The team wrapped up the season as division winners, but fell in the playoffs in a series of tough games. But throughout the season I got to meet a bunch of great people and have a lot of fun.

I am already looking forward to next year.

When Dan Tangherlini became assistant secretary of the Treasury in 2009, he inherited a 700-square-foot corner office.

But he gave it up — the reproduction of George Washington’s desk, an antique conference table and even his door — for a 100-square-foot workspace.

His message to staff: As budgets shrink and workloads grow, we’re all going to have to make sacrifices.

Including elbow room.

(These are all tweets appearing @AndyMedici. If you like them, feel free to follow.)

Saving #journalism Tip 1: Pick lotto numbers in five minute increments -”Is your dog killing you? That and the 2nd number after the break!”

Saving #journalism Tip 2: Scratch and sniff food reviews? Or better yet, scratch and sniff International News and Politics Pages!

Saving #journalism Tip 3: Make Sunday Edition 6,000 pages and 412 pounds. Deliver to all. Offer paid service to take it away again. Profit.

Saving #journalism Tip 4: Send journalism robot back in time to stop journalism judgment day. Trust 13-year-old to make right decisions.

Saving #journalism Tip 5: Leave all headline nouns, verbs and adjectives blank. Let readers fill out their own. Hilarity ensues. Profit.

Saving #journalism Tip 6: Bet it all on 36 Red. Seriously. It’s a sure thing. I have a cousin who swears by it.

Saving #Journalism Tip 7:Print stories on sides of buses. Make buses drive in reverse to make stories readable. Write about bad bus drivers.

Saving #Journalism Tip 8: No Paywall for content, but “E”s will cost you. Dearly.

Saving #Journalism tip 9: Make articles SEO-Friendly with disclaimer: “Note. This article contains no links to jersey shore, lada gaga…

Saving #journalism Tip 10: Raise quick cash with Fourth Estate sale.

Saving #journalism Tip 11: Make articles seem important in print and online by PUTTING EVERYTHING IN CAPS. Makes for more interesting Obits.

Saving #journalism Tip 12: Product tie-in. Drunk mobile users can’t text unless they read David Broder column. Profit.

Saving #journalism Tip 13: Reproduce “authentic feel” of newspapers on mobile by installing ink cartridge that rubs off onto users’ hands.

Saving #journalism Tip 14: Expand “announcements” section to include divorces, separations and breakups. Charge more for exclamation points.

Saving #Journalism Tip 15: Save money on reporters by “double-spacing” text in all newspapers and magazines. TV Anchors? Talk reeeaal slow

Saving #Journalism Tip 16: For all stories involving economy, license one pic – Man with pockets pulled out. Steal rest from Facebook.

Saving #Journalism Tip 17: Fire that lazy Clark Kent. He is never around when we need him to cover a crime or explosion. Replace with intern

Saving #Journalism Tip 18: Hide news articles in all “magic eye” images. Instead of boats, viewers see the Business section. Or coupons.

Saving #Journalism Tip 19: More pictures of Spider Man. Daily Bugle copies fly off the rack when that wall crawler is on the cover. Profit.

Saving #Journalism Tip 20: Newspapers and magazines printed on pizza boxes and delivered within 30 minutes, or its free. New job for interns

Saving #Journalism Tip 21: People pay for news, or news orgs publish spoilers to movies on front pages of websites. Ruining the end for all.

Saving #journalism Tip 22: Television news station simply points camera at TV screen set to opponents channel. Call it cross promotion.

Saving #journalism Tip 23: More tote bags. Lots more tote bags.

(These are all tweets appearing @AndyMedici. If you like them, feel free to follow.)

Saving #journalism Tip 1: Pick lotto numbers in five minute increments -”Is your dog killing you? That and the 2nd number after the break!”

Saving #journalism Tip 2: Scratch and sniff food reviews? Or better yet, scratch and sniff International News and Politics Pages!

Saving #journalism Tip 3: Make Sunday Edition 6,000 pages and 412 pounds. Deliver to all. Offer paid service to take it away again. Profit.

Saving #journalism Tip 4: Send journalism robot back in time to stop journalism judgment day. Trust 13-year-old to make right decisions.

Saving #journalism Tip 5: Leave all headline nouns, verbs and adjectives blank. Let readers fill out their own. Hilarity ensues. Profit.

Saving #journalism Tip 6: Bet it all on 36 Red. Seriously. It’s a sure thing. I have a cousin who swears by it.

Saving #Journalism Tip 7:Print stories on sides of buses. Make buses drive in reverse to make stories readable. Write about bad bus drivers.

Saving #Journalism Tip 8: No Paywall for content, but “E”s will cost you. Dearly.

Saving #Journalism tip 9: Make articles SEO-Friendly with disclaimer: “Note. This article contains no links to jersey shore, lada gaga…

Saving #journalism Tip 10: Raise quick cash with Fourth Estate sale.

Saving #journalism Tip 11: Make articles seem important in print and online by PUTTING EVERYTHING IN CAPS. Makes for more interesting Obits.

Saving #journalism Tip 12: Product tie-in. Drunk mobile users can’t text unless they read David Broder column. Profit.

Saving #journalism Tip 13: Reproduce “authentic feel” of newspapers on mobile by installing ink cartridge that rubs off onto users’ hands.

Saving #journalism Tip 14: Expand “announcements” section to include divorces, separations and breakups. Charge more for exclamation points.

Saving #Journalism Tip 15: Save money on reporters by “double-spacing” text in all newspapers and magazines. TV Anchors? Talk reeeaal slow

I am on the National Press Club email list, and I got this little calendar entry in my inbox today. I thought I would share it with everyone else, in case anyone wanted to go.

Training is an integral part of any journalist’s regimen, and this one stuck out at me because there are a lot of issues, both political and social, involving the transgendered community. If you feel like you need a refresher, go for it.

Excerpt taken from event listing.

Trans 101 Training. Trans 101 will provide participants with information and tools to work with transgender people, including a review of gender/gender identity/gender expression, an overview of current issues, and effective ally behaviors. The next session is July 14, 2:00 to 5:00 p.m., in MGC 245. To sign up, please contact the GLBTA Resource Center at x3347 or glbta@american.edu, or see the Web site at www.american.edu/ocl/glbta/Trans-101.cfm.

There has definitely been a lot of talk about how legacy media still drives much of the debate, in terms of research and writing and breaking investigative stories. Although that is no longer entirely the case, the Pew Center did a great study on the news ecosystem in Baltimore (Note: Statistics from “The Wire” not included due to mature content).

http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/how_news_happens

Two key findings you might be interested in.But a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, which takes a close look at the news ecosystem of one city suggests that while the news landscape has rapidly expanded, most of what the public learns is still overwhelmingly driven by traditional media—particularly newspapers

……………………….

And of the stories that did contain new information nearly all, 95%, came from traditional media—most of them newspapers. These stories then tended to set the narrative agenda for most other media outlets.

………………………..

Although this is city specific, which means that the results are probably different when the entire nation’s discourse is analyzed. But I would love to see Pew tackle that.

In case you missed my first article for the Poynter Institute, fear not, for I have posted the link below. Just click on it to read about the similarities of problems facing the journalism industry and adult entertainment.

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=184319

Now for the preview … (after the jump).

The future of mobile is not so futuristic. According to the Pew Research Center State of the News Media, 26 percent of adults – 33 percent of cell phone users – access news from their mobile phones.

While the total amount of mobile ad revenue might still be small, perhaps $593 million in 2010 according to eMarketer, that number has seen rapid and repeated gains over the last few years as smart phones become more affordable and accessible.

All of this has shown news organizations that any business strategy must mention mobile, whether that mention is an enthusiastic endorsement or a reluctant sigh. The stage is set.

Enter Asia Nettles.

(For more, keep watching at Poynter.org, or follow me on Twitter @AndyMedici.)

The rapid advance of technology and the boom of the Internet have shown the importance of updating information in real time. News organizations are realizing more and more that people want information as soon as it happens, and that means journalism institutions need to examine what their role will be in this developing digital world.

But as journalism organizations look into the mirror, will they see Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia looking back at them?

In “The Wikipedia Revolution” author Andrew Lih chronicles the rise of the rapidly growing and increasingly influential online, crowd sourced encyclopedia and the affect is has had on a myriad of organizations, people and events. As the lines between journalism, opinion, advocacy and commentary continue to blur online, so too are the lines between what journalism is and what Wikipedia represents: an accounting of our world, and the best attempts to make sense of events, people and places.

Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder, listed the qualities of the Wikipedia community, and that “We’re actually talking about very old-fashioned types of references. Good writing. Neutrality. Reliable sources. Verifiability (XVII).” The list might explain what they look for in that specific community, but it could easily be the basic elements of journalism. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, some of the nine basic elements of journalism include verification, independence from those they cover and the truth.

What is the truth? Well according to Pew, it is that “journalists try to convey a fair and reliable account of their meaning, valid for now, subject to further investigation. Journalists should be as transparent as possible about sources and methods so audiences can make their own assessment of the information.” The truth in both journalism and Wikipedia are remarkably similar, a point that is becoming all too clear in the age of the Internet.

But it’s the real-time nature of the Internet that is causing Wikipedia and journalism to converge. Lih makes the comparison himself early on in his book. He says that “As fast as the news happens, like worker bees in a honeycomb, Wikipedians file, edit, and organize up-to-the-second dispatches into the websites articles (7).” Lih wrote that this fills a traditional “knowledge gap” created by the lag time between the publication of a newspaper and a history book.

But that is not entirely true, as the publication of a physical newspaper is becoming more outdated, and the information contained within might not reflect the eight or 12 hours since its creation. The Associated Press already sees Wikipedia as a major competitor, and in internal documents posted on the Neiman Journalism Lab and pointed to by Steve Myers at Poynter, it clearly lays out the prominent role Wikipedia plays in breaking news.

From the memo:

Now the news may be shared before it’s even searched. And, what’s more, in cases where famous people, places, and things are involved you will undoubtedly find Wikipedia in the mix, with its battery of standing pages that are updated continuously and built to send people where they are looking to go.

In response, the Associated Press proposes the idea of news “landing pages” that would contain the accumulated AP information grouped by topic or by person. In a follow-up interview with Jimmy Wales, Poynter Online contributor Steve Meyers asks about the intersection of news and Wikipedia, and why people use the encyclopedia as a breaking news source.

Wales places the blame firmly on journalism institutions, saying that “The reason that it happens is that the traditional news organizations are not doing a good job of filling people in on background information.” But he also cautions against certain comparisons, noting that Wikipedians do not do original reporting, but instead reference other sources, and that sometimes the community holds off editing an article until it’s confirmed by several reputable sources. The lines may be blurred between journalism and Wikipedia, but there are clear differences.

But for how long?

One of the greatest strengths of Wikipedia is its community of dedicated writers and editors, people who volunteer time and effort to get the facts straight, police the content and provide manpower to fill the incredibly large void of information. As journalism institutions grapple with their role, many are turning to the same concept, dubbed “citizen journalism,” to help provide coverage in a world where the few journalists there are cannot provide all the information people may want.

CNN has an “I report” section of their site, and organizations such as Voice of San Diego and The Huffington Post both provide tools and accept contributions from “regular” citizens throughout the course of their news coverage.

The lynchpin of this kind of journalism, and the writing of Wikipedia, lies on the “curators.” These are the people that help direct the flow of information, and provide useful outlets as well as policing actions to help weed out content that might be a problem. News websites already use their own readers to help police comments by flagging or rating them, and as citizen journalism becomes more common, paid staff members of these organizations become part community organizers.

Their role goes from telling people what they need to know to engaging them and directing their energies to something productive. The models of Wikipedia and journalism organizations begin to look more similar than they are different.

Wikipedia has shown that crowd sourced content done correctly can have a lasting and far-reaching impact. Its dominance in Internet search results and its increasing use by people from all over the world show the hunger for information.

Its curated content provided by a collection of citizens was a business model that seems prescient in today’s world of citizen-produced content and the increasingly crowd-sourced journalism. As Lih has suggested, the journalism industry and Wikipedia intersect in many ways, but as people’s relationship to the news changes, it may be the journalism industry that undergoes its own Wikipedia revolution.

Even though I don’t update this blog every day, it gives me a nice, warm feeling when someone uses social networking tools to broadcast a post they find interesting. There is nothing like referrals to let you know that people enjoy your writing and find it interesting enough to share with friends.

I added social networking sharing tools to my site a while ago, but until today, had not added the Facebook “like” button. Not out of any specific animus, but because I hadn’t gotten around to it. But after seeing several articles about blog traffic and noting how my friends had begun to rely on the tool, I used a plugin to add it to my site. It took less than two minutes, and I was able to join in on the fun.

Facebook “Like” button links.

Mashable on how using the button can increase blog referrals…

http://mashable.com/2010/06/13/facebook-like-increases-blog-referral-traffic/

WebMonkey on how easy it is

http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/04/adding-facebook-like-buttons-to-your-site-is-damn-easy/

But its not all good press, as PCWorld has an article about what’s to hate about the button …

http://www.pcworld.com/article/198635/yet_another_reason_to_hate_facebooks_like_button.html?tk=hp_new

(Update: This new post is an edited piece of an earlier post. Special thanks to journalist and journalism teacher Mindy McAdams for her comments and suggestions. Check out her site here.)

The future of the newsroom will be quite different than the one we are used to today.

The journalists working in the Web 3.0 future will find themselves less like the Woodward and Bernstein of yore, and more like traffic cops helping direct the flow of digital traffic. They will help people make sense of the world around them, giving them the information they need to function, in any form they want it. The concept of the newsroom – journalists working side-by-side to write stories and direct content will be replaced by a “virtual” newsroom of chats, emails and conference calls. It’s already begun to happen.

Max Chafkin writes on Inc.com that the rapid advances in technology have made telecommunication less costly and less complicated and that “today, thanks to the widespread availability of free, easy-to-use communications technologies, a lot of telecommuting consultants are out of business — and most virtual companies end up without offices not as a result of some heated planning meeting, but simply by accident.”

With wireless Internet in abundance and the advent of powerful laptops and mobile phones, journalists can write stories, take photos and video, and upload all of it to the web with little or no trouble at all. The communication, give-and-take and collaboration that traditionally took place in newsrooms would be replaced with chat rooms, phone calls and sampling the opinions of the crowd.

The loss of a concrete journalism cage would evolve parallel to a more decentralized management and collaboration structure. Gone will be the one reporter who turns in an extensive story on his own. This will be replaced by a culture of mutual collaboration and a return of the “rewrite” desk made up of people who will take the chunks and bits of information from the crowd and from journalists and will help shape multimedia stories and reports.

Each person involved in this chain will have experience on multiple platforms, and will know what it takes to maximize impact on each.

This will result in a broad range of content across numerous platforms, meaning that the newsroom of the future “will deliver the news in whatever way the community craves and is economically feasible, including online video, audio, print, online, mobile, TV or radio. Each locality will decide what’s necessary to meet their needs,” according to Mark Glaser from MediaShift.

The organization of the news room will be less linear, and input will flow from more than just one direction. Journalists, freelancers and citizens will all contribute to projects, and journalists and management in turn will include citizens in discussions about future coverage and potential projects.

But not all stories can be given the proper context on human voices alone, which means another key segment of the newsroom of the future has to be based on the hum of computers and the imaginary sound of numbers crunching.

It’s because Americans and other urban, free societies live in a world of data. We are surrounded by countless polls, studies, research articles and surveys, and for a long time those results were published in a story format with a bar graph, or perhaps a pie chart.

Typical stories drew the determinations for the reader, and presented the information in a much-simplified format. But as the Internet begins to put pressure on organizations and governments to release more and more data, the future of the newsroom will be in taking the data and making it easily available and linked to other sets of data.

It is no longer enough to tell someone that cases of swine flu are on the rise – the future of journalism will be in allowing people to personalize the data in ways that are meaningful to them, with just the click of a few buttons. The Centers for Disease Control data on swine flu could be linked with the National Institutes for Health to paint a more complete picture.

That same data can be linked with government spending on flu awareness and education to see the impact of government funding on the rates of swine flu across the country.

As the mass audience of television and newspapers are replaced by the countless niche audiences of the online world, the use of linked data and contextualized data will help strengthen the personal link between the news and the user.

A guest author at ReadWriteWeb writes that all of these comparisons “lead to new insight and all of these things happen only when the walls around an institution become porous.” The future newsroom will be a more of a weigh station for data than a final destination. Journalists will use the data to power their own stories, and give people the tools to apply these numbers to their own lives, or for their own interests.

The future newsroom will be funded in a myriad of ways, with no one approach dominating the industry, such as display advertising had once done. Instead, publications will pursue a sort of “breadbasket” of options, including some display advertising and sponsorships, payment for special convenience in the form of apps or programs, and user-supported journalism. (For more info about payment method possibilities, see the Pew research on the subject.)

Nothing will be off the table; even limited chances for merchandising will be part of the larger occasion. Much like American dependence on fossil fuels, alternative energies encompass a wide variety of solutions; the financing of journalism will follow the same route.

Edward Wasserman, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Professor of Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington agrees, saying on his blog that news organizations “have to get hungry and get busy, developing new money streams from micropayments, online ads of all kinds, premium news spinoffs sold to targeted audiences, branded online offerings, special live events, social media mini-networks, custom publishing, snazzy sponsorships for specialized one-off publications, handouts from philanthropists or the general public—whatever jingles in the till.”

For too long journalism had existed on an unstable foundation, and without a diversified approach, the future will be shaky indeed.

But most important of all, the future newsroom will no longer be dependent on others to point the way toward new technology. Newsrooms will be proactive in identifying emerging technologies and programs and incorporating them into their journalism portfolio.

News companies will no longer be blindsided by rapid advances in technology. Instead, news companies will embrace and adapt to the constantly shifting digital landscape and the public’s sometimes fickle adoption of different programs.

In the ideal future newsroom, organizations will lead the push for better, more flexible technologies and programs as part of a larger mission of serving the public and its population of cooperating citizens.

In this future newsroom, journalism will serve not as the gatekeepers of information, but as a guide to understanding and as part of the ebb and flow of the Internet conversation.