Andy Ihnatko is an amusing, sometimes irreverant, technology journalist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Andy's style is both self-effacing yet knowledgeable with a little theatre like presence in his style of delivering what can be sometimes abstract concepts about new media. He is a contributor to Macworld Magazine as well as a technology commentator on CBS’ Early Show. He also has written some books with his latest offering, Iphone: Full Loaded, available through Amazon. He was a featured speaker at this year's Macworld held in San Francisco. This is the year that Apple previously had decided not to attend leading many to muse as to what impact this would have to this long time event. It is a

Navigating a newspaper is tricky. I avoid reading state government news early in the morning so as not to start my day feeling hopeless and impotent. Bring on the funnies. Who is accountable for state governance? Thursday night marked a new voice in state news and a new set of eyes narrowed on the Capitol. About fifty people gathered at Pyramid Ale House to celebrated the launch of CalWatchdog.com, a new journalism venture with a mission of “holding the government accountable for its spending and regulatory programs by exposing government waste, fraud and abuses of power.” I sat down with Steven Greenhut,, CalWatchdog editor in chief, amid beer, rain and power suits. Q: What inspired

The Sacramento Bee and other McClatchy newspapers are making another round of job cuts. The Bee announced Monday it will cut 25 people by month's end, while McClatchy newspapers including North Carolina's News & Observer and The State in South Carolina announced additional layoffs. The total number of layoffs at the country's third largest newspaper company was not available. Reporters will not be among those cut at The Bee, although the paper will lose a photojournalist, two copy editors, two designers and two others in the newsroom, said Pam Dinsmore, the paper's community affairs director. "We've made the decision that the reporting staff — that's not a place that can go down in any

Representatives of local media outlets and community members came together Thursday night to discuss how to make local media better and more reflective of the community. The meeting was organized by the Sacramento Media Group, California Common Cause and Access Sacramento. There was discussion and debate about the role and responsibility of our local media. Ron Cooper, executive director of Access Sacramento, summed it up when he said, “Media and your influence over media is really a local issue.” The event was well attended by a diverse mix of community activists, students, and stakeholders. There were representatives of local broadcast stations, newspapers and online ventures. The deb

Just one work day after union members voted to accept wage cuts and layoffs to postpone even more cuts, The Sacramento Bee started laying off some 128 employees in editorial and other departments Monday morning. Among the names of those getting pink slips today were pop music writer Rachel Leibrock and sports writer Martin McNeal, as well as general assignment reporters Ramon Coronado, Melissa Nix, Walt Yost, sports writer Scott Howard-Cooper, and photographers Brian Baer and Florence Low. And for virtually the first time since the paper started shedding positions nearly three years ago, there were editors among the casualties. Also leaving are IT wunderkind and newsroom gadfly Marco Smo

 I have a simple suggestion for the Sacramento Bee.  It's an experiment.  It might not work, but since the ad revenues for newspapers are drying up faster than the lakes and reservoirs of our drought-ridden state it's time the Bee took a few chances.  Why doesn't the Bee try to sell ads on its Twitter page?   Now before the Bee did that it would have to promote its Twitter page.  Currently, it has only 468 followers, about half as many followers as the Sacramento Press's Twitter page has.  This fact is indicative of the Bee being at sea where new media is concerned.   Twitter works really well for aggregating the content of the Bee's online paper.  I unsubscribed to its RSS feed in my G