Argentine journalist, Sandra Crucianelli knew something was missing when she attended the IRE conference in Miami in 2008. She couldn’t find a book on digital media tools for journalists in Spanish.

Crucianelli has now written the book in Spanish called “Herramientas Digitales Para Periodistas.”  It’s been published by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, and is available for free in a PDF that can be downloaded. Here’s the link: http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/hdpp.php

I looked over this online book and strongly feel it’s a great resource for reporters who work in Spanish language newspapers or online news sites.  It’s also handy for reporters who are learning Spanish in hopes of someday working in Mexico, Spain, and South or Central America.

The book includes chapters on accessing databases and official documents, using social networks, video conferencing, photo galleries and blogs.

Rebecca Aguilar is an Emmy Award winning freelance multimedia reporter in Dallas. She produces videos, digital slideshows along with her reports. She is currently working on an Associate’s Degree in Multimedia Development.  She can be reached at aguilar.thereporter@yahoo.com

Steve Jobs may have unveiled the highly anticipated Apple tablet yesterday, dubiously named the iPad (how many jokes did you see on Twitter and Facebook after the morning release?), but true tech/geek/news nerds know the idea is not exactly 21st century.

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane. To 1994. When Knight Ridder’s Information Design Lab — notice they avoided calling it the News Design Lab — was experimenting with digital ways to present the news. Something tells me the R&D people over at Apple examined a few of these as they brainstormed an iPrototype.

File under #dontsaynewspapersdidnttry

Tablet Newspaper (1994)

SPJ Digital Media Committee member Jessica Durkin is the founder and editor of InOtherNews.us, a directory of online, independent news start-ups. Jessica is a former daily newspaper reporter based in Scranton, PA.

Mimicking the Federal Trade Commission’s recent efforts, the Federal Communications Commission has begun soliciting input on its media rules and the news industry’s future. The FCC project, “The Future of Media and the Information Needs of Communities in a Digital Age,” will investigate the changing media landscape and news delivery technology to potentially make policy recommendations.

The FCC deserves kudos for its multipronged multimedia outreach effort, which involves a Web site, a Blog and a Twitter account. But the catch for those sharing their opinions with agency is that it doesn’t have a ton of daily authority over the media. Its primary media regulatory responsibilities involve licensing radio and TV stations and the agency’s famous rule limiting the cross-ownership of newspaper and broadcast properties in a given market.

It’s possible the FCC could use the Future of the Media report as part of its quadrennial review of America’s media ownership rules, which Congress mandated the agency perform as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Input from the new FCC report also could be used as the agency decides how to handle the thorny situation surrounding its decades-old cross-ownership rule.

Two years ago, the FCC altered the outright ban on the cross-ownership of a newspaper and a TV station in the top 20 U.S. markets, and the agency put out a new waiver process for smaller markets. But the FCC never managed to implement the rule change. That’s because opponents of the rule — some want it relaxed while others want to keep it tight — have waged challenges and court battle since the Bush administration began trying to loosen it 17 years ago.

The rule change case is currently before a federal appeals court. And, now that the FCC is in Democratic hands, some accuse the majority commissioners of stalling the court from tackling the issue until media ownership rules can be rewritten to keep them tighter.

Those in favor of less restrictive media ownership rules use a similar argument to the successful case for consolidation made by Sirius and XM in 2008. (You’ll recall that merger combined two massively indebted companies to create one unfathomably leveraged satellite radio giant.)

Rule change proponents say ownership limits are unnecessary today because a multitude of media and platforms disseminate information and opinions and vie for the public’s money and attention. In the meantime, big corporations say they’re missing out on potential broadcast, online and print synergies that could save their businesses.

Those who argue against changing the rules say they don’t want Rupert Murdoch, Gannett or any other corporation controlling the bulk of the major media voices in their markets. Be sure to visit the FCC’s “Future of the Media” Web site to tell the agency what you think.

Daniel Axelrod spent five years as a full-time newspaper reporter, most recently in Scranton, Pa., before moving into public relations in April 2009. Reach him at deaxelrod@msn.com

Computer scientist Alan Kay once said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” As Apple gears up to launch its much-hyped tablet as soon as next week, the best way for legacy media to succeed with it is to create rich content.

Apple’s tablet could end up setting the same standard of excellence the iPhone achieved in a crowded, confusing (but booming) cell phone marketplace. Or Apple’s tablet could fail in a fledgling tablet/e-reader market that hasn’t given consumers enough compelling reasons to buy products that are more powerful than cell phones but less advanced than computers.

Meanwhile, newspapers, radio and television stations are considering how they can profit from tablets, the next generation of which will have ever bigger, better screens, quicker processors and stronger Internet connectivity.  Yet, newspapers need to figure out how to derive revenue from tablets more than tablets need to learn how to benefit from the print media. Any news on a tablet will compete against all the devices’ nonnews content including phone services, music, games, TV shows, movies and Web sites across the Internet.

In order to profit from tablets, newspapers must provide an increasing amount of unique, high-quality content including top-notch videos, photos, graphics and troves of valuable information in databases. More than anything, newspapers must reaffirm their commitment to good hyper-local journalism, in-depth investigations/analysis and breaking news updates.

Of course, the media will need talented staff to produce all this great content, but layoffs, firings and buyouts continue daily. Arts and entertainment writing, business coverage, regional reporting and, perhaps most critically, investigative, state-house and Washington D.C. reporters generally suffer the heaviest causalities. Across all departments, newspapers announced roughly 30,000 layoffs and buyouts in 2008-09, according to the industry-tracking blog Paper Cuts.

Predictions are never harder than when it comes to technology. So, here’s a safe prediction. If newspapers don’t stop firing people and begin bolstering their content, all the whiz bam tablet technology of the future won’t save them. Once these tablets come down in price and advance (perhaps only a bit more) technologically they could become hugely popular.

But newspapers risk suffering so many self-inflicted wounds they won’t be fast or agile enough to keep up with tablet technology let alone all the other multimedia/multiplatform competition for the public’s attention. Many people already have stopped relying on legacy media to get their news fix.

“One of the problems is newspapers fired so many journalists and turned them loose to start so many blogs,” industry analyst and blogger Alan Mutter recently told the NY Times. “They should have executed them. They wouldn’t have had competition. But they foolishly let them out alive.”

Daniel Axelrod spent five years as a full-time newspaper reporter, most recently in Scranton, Pa., before moving into public relations in April 2009. Reach him at deaxelrod@msn.com

As we enter a new decade, it’s time to reflect on some of the best Web sites run by print media outlets, and what makes them good. No matter what their size, attractive, well-formatted, user-friendly and informative media Web sites share common traits. And they don’t need a bunch of videos, photo galleries, fancy animations or graphics to be good.

The best news Web sites aggregate local happenings and interesting area news from other sources. They use calendars and databases and offer effective search tools for their archives and the Web sites themselves. They provide solid “About” sections with listings of staff members and their full contact information (not just lame fill-in-the-blank contact forms).

Good Web sites let readers share stories and rank the most popular news and commonly emailed pieces. They empower users to participate in the news and information gathering processes. Most importantly, they create the proverbial “town square” where readers can provide their opinions, commentary and analysis and talk about the news of the day.

Here is a very small sample of some well-done print media Web sites. (I’ve omitted several famous media Web sites known for excellence including the BBC.com, TheWallStreetJournal.com, NYTimes.com and USAToday.com.)

The Guardian: www.guardian.co.uk
The Times of London: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news
The NY Observer: www.observer.com
Newsday: www.newsday.com
St. Petersburg Times: www.tampabay.com
Website Magazine: www.websitemagazine.com
Charlotte Observer: www.charlotteobserver.com
Entertainment Weekly: www.ew.com
The Economist: www.economist.com
The Seattle Post Intelligencer: www.seattlepi.com

Of course this is a tiny list, and most of the Web sites on it have won big awards, so I’m the hardly the first person to spotlight them. But I was recently inspired to highlight them again after visiting nearly 200 Web sites for daily and weekly newspapers in Pennsylvania. My online PA newspaper travels were spurred by a mission to promote a journalism contest, but I was flabbergasted by what I found.

It’s 2010 yet many of the weekly papers had no Web sites. If they had Web sites, several posted little more than scanned PDFs of their printed pages (and even those were often inaccessible unless the reader paid to view them).

Sure America’s weekly papers, which some estimates peg at over 8,000, often don’t have the resources of big magazines or the more than 1,400 U.S. dailies (70 percent of which also are small with a circulation below 50,000).

But even tiny newspapers — with news monopolies, readers that primarily consume their print editions and goals of getting revenue for their limited Web offerings — shouldn’t let dog walking services outdo their online presentations. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of great work they can use as a model for their Web sites.

On an interesting side note, here is a list of the most visited Web sites produced by print media, according to Experian’s Hitwise Web tracking service. These figures are as Oct. 2009, and the number in parentheses is the Web site’s market share, or the percentage of U.S. households visiting it. Examiner.com provides localized content for 20 cities.

1. The News York Times (4.64)
2. USA Today (4.03)
3. People Magazine (2.4)
4. The Washington Post (1.78)
5. TV Guide (1.6)
6. The Wall Street Journal (1.6)
7. Sports Illustrated (1.19)
8. The Boston Globe (1.02)
9. NY Daily News (.96)
10. Examiner (.92)

Daniel Axelrod spent five years as a full-time newspaper reporter, most recently in Scranton, Pa., before moving into public relations in April 2009. Reach him at deaxelrod@msn.com

Think you know all you need to know about Google? I thought I did — but last night I learned I only knew about a fraction of the cool things Google can do.

Jake Parillo, Google’s Midwest Global Communications and Public Affairs Manager, walked us through dozens — if not hundreds — of ways to use Google. Here are some of my notes:

- Google results are ranked by an algorithm, which take a number of factors into account.

- On a search results page, click “+ Show Options” to specify your search results.

- A few cool search tricks: don’t worry about capitalization, put a minus sign in front of terms you want to exclude from results (example: vacations -chicago will show you all vacation results that do not include Chicago), and search for content on a specific site by using site:chicagotribune.com (example: bears site:chicagotribune.com will show you all Bears stories on Chicago Tribune’s Web site). More search tips.

- Google’s search pages will continue to evolve. For example, when you preform certain queries, Facebook and Twitter updates are included in search results.

ADVANCED SEARCH

- Look into Advanced Search when you have time. Here’s where you’ll learn to include certain phrases, exclude others, etc. This is also where you’ll find a list of topic-specific search engines from Google including a U.S. Government search (google.com/unclesam), which will show you results from government sites only. Also check out Google Scholar.

- You can also find sports scores (search a team name during a game for scores), times around the world (“time (city)”), stock quotes (search a stock symbol to get up to get market results), and weather (“weather (city/ZIP)”). Google can also be used as a dictionary (“define (word)”), calculator (1+1), currency converter (“dollar to (currency)”), and a unit converter (“inch to (unit)”). You can also type in your flight (“(airline) (flight #)”) to find out if the flight is on time. Google contains so much data, that you can even search “population of China” and a graph and number will be the first thing to pop up. Click that to enlarge the graph to compare it to another country’s population – or the world’s.

- There are also language tools to translate a Web page. You can find these by using Google’s Chrome browser or downloading the Google toolbar.

HOT TRENDS

- Check out hot trends to find out what people are searching for right now.

- View Hot Topics to check out the larger-picture queries.

GOOGLE INSIGHTS FOR SEARCH

- It’s a tool that allows you to see the interest of a term on the Web over time. You can specify search, location, date range, seasonality and category. You’ll also see where that search term is the most popular. Type in several terms to compare the results against each other. (See: Thanksgiving)

- You have the option to turn on and off news headlines, which help give context to your graph.

ALERTS

- Keep tabs on your beat (or your reputation!) by turning on alerts — from news stories, blogs and more — to get immediate, daily or weekly updates on any search term you’re interested in. (I’d suggest your name and/or your social network handle)

NEWS

- Customize your Google News page by picking and deleting which sections you want — and don’t want to read about. You can specify the news to be just from your location (Detroit, etc.) or you could decide to have the headlines focus on your beat (ex.: health, or more specifically cancer).

- The Google News archive: Google’s constantly working on digitizing offline content; however some of the archived information does come at a price.

READER

- Set up your reader to have all of your favorite blog and site updates sent directly to you in one place.

MAPS

- Jake suggested using maps a number of ways including for before and after photos (referenced the Buffalo plane crash house, Haiti), creating an area map that readers can tag specific locations (ex.: potholes, wildfires, etc.)

- Jake also showed us how you could scroll through a time line of Google Maps satellite images (for example you could go through the building of Chicago’s Trump Tower) — but I forget how he said you can do this. If anyone remembers, please mention it in the comments! He said some of the maps and satellite images available go back to the 1940s.

- Google will soon offer bike directions in Chicago (in addition to walking, driving and public transit)

- If you have GPS on your mobile device you can type in coffee (or anything you’re looking for) and the map will show all of the coffee houses closest to you.

DOCS

- If you’re not a fan of Microsoft products, and don’t use them (like Google), try Google Docs for all of your word-processing, spreadsheet, presentation and form needs. Jake said the Docs are so secure that government agencies rely on them. Another plus is that since you save your documents online, they’re available to you everywhere you log in.

Some last cool tips, tricks:

- Try Google voice and video for free Internet chat

- Call 1-800-GOOG-411 for free search results over the phone

- You can text a query to Google, and it will send you answers

That’s about it! Jake promised to send us materials from the session, so we’ll try to post those too.

In the meantime, check out what folks had to say about the event on Twitter — and flip through photos from the evening.

Did I miss something? Have questions? Leave a comment!

Amanda Maurer is a digital news editor at the Chicago Tribune, who specializes in social media. She blogs at acmaurer.com; you can also follow her on Twitter at @acmaurer.

Here are photos from tonight’s Google 101 for Journalists: Getting the Most from the Web

Google 101 for Journalists in Chicago

Every day, millions of people around the world use Google’s search engine to find what they’re looking for…Tonight, a room full of Chicagoland journalists rediscovered Google. I was among them. Read more…

Cross posted at the SPJ Works blog.

Anyone who listens to NPR more than once in a blue moon probably remembers the catchy plugs for sponsors such as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which has granted millions to public broadcasting (and others) to support journalism “ … in the digital age.”

Click image for Knight Foundation report

Similarly, journalists and industry followers even mildly interested in digital media trends are likely familiar with the Knight Foundation’s popular Knight News Challenge, a five-year, $25 million initiative that annually seeks innovation submissions from journalism and information technology entrepreneurs.

Continuing its quest to research and fund digital-age projects supportive of quality journalism, Knight commissioned a study from Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors on 29 “media, information and communication contests.” Of course, the News Challenge is included in the analysis.

Some highlights:                           

-Knight currently gives away the most annually, with $5 million, though Google will soon supersede that with its $10 million Project 10¹⁰⁰.

-The amount of submissions per contest ranges from a few dozen to over 12,000.

-Sponsors and funders come from all sectors, including government, non-profit, education, and for-profit. The sector that sponsors the most contests (not surprisingly) is foundations, followed by for-profit technology companies.

But the analysis is not a competition among groups vying for the title “best funder.” Rather, the report highlights (very concisely, in my opinion) the various funding opportunities for those interested in sharing information on constantly changing digital platforms.

Plus, it’s not all journalism. Many of the projects and programs highlighted are for the more technical-minded: application developers and telecommunications gurus.

But there’s a general theme: Sharing information – either through published/broadcast news reports or over social media networks – is a critical component in the Internet age. Whether journalism entrepreneurs or computer science whizzes seek the money is moot. The point is that there’s a lot being done to spur and spread information-sharing technology. And there’s plenty of room for more players, both funders and seekers.

Scott Leadingham is editor of SPJ’s Quill magazine and spends way too much time on Twitter (@scottleadingham) following industry news.

Do you bookmark?

If not, you may want to give it a shot. It takes only a moment to do and it’s an easy way to save links you find interesting or use frequently. It’s also a great way to keep track of links pertaining to a specific topic or story idea.

While bookmarking links in your browser (in a listed menu or in a toolbar) is helpful, it can often become frustrating if you save links often. The list can easily become messy – even if one attempts to organize the links into folders.

So with the new year, try a new way of organizing links by using a social bookmarking site like Delicious.

At its core, Delicious is pretty basic. There aren’t any flashy pictures or bright colors, and the learning curve is pretty low. The beauty of Delicious is that it’s a Web site, and not your computer’s browser, which means you can access existing links and add new ones from any computer. You can tag or categorize each link easily, and share links with others with a click.

Once you sign in, you have several action options:

Save a bookmark: This option is located in the light blue box on the right side. Click it, add your link and press next. The following page is where you can leave a personal note about the link and tag it. Tags are quite helpful as they can keep you organized. You can create your own tags or use those that are suggested to you. You also have the option to send the bookmark to someone else via e-mail, share it on Twitter, or send it to a friend on the Delicious network. Press save – and congrats! You’re on your way to creating an organized, easily accessible list of bookmarks.

Go to a user: You can search for friends on Delicious much like other social networks. By connecting with others you can check out their links and share yours.

Explore a tag: Check to see how everyone else is tagging their bookmarks. You can sort alphabetically or by size. The tags you share with other users may be green.

Look up a URL: Paste in a URL to find out what other folks are saying about it in notes and how they’re tagging it.

The top navigation bar is also quite straight forward: you can go to a list of your bookmarks (Bookmarks), see what your friends have posted (People) and view your tags (Tags).

Simple, right?

Now it’s your time to share – how did you save links in the past? Have you tried Delicious? What do you think?

Amanda Maurer is a digital news editor at the Chicago Tribune, who specializes in social media. She blogs at acmaurer.com; you can also follow her on Twitter at @acmaurer.

The following instructions are valid for iTunes 9

First you’ll need to have an iTunes account. To set up a free account click here.

CHOOSING/FINDING AN iPHONE APP

There are many ways to find an iPhone app, the easiest is to click on the App Store tab on the iTunes site. Otherwise, you can search sites like Gizmodo which gives you a more detailed review on the apps.

You can use the search field at the top if there is a specific app you want to find.

BUYING AN iPHONE APP

For example, to purchase the free IMDb iPhone app (which is essentially a movie database) type in ‘IMDb’ in the search field.

A new page will appear that tells you how much the iPhone app costs. You will also see the list of requirements (which is important because this will determine if the app will work on your phone), ratings and reviews, and much more.

You’ll see a page with screenshots of how the IMDb app will appear to function on your iPhone.

Click on <Free App>

A new window pops open that requests your Apple ID and Password asking you to sign in – because Apple wants to track what you purchase, even when the iPhone app you want is free.

Click on <Get>

To verify that you have successfully downloaded the iPhone app click on ‘Applications’ under the LIBRARY tab.

GETTING YOUR NEW APP ONTO YOUR iPHONE

In order to use your new iPhone app you’ll need to sync your iTunes to your iPhone.

Plug in your iPhone to your computer. The name of your iPhone will appear under Devices.

Click on your iPhone and in the new window click on the tab ‘Applications’.

You will see all of the iPhone applications that you have ever downloaded and not deleted in alphabetical order (or however you have your specific system set up).

To find the IMDb app go to the search field next to ‘Sync Applications’ and type in ‘IMDb’.

Select the IMDb app for syncing by clicking on the box next to the IMDb app to create a check mark.

On the right hand side you’ll see your iPhone screens.

The number of different applications your iPhone can store will vary with your specific iPhone software version. If you are running version 3.1.2, as of posting, the most up-to-date software version, an iPhone owner can have up to 159 apps on 11 screens.

By default iTunes finds the most open screen to place your new app, however you can select a different screen by dragging the icon to a different screen (the ones that appear scrolling down the pages that appear on the right).

Press ‘Apply’ and you’re done!

Related Link:

The Best iPhone Apps of 2009

Hilary Fosdal is the Interactive Content Manager for Barrington Broadcasting Group. She blogs at hilaryfosdal.com and tweets @hilaryfosdal.