That’s right, it’s time for another Carnival of Journalism and this month, I’m proud to be hosting. Not sure what a blog carnival is? Check out this entry on Wikipedia. The Carnival of Journalism includes posts from some of the brightest minds currently blogging on journalism, in my humble opinion.

The Carnival gets underway with a post from John Hassell of the exploding newsroom fame. For those of you who don’t know, John is the online editor at the Star-Ledger of Newark, NJ. He enters the carnival with “A day in the life of a big local story.” Want to see how a major daily fires all guns at a story? Then check out his post.

Not wanting there to be only one John at the Carnival, John Ndege offers “Out Scooping the Wire News Services.” John Ndege is a great blogger whose insights go beyond journalism. If you are earching for some guidance in this crazy journalism/Internet world, take a stroll through his blog. For the Carnival, he ponders the future of news wire services and the impact of services like Twitter.

Soon to graduate from the University of South Florida, Wendy Withers offers the Carnival a post with some great “Advice for college journalists: Online portfolios.” Wendy has always offered some great insights (it has a spot in my reader) and this post is no different. Her tips could be the difference between a graduate moving into their own pad and starting a job or moving into their parents attic and looking for work.

Think we’re done? Wait! There’s more to come so keep checking back as more posts will continue to go up. Have your own thoughts? Drop a comment below and let people know what you are thinking.

See, I told you we weren’t done yet.

Charlie Beckett, someone who seemingly wears more hats then I can capture in a few witty words, reminds us that sometimes there is good writing beyond the blogosphere with his book review of Can You Trust The Media? by Adrian Monck. Full disclosure, Adrian also participates in the Carnival of Journalism (see below). Read the review and, dare I say, buy the book.

Moving back across the pond, Jack Lail, managing editor/multimedia for The Knoxville News-Sentinel (someone who always manages to be blogging — how he pulls that off I’ll never understand) offers “The ‘Golden Age’ of Web news.” His posts always give me something to chew on for a few days and this one isn’t any different:

All-media-meets on the Web has created a local news and advertising battlezone in market-after-market the likes of which I’ve never seen in a 30-plus-year career.

The author himself, Adrian Monck, takes a moment to address some of the observations about his book in “Can You Trust The Media? – Review.”

Think the Carnival’s done? Not quiet, check back later for more.

And before I could hit “Save,” along comes Andy Dickinson, faculty member at the University of Central Lancashire and prolific blogger (and apparently wine drinker) offers “What is a picture worth?” Although he describes it as a “bit of a ramble of nice words and tricky pictures,” I don’t think I’d be that harsh. Give it a read and let Andy know what you think.

While working on a previous post I came across a feature that made me say “huh, that’s neat.”

Long ago I stopped, for the most part, reading newspapers in print. It was a combination of my schedule and my focus that drove me online. But one of the aspects that I missed from print was not the dirty fingers, but story play. Online, you don’t know if a story ran on page six or page 64. You don’t know if was a section cover or just one of a number of stories tossed onto open pages. While in the overall scheme of things that may not matter, I often find myself wondering where a story was played?

So, I was wandering through the San Francisco Chronicle online and while reading a story about high-end home sales, I noticed at the bottom of the story the following line:

This article appeared on page C – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Sure enough, as I looked around the site, I saw that they included this line for apparently every story that also appeared in the newspaper. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you can search for other stories that appear on the same page (at least the search didn’t work for me). It would be interesting to see it’s popularity if you could search on the page number and get results that showed you what else appeared on the same page.

Granted I don’t know the mechanics behind this feature, the degree to which it is automatic or whether or not human beings have to manually enter them into the system, but I think it’s a feature with potential. What are your thoughts? Do you think page numbers have any place or value online?

NOTE: I’m proud to be participating, along with fellow journalism bloggers from around the world in the Carnival of Journalism. In addition to reading my post please visit the Carnival host site and see what my colleagues are writing about. Not sure what a blog carnival is? Check out this entry on Wikipedia.

I recently wanted to get in touch with a former colleague, but when I visited his newspaper’s website I quickly discovered that reaching anyone at his newspaper wouldn’t be that simple. And his newspaper is not alone. If we’re in the communication business, why do we make it so difficult for people to communicate with us?

To be fair, this used to be a much broader problem. Thankfully though, in recent years, some newspapers print email addresses for reporters at the bottom of stories and others use online forms. Some don’t do either and even make it hard to directly contact anyone, hoping instead to channel all interactions through a series of general forms.

In order to get a sense of the practices that are going on in the industry, I looked at the contact practices of the top 30 newspapers according to the most recent Nielsen Online report, and here’s what I found:

• 16 newspaper include reporter email address either at the bottom of stories or via clicking on the byline.
• 5 provide no direct access and instead drive inquires through general online forms.
• 4 use reporter specific contact forms and shield email addresses.
• 5 offer full staff list (email addresses and phone numbers) once you dig through the main contact us list.

Some other practices worth noting:

• On some sites (nytimes.com, startribune.com) in addition to providing a reporter’s email address, clicking on the byline reveals a list of of the reporter’s recent stories.
• At least one site (politico.com) offers full bio and picture for their writers.

As you can see, the trend is toward great ease of access and I argue that is a good thing. Additionally, I encourage newspapers to move away from the master staff list approach. All too often those lists are some sub-category of the Contact Us or About Us navigation. Readers in some of these cases have to first click on (for example) Contact Us, then find the department and then (in some cases) the name of the bureau before getting to a list of reporters. I just don’t see that many people going through that gauntlet and I think that, ultimately, your newspaper loses out.

I think it is important for readers to be able to dialogue with reporters and other staff members. Actually, it doesn’t make any sense to me to provide access to reporting staff but, as is the case at some papers, hide photographers and some editors.

In my perfect newspaper world, readers would be able to engage newspaper staffers via email, instant messaging and/or chat rooms. At the very least, I would think via email. So what does you newspapers do? Are you among the 16 or the 5?

NOTE: I’m proud to be participating, along with fellow journalism bloggers from around the world in the Carnival of Journalism. In addition to reading my post please visit the Carnival host site and see what my colleagues are writing about. Not sure what a blog carnival is? Check out this entry on Wikipedia.

Continuing the theme I began yesterday, I’m going to focus on another way for you to not only keep, but advance your reporting career. This is one of those ideas that I truly believe newspaper companies should be already doing as a matter of course. But since many are not, I encourage you to do it on your own.

I used a question for the headline of this post because my thought for today involves converting the staid business card into a tool for the modern reporter. Most newspapers still provide business cards to their reporters. They’re typically the traditional fare with the name of the newspaper, mailing address, reporter’s name, title, phone number, email address and maybe web address. But that’s it and sometimes, they feature even less. I still see business cards that don’t include email addresses, forcing reporters to write them on the blank side. And there’s the missed opportunity.

There are many ways, beyond email, snail-mail and the telephone, that readers can now interact with reporters. Many reporters have profiles on sites such as Twitter or Pownce, Digg, Reddit or StumbleUpon not to mention Facebook or MySpace. Each of these sites can provide them with exposure to a new community filled with issues and potential stories. But readers need to be able to find them, they need to know where reporters are and how to reach them. That’s where the blank side of your business card comes in.

I’m proposing that you get yourself some double sided business cards. One side should contain the traditional information and the other, your profile names for the sites that you’re on. This way when you distribute your business cards, you’ll be maximizing the opportunities for interaction.

As I wrote earlier, I really think newspapers should be taking this approach with every business card they get printed. But if they’re not, you should be doing it for yourself. Now, I know what many of you are going to say — “Business cards are expensive and I can’t afford to buy my own cards on my paltry salary.” Well a quick search on Google and I was able to find 250 doubled-sided business cards going for anywhere from $15 to $22 — not bad.

My advice is bring this idea up with your supervisor or editor, explain the benefits of providing readers with all these different ways to interact with you. And if they won’t pay for it, make the investment for yourself. This is one investment in your own career I think you’ll find well worth it.

NOTE: I’m proud to be participating, along with fellow journalism bloggers from around the world in the Carnival of Journalism. In addition to reading my post please visit the Carnival host site and see what my colleagues are writing about. Not sure what a blog carnival is? Check out this entry on Wikipedia.