Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "journalists"

More hyperlocal news coming to area

2010-11-23T02:51:21Z

The Sacramento region is about to see even more hyperlocal news coverage as TV station News10 and AOL's Patch.com roll out new media sites nearly simultaneously.

Sacramento's ABC affiliate, News10, and its website, News10.net, are preparing to launch 30 hyperlocal news sites in early 2011. Patch.com flipped the switch on its first site in suburban Rosemont on Thursday and plans to start 11 more sites in Davis, the suburbs and the foothills within the next year.

The sites add to a recent proliferation of online media offerings in the area.

"News10 is now getting down deep into the hyperlocal news business," said Tim Geraghty, vice president of the News10 Information Center.

The TV station's hyperlocal webpages, which will be known collectively as MyNeighborhood or MYNE, will feature a mix of news produced by staff, bloggers and community contributors, as well as anything relevant provided by News10.net. Two full-time staffers are being hired for that effort, but others working in the Sacramento and Stockton newsrooms will also pitch in.

Five sites will be created for Midtown, East Sacramento, Land Park/Pocket Area, South Sacramento and West Sacramento. Half will be spread out in the greater Sacramento area, from the city to El Dorado Hills and western Placer County. The rest will be in outlying areas from Auburn to Stockton and Modesto. Some communities may have their own pages, but others will share pages.

The pages will offer an outlet for community-oriented content, much of which is already coming into the newsroom but wouldn't appeal to a wider audience, Geraghty said.

"Our content will appear there, along with other content that people have not seen from a local TV station before," Geraghty said. "This gives us a chance to have a very narrow interest on a lot of pages."

Nearly a dozen people will work for the station's digital sites, which include News10.net, MyNeighborhood, sports, MomsLikeMe and mobile news and weather sites. The hyperlocal sites are expected to be launched during the first week of 2011.

"Patch may hire some very good editors," Geraghty said. "But we already have a 50-plus-year relationship with this community."

AOL bought the Patch news and information platform for $7 million in June 2009. This year, the company vowed to spend at least $50 million to expand the network. Patch has grown to 401 sites and is expected to reach 500 by year's end.

Sacramento State 2008 journalism grad Cody Kitaura was hired to work as Rosemont Patch’s editor. He worked as a reporter at the Elk Grove Citizen for a year and a half before joining Patch.

AOL will launch Patch sites in Fair Oaks, Elk Grove and Carmichael by the end of the year. The company is in the process of hiring for sites expected to open next year for Davis, Folsom, Granite Bay, El Dorado Hills, North Highlands, Citrus Heights, Roseville and Rocklin, said Alex Gronke, Patch.com's regional editor.

At Patch.com, a local editor manages each site and produces original stories, along with contributions from freelancers, a sports editor and a calendar editor. Community contributors can post photos, events and announcements. The goal is to have at least three to four original stories each day, Gronke said.

"It's the old version of the newspaper in a small town, where one person would go out and gather all the news across the beats," he said.

Patch equips local editors with laptops, iPhones and cameras. The editors work out of their homes, rather than in newsrooms with other journalists. Editors with a range of backgrounds have been hired, from those with only one year of working at a small community newspaper to experienced journalists who've spent their careers working at large newspapers.

Regional editors like Gronke, who is relocating from Oakland to Davis, try to overcome the absence of newsrooms through phone call meetings and workshops where journalism skills can be shared.

Advertising dollars have shrunk for large metro papers that provide international, national, regional and local coverage. Local online advertising is growing. Media outlets are banking on the expectation that advertisers will be more interested in niche local markets. At Patch.com, stories may range from a high school fundraiser or the hiring of a new principal to animal stories and craft sales.

"It's the kind of thing that doesn't matter a lot to anyone outside the community, but matters a lot to the people that live there," he said.

Patch philosophy is to focus on smaller communities. The Elk Grove and Roseville sites will be two of the largest Patch sites in the country. Patch has no plans to start a site for Sacramento.

"How could one person cover Sacramento?" Gronke said. "It's too vast a geography."

Photo of Cody Kitaura, editor of Rosemont Patch, provided by Patch.com. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter covering business and development for The Sacramento Press.

Writing for Readers Workshop Oct. 6

2010-09-27T20:48:37Z

It's hard to believe it but Oct. 15 marks the second anniversary for The Sacramento Press. We have two great workshops lined up for the month of October that we hope you can attend.

Lede writing is something all journalists struggle with on a regular basis, and our workshop on Oct. 6 will address that process.

Dianne Heimer will teach lede writing and story structure at our "Writing for Readers" workshop. The goal is to help you write in a way that keeps people reading your articles from start to finish. It will be at The Sacramento Press office, from 6:30-8 p.m.

Heimer graduated with a BA in English from San Diego State and an MA in English/journalism from Sacramento State.

She is a freelance magazine writer and worked previously as associate editor for Sacramento Magazine. Heimer also taught English and journalism at Modesto Junior College for three years.

For the past 17 years, she has been a professor of English and journalism at Sacramento City College, where she has served twice as journalism department chair and advises the online college newspaper.

The workshop will be interactive. You can bring articles if you'd like to ask specific questions about your own writing.

The second workshop, on Oct. 13, will teach how to write reviews of shows, concerts and performances. We will send out another invitation for this workshop when it gets closer.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $1.50 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

Please RSVP by e-mailing workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an e-mail to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Online journalism survey by Reynolds Journalism Institute

2010-06-03T01:34:15Z

For our readers and users who have an interest in online news sites and community journalism, we have a survey that we would like you to take.

Reynolds Journalism Institute is doing a research project on local news sites and online community. On their website it states their mission as "reconnecting journalists and citizens around the importance of journalism in a democracy, and using technology to enhance methods that help journalists reach citizens in many ways."

The institute is part of the University of Missouri and the Missouri School of Journalism.

RJI reached out to Sacramento Press to participate in their research and created a survey tailored to our site.

The survey has 36 questions, 22 of which directly deal with Sacramento Press. The remaining questions touch on current events and demographic information.

The survey will ask you about how useful Sacramento Press is, how you benefit from it, how often you visit the site, the quality of coverage, your satisfaction with Sacramento Press, and whether or not it is engaging.

It also seeks to get your opinion about online community, users interacting with journalists and commenting on articles.

It is completely voluntary and confidential. You have the option of leaving questions blank or stopping the survey altogether if you don't feel comfortable with it. You will not be contacted after the survey unless you choose to include your e-mail address.

If you can spare 10 minutes of your time to complete the survey, it will help with the research to improve journalism and technology to better serve you and news consumers.

Click on the link below to access the survey:

http://rjisurvey.sacramentopress2.sgizmo.com/s3/

Freelance writers panel photo essay April 26

2010-04-28T20:04:12Z

Here are some photos of the panel from Monday night at the Sutter Square Galleria. The Sacramento Press and the UC Davis Extension Center collaborated to present "Making it as a Writer: How to Succeed in Challenging Times."

More than 30 people showed up to hear insights from panelists JT Long, Sacramento-based freelance journalist; Peter Grandbois, published author and California State University, Sacramento, creative writing professor; Cinamon Vann, a freelance writer and editor specializing in environmental topics; Kate Washington, contributing writer for Sactown magazine and a freelance food and travel writer; Jennifer Basye Sander, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Published and founder of Write By The Lake Retreats.

Janna Marlies Santoro, Sacramento writer, professor and editor, moderated the panel, asking questions about how each panelist defined success as a writer, what strategies they use for accomplishing success and what challenges the panelists have faced recently due to the economic down turn and how they managed them.

The audience was able to ask questions ranging from what a typical day was like to how much money they charge per word or per project.

The Sacramento Press has another panel planned for June so stay tuned for more information.

Feb. 17 Intro to Journalism workshop

2010-02-09T23:13:05Z

It's very exciting to see the number of our community contributors continue to grow. We now have close to 800. With so many new writers, we want to make sure we offer you the tools and resources to improve your writing and help you feel more confident posting on our site.

We've held many journalism-related workshops in 2009 ranging from Interviewing Techniques, Bias in Media, Journalism Ethics, among others.

We're happy to announce another Intro to Journalism workshop this month, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 17 6:30 - 8 p.m.

Brandon Darnell will be teaching the workshop. He is a freelance writer and editor, and he currently copy edits for The Sacramento Press.

Darnell graduated from California State University, Sacramento in 2007 with a degree in journalism, where he worked as a reporter, copy editor and Copy Chief of the student newspaper, The State Hornet. Darnell worked as a reporter for the Lincoln News Messenger for a year, covering everything from city government and the economic crisis to feature articles before moving to Paris, France, to research a novel he is currently writing.

This workshop is perfect for those of you without a journalistic background. We encourage you to write on our site, but some basic guidance from a workshop such as this one may help get the pen to paper or in our case, fingers to keyboard.

Attending this workshop will also earn you a badge for "Intro to Journalism workshop" on our site. You will have the opportunity to be verified as a community contributor as well.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107 in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks. If you are facing Starbucks, go around the building to the left and you'll see our Sac Press sign out front.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $1.50 per half hour and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

Please RSVP by emailing workshops@sacramentopress.com.

If you have any trouble finding our office, please call 916-443-5403.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Friends of Laura Ling share their experiences

2009-08-10T09:00:56Z

The Sacramento Press has followed the timeline of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee since their detainment in North Korea, covering some of the vigils that took place in Sacramento.

Ling was born and raised in Carmichael and her ties to the Sacramento community brought enormous support for the two women throughout their ordeal.

Following Bill Clinton's visit with Kim Jong Il, Ling and Lee were pardoned and allowed to return home. The Sacramento Press interviewed two of Ling's friends to hear what it was like for them during Ling's absence.

Cheryll Marsh and Stephanie Tomasegovich met Ling in seventh grade at Barrett Middle School in Carmichael. Marsh met Ling through the school's drill team and Tomasegovich met Ling because of their shared love of New Kids on the Block.

Friendships made in middle school proved to be instrumental in the campaign and efforts to get Ling and Lee back home safely.

On March 17, when Ling and Lee were arrested on charges of spying and illegal entry into North Korea, both Marsh and Tomasegovich heard the shocking news while at work. Tomasegovich came across the story via the Internet and Marsh's mother called her on the phone.

“I was in complete shock, in disbelief,” Marsh said. Her first thought was, “How do we get her out?”

“I didn’t believe the severity of it,” Tomasegovich said.

“I was going to do something," Marsh said. "I wasn't going to just sit around.”

Tomasegovich sent a letter to Michelle Obama appealing to her as a mother, since Lee is also a mother of a girl.

Marsh sent letters to officials in North Korea and to President Barack Obama pleading for the release of the two journalists. Both women sent numerous postcards to Ling, and Marsh wrote emails to Ling even though she knew she wasn’t able to read them.

One of her emails read, “I’m thinking about you. I think about you every single day.”

Both Marsh and Tomasegovich were put under the media spotlight because of their friendships with Ling. The two spoke on radio programs and at the vigils in Sacramento.

Tomasegovich was not a fan of all the media attention. “I did not like it," she said. "I was unprepared, [but] I did it for Laura.”

Tomasegovich made bracelets similar to the Live Strong bracelets. She passed out the baby blue bracelets that said “Keep Hope Alive” to everyone she knew and sent them to Lisa Ling, Laura's sister, in L.A.

For Tomasegovich, the most difficult part was a feeling of helplessness. She said she hated not being able to help Ling and wondering what her family was feeling every minute of the day. She also felt guilty about having her life continue to go on knowing what Ling was going through.

Marsh said the most difficult part of Ling being away was not knowing anything, especially at the beginning. She admitted it was very discouraging because no one knew what to do.

"The turning point [was] when I met with an old friend of the Ling [family], a friend of Laura's and Lisa's mom at a cafe in San Francisco," she said. "I had a new sense of purpose. [I thought to myself] stop being sad, there needs to be action!"

On Aug. 4, the news of Ling and Lee's release reached the two friends.

Marsh described her reaction as “the most amazing feeling.” She said that their release was “a dream that I kept on playing in my head,” and her heart lifted when the dream became a reality.

Tomasegovich was in the midst of a trial as a juror. She received the news from her brother while on her lunch break. She yelled out to the jury, “You guys, she’s coming home!”

She also made it a point to tell the judge presiding over the trial. “The judge announced it to the court and everyone cheered,” Tomasegovich said.

Both friends agreed that the media played a huge role in keeping the Ling and Lee story on the public’s mind and in bringing them home.

“As much as people hate the media, the more they were annoying, the better it was for them,” Tomasegovich said.

Tomasegovich recently lost her job and her sister-in-law pointed out that everything happens for a reason. Had she been employed full-time, she might not have been able to appear on TV and speak on the radio.

In a Facebook message, her sister-in-law said, “Life needed you and you were there.”

Both women have been celebrating the safe return of their long-time friend, but neither have spoken to or seen Ling since her return.

“She needs her privacy,” Marsh said.

“She’ll give me a call when she’s ready," Tomasegovich said.