Plagiarism is an ugly word.  Have you ever wondered if you are a victim of web content theft? 

A few months ago, I happen to get on a new internet news site where contributors get paid by the click on their story.  I also happen to discover that a story posted by a babysitter-turn-news contributor actually was written by a reporter friend of mine who works for a major newspaper.

The woman who copied and pasted parts of my friend’s story did not credit him.  Sure she only took parts of his story, but it was taken word for word.    Why the news site managers didn’t look into this; that’s another story.   Of course, I told my reporter friend, and he took care of the rest.

At a social networking conference, I learned about a site called Copyscape.  It’s a free plagiarism checker.  Simple to use and right now appears to be the only web tool out there targeting plagiarism.

How does it work? Just put the URL in the search box that you want to check for plagiarism and submit.

Copyscape does the search for free.  It even offers a banner that you can put on your own website that warns people that you use Copyscape for checking.

If you want more bells and whistles you have to pay for it, but that includes a service that is constantly looking for your work for plagiarism and alerts you.

Copyscape has had several favorable reviews by major publications and internet news sites.  http://www.copyscape.com/press.php

Rebecca Aguilar is a freelance multimedia reporter based in Dallas.  She has 29 years of experience and has numerous awards for her work, including several Emmy awards.  She’s also on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.  Rebecca conducts reporting workshops around the country (Finding Sources and Stories, Networking, Live Shots, Getting the Best Interview, Writing to Video, and The Basics Of Multimedia.) She can be contacted at aguilar.thereporter@yahoo.com.

Last month, I was at the mall when I saw some security guards tackling a woman with a baby in one arm and a purse stuffed with clothing on her other arm.   At that moment, I wished I had my Sony Cybershot camera with me.  I never thought I’d see  a struggle in front of my eyes.

What I do know is two things; that video of the security guards and woman could have come in handy on a story on shoplifting, and I should have had a Flip camera in my purse.

Most of us will try to use the best video camera we can on a story, but in a pinch—a Flip camera is not a bad tool to have in your bag.  There are several versions of this small camera, including the Flip Ultra HD that costs about $200.

It’s easy to use, because you press a button and you’re recording.   It’s very convenient when you need to upload your video right away, because it has a flip out USB connector.  You can plug your Flip camera right into your laptop. Yes, it’s that easy. 

You can also buy an underwater case for your Flip camera.  This is great if you want to take shots in a pool.  I bet it would come in handy right now for those reporters covering the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.   

I found this video blog by a citizen journalist who uses a Flip camera for her reports.  It’s an excellent tutorial:

http://dev.freevlog.org/

Here are some basics on the Flip:

FLIP ULTRA

-Fits in your pocket

-Records about 2 hours of video on 4GB

-Uses double A batteries

-Any standard tripod can be used with Flip

-Also has microphone

FLIP ULTRA HD

-Fits in your pocket

-Captures about 2 hours of HD video on 8GB built-in memory

-It comes with rechargeable AA battery pack

-Also has a microphone

-Any standard tripod can fit the tripod mount

Search YouTube for more tutorials on the Flip camera.  Good Luck!

Rebecca Aguilar is a freelance multimedia reporter in Dallas.  She has 29 years of news experience and has been awarded numerous awards, including several Emmy awards.  She’s also on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.  Rebecca conducts reporting workshops around the country (Finding Sources and Stories, Networking, Live Shots, Getting the Best Interview, Writing to Video, and The Basics Of Multimedia.) She can be contacted at aguilar.thereporter@yahoo.com.

UPDATE: (2/22/10) The company Page.ly offers a one-stop shop for self-hosting blog set-up. Leave the technical guesswork to them. Service is about $15 a month. They’ll get you blogging and will install all the SEO, plug-in, meta-tagging, social bookmarking gadgets for you.

UPDATE: (2/22/10) I came across this article, which has the steps for moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org.

You don’t have to be a coding guru or Silicon Valley veteran to start blogging with some bells and whistles.

I started from scratch last year and my goals were simply to have a blog or site where I could post text, embed links, upload multimedia, and while I was at it, add some of those social media and bookmarking buttons to easily share my pages.

I don’t know much about metatagging or SEO, have no idea what FTP sites have to do with anything, and CSS is beyond me.

This blog post is about my recent experience with WordPress.com and GoDaddy — no special treatment for those companies, they are not paying me or anything, it’s just what I use and know. Do a Google search for “domain registration” and “web hosting” for other companies to work with. Typepad and Moveable Type are other blogging companies similar to WordPress. The key is finding a one-stop shop place to connect your domain and site to a host.

First, I secured several domain names with GoDaddy and then I opened a WordPress.com account, where I keep my online news directory InOtherNews.us. Through WordPress.com, I easily connected that domain to the blog. The instructions are clear and it can be done in a few clicks. WordPress.com hosts the blog.

After several months of getting familiar with WordPress.com functioning, I started noticing limitations, namely, customization. I wanted to “trick-out” my blog with widgets and plug-ins and play around with themes. I also wanted to add social media buttons to posts and sidebars. WordPress.com blogs allow for those, but the selection is relatively small.

So I went over to WordPress.org — note: it’s DOT ORG — which is the natural next step to custom blogging. With WP dot org, you have to find a host elsewhere, and once you do, there are thousands of site design themes to choose from and a plug-in for just about any function you would want to add to your blog.

And this brings me back to GoDaddy, where my domains are registered. GoDaddy offers site hosting packages, I chose the $6.99 a month Deluxe plan. The hosting can be used for myriad blogging and Website frameworks such as Joomla and Drupal.

Once the hosting service transaction is complete, follow the quick GoDaddy process for downloading a WordPress blog and connecting a domain to it. I did this and was soon playing around with sophisticated themes and browsing hundreds of plug-ins for my new site (and I mean new — it’s a work in progress) NewsRedux.us.

The one-stop shopping at GoDaddy removed a lot of anxiety and frustration with getting my new self-hosted blog on the internet.

And if you get stuck, there’s always the 24/7 tech support phone number.

NetWorked committee member Jessica Durkin is a former old-school print reporter going new-school. Jessica is the founder and editor of InOtherNews.us, a directory of online, independent news sites around the country. She is based in Scranton, PA, and is a regional director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

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

Entrepreneurial journalism has taken off at a rapid clip, or so it seems — all the evidence thus far is anecdotal. Grants are assisting non-profit start-ups, self-funded endeavors are staying in the game, and colleges and universities with journalism programs have turned their attention to a new news curriculum.

Six months ago I started tracking new news sites that focus on independent news creation. I founded InOtherNews.us, to monitor activity “beyond legacy media.”

I have 50 start-ups listed on my site so far and here is a selection of stand-outs. Some were started this year. I chose them for their uniqueness, consistency,  efficacy, and overall commitment to entrepreneurial journalism for the public interest.

Metropolis: Philadelphia-based news and opinion site. Launched in November. Edited and mostly run by a veteran news reporter, who last worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Metropolis, like other start-ups, relies on contributors. Although it is in its early stages, it is ambitious in its coverage. Opinion columns by the editor draw on deep knowledge and nuance of the city. Good community forum space.

Rust Wire: This regional endeavor focuses on the revitalization and rebirth of America’s Rust Belt — that area of the midwest and northeast from Michigan to Western New York. The site’s co-founders, both former reporters in Ohio, are passionate and knowledgeable about Rust Belt issues.

The Eastsider LA: Former Los Angeles Times reporter Jesus Sanchez started The EastSider LA to observe his own neighborhood, a steadily gentrifying area of Los Angeles. His site is a good example of solid neighborhood news reporting, especially in the shadow of LA Times downsizing and reduced coverage of the city. Jesus brings the nuts-and-bolts information residents need and want.

Woodstock CT Cafe: A great example of what a community can do with information, given an open forum and a desire for debate. This site has been around several years and serves seven small towns in “The Quiet Corner” (as it is known) of Northeast Connecticut. Anyone can post to the site, which is moderated with an seemingly invisible hand. Discussion usually centers around the school district that serves the towns. There is always pre- and post-local election forums.

Spot.us: This popular site has to be included in this list, for taking a creative approach to funding the news. Spot.us, which has been written about extensively in traditional media, works on a crowdfunding model, where the general public is asked to subsidize stories through individual donations.

The Digitel: A testament to the link economy. This Charleston, South Carolina site rounds up information from regional or national outlets, then picks the newsiest bits and links to them. They also have some original content. Lots of sections, lots of content. They put the human element in aggregation.

Philadelphia Neighborhoods and Intersections: The South Los Angeles Report: Two examples of university journalism programs working in new media. These sites are hyperlocal projects run by journalism programs at Temple University (Philadelphia Neighborhoods) and the University of Southern California (Intersections).

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Red Bank Green, one of many sites covering news and entertainment for a section of New Jersey. The site recently scooped traditional media on a story about Bruce Springsteen fans purchasing the house where Springsteen wrote “Born to Run.” (disclosure: I am acquainted with a reporter there)

Alamo City Times: This site provides a place for topics of discussion and activity around San Antonio, Texas. The site, which is primarily in English but features a section in Spanish, keeps its community engaged through a space for highly visible user-generated content. (disclosure: site founder Patricio Espinoza sits on the board of directors of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists with me)

Baltimore Brew: A site plugging along, covering basic community events, news and happenings around Baltimore, Maryland.

This list reflects general community news missions. There are many more start-ups worth noting, but they belong in a different category. The recent past has seen large-scale, non-profit start-ups such as the Texas Tribune, MinnPost, Voice of San Diego, St. Louis Beacon, and Crosscut. Those are all in a different league. Their news scope is state-wide or multi-state, their budgets and staffs larger than community news start-ups.

And check out Chris Wink’s roundup and evaluation of 24 hyperlocal sites he lists on his technology news blog Technically Philly.

SPJ Digital Media Committee member Jessica Durkin continues to track community or other independent, online news startups at http://inothernews.us. Jessica is based in Scranton, PA and is the Region 3 director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She’s usually Twittering about hyperlocal and entrepreneurial journalism @jessdrkn.

I recently appeared on the TV show Beat the Press to discuss the brave new world of reporting in a totally networked world (bah-dum-dum-ching!)

Here’s me talking about the various ways reporters use social networking sites like Facebook:

I’m curious to know your thoughts on this subject, dear readers. What do you think: has Facebook really changed anything?

Emily Sweeney is a staff reporter at The Boston Globe. You can follow her on Twitter (@emilysweeney) and find her on Facebook, among other places.

A Net Worked Q&A with Jesus Sanchez, founder and editor of TheEastsiderLA.com, an online community news site covering several neighborhoods in the northeast and northwest section of Los Angeles. Mr. Sanchez is a former Los Angeles Times reporter and started TheEastsiderLA in July 2008 after he was laid off from the Times. He lives in Echo Park, one of the communities he covers.

Jesus Sanchez: I don’t have specific numbers or stats. But my coverage area includes the neighborhoods northwest and northeast of downtown Los Angeles. The neighborhoods range from low income and primarily Latino to some upper middle class areas with a mix of ethnic and racial groups.

 What is your digital platform/publishing software?

Google’s Blogger. Blogger is not as sophisticated and does not offer as many options as some other blogging platforms. But it’s so easy to use, practically free and integrates well with the other Google services – such as gmail, Google Docs, Google Analytics – that I use. I also wanted a system that I could be able to update and change on my own and also took care of web hosting.

I looked into hiring a designer to create a more sophisticated look and system (which would cost at least several hundred dollars) but then I realized I would also have to pay them anytime I had a problem or needed to update. I have been able to customize some of the standard Blogger templates by checking some other sites and using Google’s Help Group. I’ve actually enjoyed seeing how far I can take these free online services.

Describe your workday with TheEastsiderLA.com. How many hours do you put in, how many days a week?

I usually devote my mornings to the blog. I get started by reviewing email alerts, RSS feeds and other sites for news, photos and items that go into a daily News & Notes post. I then try and write one or two posts for that day or the following day. I will try and hit perhaps one or two community meetings a week. 

Do you work out of your home?

Yes. Out of a home office/guest room.

Are you able to pay yourself? I see there is some advertising, but is it enough to allow you to do this full-time, without outside financial help?

Not much money is coming in now. I’ve displayed some ads through a Google service but they often earn less than a $ 1 day given my traffic. I’m also displaying some free ads for local merchants so I can learn about ad delivery systems, sizes, prices, etc. So, at this point, my blog is more of a hobby and calling card than a business.

What are your costs or what is your budget for TheEastsiderLA?

I pay $10 a year to Blogger for the domain name. My biggest expense is probably on notebooks and pens. I have probably spent $20 on notebooks and pens. I also spent about $20 for some business cards.What goals do you have for your enterprise? Are there certain audience targets you hope to meet, such as unique visitor counts?

My goal has been to earn at least what might be a part time income. My plan has been to look more closely at ads once I started attracting 1,000 unique visitors a day. I think that was a number that might attract local merchants. I’ve been hitting the 1,000 number for the past month or two. That’s good but it still falls far short of some of the more established community news blogs. It’s also only a fraction of the people who live in the area I cover.

What are among the most popular features of your news site? What generates the most comments?

Crime, real estate, shopping and urban culture.

Do you have contributors or do you do any crowdsourcing for stories?

I just started collaborating with another writer, Ana Facio Contreras, on a regular basis and have on occasion taken submissions from readers. I’ve used comments on Twitter and Facebook to help report stories.

How active are news tips?

Not as active as I would like. I might get three to five a week.

What equipment do you rely on in your day-to-day operations? Did you have any learning curve with it after leaving your full-time newspaper job?

I’ve got my HP Pavillion dv6000 laptop, a Blackberry cellphone (great photos), a Canon Power Shot camera and a Sony digital recorder. I’ve been trying to learn how to take better pictures, especially portraits. I would like to learn how to shoot video at some point. In all cases, I need to make sure the equipment is easy to use because I don’t have much time to learn.

Why did you start TheEastsiderLA?

I started it after being laid off at the LA Times. I wanted to promote my abilities as a journalist and keep up a daily reporting and writing skills. I’ve always had a deep interest in my community. So, I figured I would merge my interest in community and skills as a journalist.

I had worked at the Times for 22 years, primarily as a business reporter. I spent the last five years as a online reporter and blogger. In fact, I was part of the first team of Times newsroom reporters assigned to report and write for the web. Of course, working online doesn’t protect you from layoffs.

You mentioned in a previous conversation with me that it was a little disconcerting to start reporting stories on your own, instead of with your former employer, the Los Angeles Times, and running into former co-workers at a news event. Can you describe this scenario?

I’ve had it happen twice at press conferences. In both cases I don’t think the Times reporter even noticed I was there But I still felt self-conscious just the same. It’s something I have to get used to. I’ve also had several instances when the public information officer I’m dealing with is a former Times reporter. Much time is spent discussing life post-newspaper.

Speaking of the press in general, have you tried getting formal press credentials for your site? Do you have difficulty getting stories or access because you are not associated with a large media outlet?

I’ve asked the Los Angeles Police Department for press credentials but have not heard back. Still, it does not seem to have mattered much. I’ve been able to attend LAPD press conferences with no problem and the department PIOs have helped me get information on breaking crime news. The captains in charge of the local police divisions have replied to my request for interviews and I’ve been able to approach crime scenes with simply a business card.

I thought I would get ignored a lot requesting information from public agencies and private corporations. But I’ve been surprised by how many PIOs do respond to my inquiries even if it is just to say “no comment.” I think some agencies are just happy to get any coverage they can get, even it’s from a small community blog.

What are some of the bigger challenges you are facing as a digital news entrepreneur? For instance, is funding an issue? Or updating technical skills? Or generating content?

Funding and generating content are big challenges. I really don’t want to seek out partners because I’m not sure there will be enough income to split. I understand some bloggers are going the non-profit route but I feel that means you just create more work by trying to organize and run a nonprofit as well as running a news blog.

Coming up with original daily content that is a big challenge given my time constraints. As far as my technical skills, I’ve discovered that if I keep things fairly simple I don’t have to learn HTML or complicated graphics and web design programs. There are all these simple, web-based programs that allow for ways ways to edit and crop photos, for example, or create your own graphics. Perhaps the biggest challenge ahead is developing my business and marketing skills to try and make this is a viable business.

Where do you see online digital start-ups in five years?

Not sure.

Do you think this is a permanent fixture in news dissemination?

Yes, blogs, Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, community message groups will all play a role in distributing news.

What feedback have you had from readers? Can you share some comments, some suggestions from them?

I’m always taken when people say “thank you” for covering a simple crime story or other bit of news that has gone overlooked. I’ve also been accused by some folks as just being nosey. I am nosey but I think that goes with the territory.

 SPJ Digital Media Committee member Jessica Durkin conducted this interview with Jesus Sanchez for Net Worked. Jessica, a former daily newspaper reporter in Scranton, is tracking online community news start-ups at her site http://inothernews.us. Jessica is also the Region 3, Mid-Atlantic director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Digital multi-media features are increasingly commonplace in today’s news outlets as print and electronic media have begun irreversibly cross-dipping into technologies previously exclusive to each other. What we once only read on paper we see and hear in an online video or narrated photo gallery, and the stories behind the broadcast feeds we once accessed only through a television station we also are seeing in words on a TV channel’s Web site.
 
As multi-media practices become the new normal in journalists’ skill set, content — in-depth, meaningful, transformative content — remains the ultimate news goal.
 
This summer I started www.inothernews.us, a blog site devoted to tracking online, community news start-ups following the rapid decline of legacy media. I wondered: Who, if anyone, is taking on the responsibility of bringing news content to areas underserved by established media outlets? As a daily newspaper reporter in Scranton, PA, who was laid off this year, I saw first hand how much news went uncovered in outlying municipalities that not only my former employer claimed to serve, but also the local television news outlets and competing newspapers. With the loss of staff writers over the years through attrition, layoffs and buyouts at my last paper, it was clear there are not enough bodies to generate stories important to a particular populace.
 
And I knew the dwindling news situation in Scranton was identical to that of hundreds of communities around the country. A glance at the rising tally of the laid off or bought out news staff around the country – 13,500 this year so far — at Erica Smith’s Papercuts site tells that story.
 
Inothernews.us so far contains descriptions of 26 new news outlets, and that relatively small collection paints a promising, refreshing picture of the future of news coverage. Each of the listings represent online experiments ranging from commercial endeavors to non-profit organizations; from solo operations to collective efforts of dozens of contributors; from coverage of large metro areas that compete with established media companies to sites serving suburban outposts; and from subscription services to free access.
 
SeattlePostGlobe.org, a start-up following the drastic downsizing of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, one of two major metro dailies, reported on Sept. 7 a local homeless shelter needs a new location; EastsiderLA.com, news site devoted to the Northeast section of Los Angeles, recently notified readers that citrus trees in two neighborhoods will be targeted for pest treatment; and BaltimoreBrew.com on Friday posted a video simulation of a proposed Maryland Transit Authority line running through a section of town.
 
Without digital media opportunities, these sites may not exist as there are few legacy costs associated with them. I pay nothing for the WordPress blog account that runs www.inothernews.us, and I pay less than $10 a year for the domain name. Thanks to fair use provisions, I can post screen shots and pull quotes from each listing’s site at no charge.
 
It is the hope of journalists today that what we are learning about digital media and what we already know about reporting the news will merge seamlessly to provide what matters most to our audience: content that is consistent, convenient and affordable. 
 
Jessica Durkin knows community coverage. Throughout her five-year journalism career in two states, she covered municipal meetings from education to zoning. She is the Mid-Atlantic region director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, an SPJ Keystone Pro Chapter member and is interested in media reform.

Jennifer Peebles

By JENNIFER PEEBLES
Staff Writer

“County to raise taxes on property.”

“Smith calls for cleanup of polluted site.”

“City to approve land-use plan tomorrow.”

Headlines like those work just fine for a newspaper — the print kind, the kind you pick up off your lawn in the morning and hold in your hands.

But they don’t work so well online. And that makes it harder for readers to find the content they’re looking for on your site.

When you hold the newspaper in your hands and your eye falls on a specific headline, the physical structure of the newspaper and the conventions of newspaper layout allow your brain to quickly put the headline in context.

For instance, imagine you pick up your newspaper and the headline says “County to raise taxes on property.”

Right under the headline is the lead of the story, which tells you a little bit more.

Maybe the lead starts off with a dateline for a specific city. That tells you even more.

There could be a picture next to the headline — a photo of the county mayor or commission voting to raise taxes.
And there could also be other layout geegaws near the headline that help your brain sort it all out — when I worked at a newspaper, the page designers made use of elements called “graybars,” basically short, column-wide boxes of gray shading with the name of the affected county in white letters. (Other papers probably have something similar in their page-designers’ toolboxes.)

Between the headline, the lead of the story, the photo, the dateline and the graybar, you can look at that story on the newspaper page and quickly discern what it is about and whether you want to read on or flip the page to the funnies.

But online, those headlines just don’t work for me. And I have a feeling they don’t work for a lot of other readers, too.

When you see a headline on a Web site, it is physically divorced from all those other newspaper elements. Online, there are no graybars to tell you what county is being discussed. Even on the Web site of a pick-it-up-off-the-lawn newspaper, you often can’t see the lead, the dateline or the accompanying photo unless you click on the headline and start reading the story. (Maybe a couple of the biggest stories of the day will have photos with them, but for most of the stories, all you see on the newspaper homepage is the headline itself.)

And if the headline is divorced from such supporting elements online, then the marriage is totally annulled for news headlines being read through alternative delivery methods like RSS and Twitter.

An example: As an editor for a news Web site in Houston focusing on state and local government and freedom of information issues, I see scads of headlines every day through RSS (I’m a committed Google Reader user). And at least twice a day I see headlines like these:

“County to raise taxes on property.”

Uh, OK, which county? I can maybe understand this headline appearing in a very small newspaper that really covers only one county — but often these headlines are in much larger papers that cover several counties. I can’t help but think that newspaper’s readers are just as confused as I when they see this headline online.

“Smith calls for cleanup of polluted site.”

OK, so, who’s Smith? Is there only one guy named Smith in that town? Ditto on the polluted site — is this a town so small that it has only one? (I’m sure the newspaper had a graybar or a dateline or something else with that headline, but again, none of those show up with the headline online.)

“City to approve land-use plan tomorrow.”

Rerun: What city? Even most really, really tiny counties contain more than one city. (I clicked on a headline very similar to this the other day via an RSS feed from a small daily paper, assuming the headline was about the city in the newspaper’s name. Come to find out, the city in question was a tiny city in the paper’s circulation area.)

But this isn’t a problem only for those of us who get our news through RSS. More and more people are reading their news on mobile devices, where Web pages can be slower to load — and where users are paying dearly for every second of time needed to download the page. I don’t know about you, but when I’m surfing the Web on my Blackberry, I’m a bit choosier about what links I click on. That headline has to be really strong, and really precise, for me to click on it to read a story. I’m more likely to say to a headline with so-so interest, “I won’t read you now — I’ll try to read you later on, when I get home.” I don’t have the extra time (or money!) to click on every headline that says “County to raise taxes” to find out what county is involved. I’m going to pass that story by. When I get home, I might check it out on my computer, or I might not.

All of those headlines are fine for the newspaper — that’s the way newspaper people have been trained to write headlines for decades now (Anybody out there bought one of those “Area Man” T-shirts from The Onion?) But headlines that work in traditional print media often don’t work online. Those of us who trained as newspaper people will find that our training, and our conventions, sometimes serve us poorly in the new digital sphere. Online, headlines have to stand on their own two feet.

Jennifer Peebles is deputy editor of Texas Watchdog (http://www.texaswatchdog.org), a nonprofit, online newspaper in Houston.

Patrick Thornton of Beatblogging.org called last week to talk about how I use Twitter to cover trials.

It resulted in this post and podcast.

Also look up Patrick on Twitter @jionoclast.