Setting Sail for a New Horizon

Today, I finish officially being on campus at Syracuse University as the Alexia Chair professor of documentary photography in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

After two years of teaching and commuting regularly between my home in Chevy Chase, MD and Syracuse, NY, I leave to begin a new phase of my career as the Managing Editor/Digital News for PBS NewsHour.

I am very lucky to be leaving one great organization for another, with both enabling me to pursue my passion of developing journalism that connects people, both emotionally and intellectually, to the stories that matter in our world.  I have had wonderful colleagues at Newhouse who have helped me become a better teacher and who have enriched my life intellectually for the past two years.   I have also had great friends in the Alexia Foundation itself who have helped me use its auspices to create opportunities for professional and student visual journalists.   I will miss them a lot, but realize that part of life is leaving doors opened, even as one enters new ones.

I also feel very excited and grateful to be going to work for a news organization whose values, daily practice, and operational ethos are so consistent with my views about how and why to engage in journalism as a life’s work.  After spending time in the classroom,  I look forward to resuming my professional practice with a new team in a familiar setting.

As I engage in final packing, I am reminded once again that change is the river of life.

"The Future of Mobile" →

This article from BusinessInsider.com contains an interesting slide deck developed for their IgnitionWest conference last week on the current trends in the mobile space.  It is interesting to see the uptake rate on the “Draw Something” app by OMGPop.  It is worth a look if you are interested in the mobile space.

ONA Issues: Social Shares: The women of NPR, the ethic of infographics, the business of building revenue →

onaissues:

The ONA Issues Tumblr is your platform to define and explore the pressing issues in digital media and get a better fix on how they impact your work. Here are the top five posts from last week.

• A recently released study from the Pew Research Center shows that for every $1…

Facing twin tragedies: terminal illness and foreclosure →

Sacramento Bee photographer Renée Byer and reporter Anita Creamer express in powerful detail how twin tragedies affected an American family.  It is worth a look and a read.

5 New Year’s Resolutions for Your Station’s Facebook Page →

RTNDA column on how broadcast stations need to improve their use of social media, with five specific suggestions.

A History of Western Typefaces [INFOGRAPHIC] →

The Fontography Series is supported by join.me, the easiest way to have an online meeting. join.me lets you instantly share your screen with anyone, for free. Use it to collaborate, demo, show off — the possibilities are endless. Try it today. You see approximately 490,000 words every day — …

How Has Cloud Computing Changed Business? [INFOGRAPHIC] →

We have long been advocates of moving business operations into the cloud. The remote access, cost-savings and organizational benefits alone make it a no-brainer. Now that we’ve been floating around in the digital ether for a few years, what have we learned? How has cloud computing affected com…

Chelsea see off Valencia to advance comfortably in Champions League →

Facebook Users Beware: Facebook's New Feature Could Embarrass You →

If you didn’t watch Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook announcements last week — and of course the vast majority of Facebook users did not — you may be in for a surprise. Aside from the dramatically redesigned Facebook Timeline profile pages, which roll out in the coming weeks (and which I’ve …

ONA Issues: 11 Journalism Jobs You May Hold in the Future →

onaissues:

Sustainable Journalism points out 11 new jobs for journalists in the evolving media landscape:

1. “Headline Optimizer. Headlines aren’t what they used to be, especially in the online world. Once you could be witty or silly or clever, depending on the story. And once you didn’t have to worry…