One of my goals next year is to create a Web site to showcase my work. Anybody out there using both Flash and Dreamweaver? What are the benefits? Drawbacks?

Doug Fisher writes on Common Sense Journalism that the definition and correction of mistakes for media has all changed.

His idea:

“Changes have to be transparent. Learn to use the “strikethrough” code in HTML to show most changes (for legal reasons, libelous ones may have to be purged).

Corrections have to be linked back to the original article, and if you are going to purge something, the correction/explanation needs to be at the URL of the original.”

I agree with the ideas of making corrections very transparent and I also think that most journalists have very little of a clue about how to make corrections in the online world.

What do you all think?

He’s a what? He’s a what?
He’s a newspaper man
and he gets his best ideas
from a newspaper stand.

My legs spring to the rhythmic claps of TV on the Radio emanating from my iPod, as I stare at the snowy remnants of an overcast day through the windows of the local gym. And while the cold weather is locked out, the chill of recession seeps into my view through a muted but captioned Katie Couric on the communal TV. TVOTR’s Tunde and Andrew draw my mind away from government bailouts and rises in the unemployment rate as I head for my locker.

“I thought that was you,” calls a familiar voice from the cardio section. My editor from my first internship stands before me, minus the tie and glasses, smiling brightly. “How have you been?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” I pant, catching my breath and toweling my face dry. “I’m currently unemployed, but I just graduated in May.”

He smiles again. “Me, too. After 13 years in the business.” He stares at the ground. “It’s tough for everyone, but hang in there,” he advises. “Something will come along.”

As I watch my favorite reference walk out of my life, I can’t help but wonder how my resume would fare compared to his. When I didn’t think things could get any worse (my inexperience, this rapidly changing industry), my former editor is canned. Gosh, even Couric wasn’t this bad. I turn back to the elliptical machine and drown my sorrows in more Afro-punk.

Should something shake you
and you drop the news
Lord, just keep your dancing shoes
off mine.

I hope other young journalists are reading all about the changes announced this week for the Detroit Free Press. It is just another new idea and movement in mass media and I am excited to see how it will turn out.

• Here’s a link to the explanation on the organization’s Web site.
• Here’s an article on a design Web site about the changes.
• The Wall St. Journal MarketWatch story on the changes at freep.com.

Please share what you all think about the changes in comments below!

Staying inspired at work is something I feel all journalists need to work at —- and now we need it more than ever.

This week the web group I’m in (I’m now on the Web Task Force at my work) is moving to a new area within our building. Our group moves on Monday so this week my coworkers and I are trying to think of ways to dress up the area and make it inspiring. Here’s a list of our ideas so far, please contribute your own ideas! Maybe I’ll even share a photo after we move of our inspired area.

Ideas so far for our new web work area:

Give it a name. Right now we’re thinking Cyberspace. Kinda retro, decidedly nerdy and fun. Since our new area already has some 80s colors we’re going full-steam with the look and I’m working on an image to show off the areas name.

Clean up. Nothing’s worse than a dirty work environment. We’re making sure to clean off the windows, walls, desks and other objects. Also, we plan to remove old posters, banners and other stuff posted on the walls and around the area.

Create a social area. In our current area we’re moving from I brought in a hot water pot and some tea. Now we plan to move that down to our new area and we’ll create a new tea station. It’s also the perfect area for bringing in treats and such. As we’ll be moving in with new folks we don’t know this area will be a great place for a once a day tea break and meet and greet.

Show progress on the walls. Since our group is all web heads, I’m using the wayback machine site to view and print out images of how our Web site has looked over the years since 1996. I plan to post these in chronological order on a wall so when we get down about our current Web site we’ll be encouraged by the progress we’ve already made online.

Add funny or interesting objects around the office. We’re thinking of adding fake flowers, maybe a print out of the @ColonelTribune ‘s paper hat and other random things we can find. A great example is the web team has a blow-up unicorn that represents our web management system. It’s great to have around when we’re mad at our web system and need something to blame.

Add labels for each person’s desk. Not sure if I’ll do this yet or not, but I think it would be fun to design something for each person that we tape on their work station. Not only will it help us remember each other’s names (for the new people we’ll be meeting), but it’ll also add to the 80′s arcade game feel.

Any other ideas?

I just left the following as a comment on a Pat Thornton blog post about if enough talented young journalists will be left to lead the future of journalism:

I’m a young journalist and I’m excited about the future of my organization. I’d stay here until I’m ready to retire so long as the people above me continue to encourage innovation from any person within the organization. I’m still worried, though, about the future of media organizations and I still feel the need to be prepared for whatever the future holds. I know some young journalists who have left, but many of those leading the charge at my organization have been in the business for at least 10 years. I’ve noticed that older journalists tend to accept easily that they must continue to change and adapt. Younger journalists I’ve met seem to stand in the way of change and seek to work in the old school journalism world they learned about in college. This is not always the case, just some general trends I’ve seen in the business. Good luck to all (young, old, employed, unemployed, whatever) seeking to provide accurate, well-balanced news and information to the people so that those people can make well-informed decisions.