“Do you like tattoos?” was my standard pickup line. OK, pretty cheesy, but hey, it worked most of the time. I was sitting at a table at the Washington State Convention Center for two days last week surrounded by about 4,000 high-school journalists from all over the country. It was the national Journalism Education Association /National [...]

Mike Wallace changed my life. I never actually met him, but he had a huge influence on my career. Here’s how: Back in the 1990s, I co-edited a media-critique newsletter called CounterPoint  (motto: “Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?”) and co-wrote a column that ran in Seattle Weekly and Eastsideweek called “Watchdogs” (motto: “Woof!”). Barking at journalists, [...]

The Newspaper Association of America recently unveiled a new advertising campaign: “ Smart is the New Sexy. ” I wrote a snarky blog about it, asking “Whose idea was this?” But I’m having second thoughts. I just read the Valentine’s Day issue of my daily newspaper, The Seattle Times. Yikes! This paper is smokin’. Take Page One: There’s a [...]

In my first post on the Seattle Interactive Conference , I went over some locally developed tools designed to make information more relevant and insightful. Mobile apps like Trover, which allows geo-discovery through photos, and Evri, which organizes ~15,000 news feeds into a friendly iPad interface, are useful on an individual level. But my concern is: How can they scale to community [...]

Journalists have always covered the tech industry as a section of the newspaper, but now, due to the personal media explosion, the very existence of the trade is dependent on conversations and decisions that happen at events like this year’s Seattle Interactive Conference . #SIC2011 had many of the same trimmings as the now messianic #SXSWi (South By [...]

Hackathons are getting trendy. Not just in journalism, but health care , education, entrepreneurism, crisis management , mobile tech , government, and other arenas. Yes, it’s another technology buzz word, but one that hopefully sticks around and evolves into a combustible formula. Bringing together software experts and social leaders who sprint together to solve big challenges is a remarkable thing, especially when there’s a $10,000 prize [...]

Secretary of State Sam Reed, who announced his retirement recently, is being hailed for standing up for transparency, accessibility and openness in government — and justifiably so. Reed received the Washington Coalition for Open Government’s coveted James Madison Award last week in recognition of his work. The awards breakfast just happened to fall on International Media [...]

David Brewster’s recent little blog on Crosscut.com, “Chihuly Conquers Boston” (Aug. 8) caught my eye because I saw the Chihuly exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in May. My wife and I spent several hours there. We both thought it was fabulous. Brewster said the exhibit “drew large numbers…and mixed critical reviews.” He cited two [...]

The Newspaper Association of America ( NAA) has just unveiled a new national advertising campaign whose slogan is “Smart Is the New Sexy.” Huh? Whose idea was this? And what was the “Old Sexy” anyway? Dumb? If they’re hoping to attract more newspaper readers and advertisers with this marketing come-on, it’s pretty lame. The NAA developed a [...]

“It’s really important that we have accountability mechanisms in journalism. When it comes to our own accountability, most news organizations are doing a pretty poor job, to [...]

Mozilla is best known for Firefox, the open source darling loved by millions which showed us that a browser is more than just a way to load websites, it’s a way to customize your experience of the web itself. Under new direction from Mark Surman , Mozilla is growing new legs to go beyond Firefox. They recently [...]

(cross posted form the Seattle Journalism Commons ) Part two of the #NewsNext series brought to us by the Online News Association/Society of Professional Journalists collaboration featured a lively discussion with Cory Bergman ( msnbc.com, breakingnews.com, Next Door Media ) and Ben Huh ( Cheezburger Networks ). As the owner of the largest humor network in the world, you’ve probably stumbled upon one of his many [...]

SHEESH! Maybe we should throw in the towel…. The Washington News Council’s mission since 1998 has been to help maintain public trust and confidence in the news media. But today trust in the media is at record low levels. We’ve failed! We were just named “Organization of the Year” by the Municipal League . But perhaps we should [...]

The Washington News Council received the honor of being named 2010 Organization of the Year by the Municipal League of King County. Here is a video of John Hamer accepting the award from Seattle based philanthropist Bill Gates Sr. at the awards gala.

BREAKING NEWS: The WNC issued the following Press Release on April 1, 2011 The day after being named “Organization of the Year” at the Municipal League’s annual Civic Awards banquet, the Washington News Council announced today that it would close its doors. “Mission Accomplished,” said John Hamer, President and Executive Director of the News Council. “We’re [...]