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Paneling

30 Apr

Very proud to announce that I’ve been asked to be a panelist for a session at the 2012 Making Media Connections conference, the Community Media Workshop’s annual gathering of journalists, nonprofit leaders and communications professionals.

I’ll be part of the “Lighting the Embers of Online News” breakout session, sharing the stage with editors from Chicagoist, Gozamos, Progress Illinois. Here’s the summary:

“Declining ad revenue and budget crunches have caused traditional newsrooms to cut staff or close altogether. As traditional news shrinks, online news in Chicago is growing. Hear from online news site editors and writers about best practices to connect with online news sites and get your story on their site.”

Check out some of the conference’s other sessions and presenters. Looks like an awesome group of smart folks. Can’t wait ’til June…

SOPA Across the Web

24 Jan
So, this Storify>WordPress experiment didn’t pan out as planned. But it looks good over at my Storify page and on the Patch site where it was embedded.

Patch’s Greatest Hits of 2011

27 Dec
  1. Good Lord, that’s a lot of traffic. The author’s controversial comments on the shifting nature of the publishing business went viral, then provoked a few commenters who sharply disagreed with Turow’s criticism. 
  2. This one began with a posting to our Facebook page, where a resident alerted the community to the disappearance of Jassen Strokosch, a well respected local parent. An intense communitywide search followed, and, luckily for everyone involved, he’s back safely. More on that later…

  3. Listening to the police scanner can be equal parts mundane and nauseating. Unless you’re a police officer, firefighter, paramedic or reporter, you’re not really hearing the constant crackle of local emergencies, both large and small. On this hot summer night, the scanner chatter became loud and rushed — typically a sign that something’s up. In this case, it was a murder for hire in which 29-year-old Chervon Alexander was gunned down in a River Forest parking lot.

  4. Days after the Alexander shooting, investigators revealed some stunning details about the case: That Devin Bickham Sr., a former North Chicago police officer, had allegedly paid an accomplice $400 to carry out the hit on his girlfriend, Chervon Alexander, an aspiring law enforcement officer. 
  5. We’d heard some chatter about Strokosch’s safe return. After making a few calls we had the news confirmed, then published the happy ending to this brief, but captivating, local story.  
  6. Intrepid Patch Deb Kadin contributor pursued a tip about a plan by Oak Pk Park officials that would limit gun ownership on the basis that owning a firearm endangers the greater public health. A couple dozen pro-gun commenters weighed in while the story made its way throughout Oak Park and onto firearm-themed message boards across the country. 

  7. Yet another major story that began with observations on social media. In this case, we saw a few incoming Tweets saying Madison Street smelled like smoke. Someone else tweeted they thought Skrine Chops had burned overnight. Sure enough, it did. The cause, though never officially revealed, is believed to be a lightning strike, the likely result of a quickly moving overnight summer storm. (Forest Park Review reports the restaurant is making a comeback, and the owners hope to reopen in spring 2012.)

  8. The headline sort of says it all. Residents were on the lookout for a man who looked like “Owen Wilson without the crooked nose,” accused of trading phony coupons for real discounts at Oak Park stores. And witnesses to the crimes were right: The resemblance is uncanny. 
  9. Day 2 of our coverage in the disappearance was bolstered by social media and articles from local news outlets. 
  10. A 17-year-old Oak Parker was charged with trying to run a coke and pot ring out of a Harrison Street apartment. Recovered at the apartment were a .40-caliber handgun, ammunition and two safes containing 126 grams of marijuana, 29.7 grams of cocaine, $1,000 in cash, a money counting machine and scales, authorities said. 

Testing

4 Feb

WordPress for Android is available. Just testing it out…

Laid to Rest

28 Jul

marton1

SouthtownStar staff photographer Matt Marton snapped this incredible photo at the funeral of 1st Lt. Derwin Williams, who was killed July 6 in Afghanistan. In the photo, Williams’  family is presented with flags after a military funeral at Homewood Memorial Gardens.

Beat Blogging

21 Apr

logosouthtownstar-266x56 After some delay, I’m officially blogging my beat for the SouthtownStar.  Check it out.

Headlines

25 Mar

lenocombined21

Some changes

10 Mar

Made some updates to the “Clips” and “Portfolio” page, which I plan to do fairly often.

I’d like to host some multimedia I’ve done right here too, but there’s two problems with that:

1.) WordPress, the company hosting this blog, generally doesn’t allow you to grab certain types of code and slap it into a site on their vast network. They say it’s for security reasons. Fair enough.

2.) Some of my recent work seems to have disappeared from the Web altogether.  It’s not that it’s even that old, but apparently some sites don’t archive as far back as October 2008.

Stay tuned…

Back at it

24 Feb

After a ridiculously long break from this blog, it’s time to get back at it.

For now, I won’t delve into the Chicago Journalism Town Hall, which took place last weekend. All I’ll say is that I learned a little, I learned a lot.

Plenty of good summaries, including audio of the event and a roundup of its coverage can be found at the Town Hall’s Web site.

But right now,  I’m just going to make some much-needed updates to the “resume” and “clips” pages.

Cubby Bear

6 Aug

Cubby Bear
Originally uploaded by caseycora76

Just gotta love Wrigley Field. Cans of domestic beer for $4.50 and this person, dressed in a bear suit, holding a tip jar. Probably made a killing.

But not from me. I only tip costumed people in high fives.

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