Jay) Hamilton calculates the long-term economic consequence to society when lives are saved and disasters are averted by such reporting.
The wave of innovation from the New Lab is the result of a shift in thinking about how students and future journalists should interact with the changing media industry.
Over the past decade, a new media baron has emerged, very different from the publishers that preceded them.The rise of this new media baron coincides with immense disruption in newspaper industry.
(NOTE: The text below is an excerpt from “The Rise Of A New Media Baron And The Emerging Threat Of News Deserts,” released Oct 17, 2016. The report — including…
The Media Innovation Fellows program at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Media and Journalism places recent graduates at local media companies in North Carolina to help them embrace new technologies and…
A unique look at a proven model for publishers and GMs to successfully fund Innovation from within media companies.
Come join the Reese News Lab and learn how to create innovative, viable media products through human-centered design!
We are looking for undergraduate and graduate students in business, computer science, public relations, journalism, law, design, development, sales and marketing to join our new media venture teams.
Steven King to serve as the interim director of the Reese News Lab, which will continue to focus on creating viable media products, using human-centered design concepts and working with local media partners.
Journalist and storytellers at every level, especially local and regional publishers, need to be experimenting, practicing and advancing narrative stories and experiences in Virtual Reality. It is acceptable to make mistakes in an effort to advance storytelling in Virtual Reality.
In May, the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media hosted the Media Innovation Workshop. Over the course of two intensive days, 20 select participants from a variety of media organizations gathered in Chapel Hill to learn and practice the fundamentals of human-centered design.
The reason we were able to watch Neil Armstrong take “one small step for man” is because of an unknown NASA hero, Stan Lebar, who had one very important job — develop a…
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will open a new research center to explore new models for community news and support the testing and development of innovative digital media products for local news sites.
