Thursday, April 2, 2015

The future of the future of news

The Hoffman House in Uptown Kingston was built in 1679. It's a restaurant and 'talking house,' according to that sign.
April Fool's is out of the way, and thankfully, we avoided falling for any prank from these terrible local trolls, which, as you know, now includes the Kingston Police Department.
Also trolling us has been the weather, but today has been getting warmer in the Mid-Hudson Valley. And that's a good sign of good things to come, right? RIGHT?




Let's go out and find out.

The journalism world was surprised this morning with a report that provides an update in the possible future of some big newspaper companies, including the parent company of the Freeman, and reactions have ranged from ⊙▃⊙ to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to ⊙﹏⊙  to (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻.



TL;DR: Ten papers in Pennsylvania and New Mexico might part with the chain and go with Gannett, the parent company of USA Today and the Poughkeepsie Journal. But for you and me, it's business as usual. We're here, and we've got journalism to do.
I've got other important things to do too.

And that's (kind of; OK, not really) the point.
The tools and platforms will change. But journalism will survive. We just don't know what shapes it will take.

The future of live-streaming app darlings Meerkat and Periscope is great, if you are a cell phone company that makes money from data plans. 

Here are 10 tools 'journalists should try' but that they won't because they're periscoping their fridges.

The future of journalism is journalists arguing about whether to include links in stories while everybody's on their phones and kids complain that newsrooms are backwards with technology.

¯\_(◉‿◉)_/¯

***

The Four (signs of spring):
* It's the season for playgrounds and they are expensive.
* You didn't think for a second there that the Catskill Mountain Railroad Commenters were going anywhere, did you? THEY KNOW NO SEASON.
* Pool fight season.
* It's fishing season.

One spring cat: Trying to catch a business model.




Yesterday's Internet, Today! is a NewHive, a tool journalists could use.