Sept. 19 Marks 45th Anniversary of Black Monday — Dateline: Youngstown, Ohio. Sept. 19 will mark the 45th anniversary of what some call the birth of the Rust Belt. Others refer to it as the death of America’s working class. Call it what you will, but in Youngstown, it’s simply called Black Monday. It was on that fateful day…

I Drove 4,000 Miles. Here’s What I Learned About News Today — After a 4,000-mile drive across the country and back this July, here’s what I learned about the state of news: If there is a national conversation taking place in America today, no one knows it’s happening. The national news bubble — driven by news produced out of New York —…

‘Save Media, Save America’ in 35 minutes — ‘Save Media, Save America’ is the topic discussed by FMC’s CEO Jaci Clement on THE BIG SHIFT podcast, hosted by veteran journalist Jim Paymar. This wide-ranging and fast-paced interview discusses media trends, challenges, and industry bright spots — all in under 35 minutes. Save the Media, Save America — THE…

We’ve arrived at an extraordinary destination inside the news desert that we call America. There’s no particular street address; instead, it’s an area inside every thinking person’s brain. It’s the place that lights up when bemusement meets embarrassment. For those familiar with this place, you undoubtedly found yourself holed up…

In a media landscape teeming with distractions, it’s easy to overlook the seismic shift that’s occurred within news. This shift is less about the content and more about the structure, which ultimately becomes about the content. If you’re still with me into this third sentence, congratulations, you’ve already lasted longer…

Where There’s News Doesn’t Mean There’s An Audience — “If you build it, they will come,” may work for ballparks, but it doesn’t work for news. Maybe it’s because a ballpark is situated in a fixed location, whereas news today mostly resides in a cloud. Maybe, too, it’s because people enjoy going to a ballpark and, well, when’s the…

Old-School Tactics Don’t Work in Today’s Media Landscape — In survey after survey, the public says they want news they can trust. Seems like a reasonable request — a fairly black-and-white one, to boot — but here’s the thing: How do you measure trust? Just like that, we find ourselves knee-deep in the muck of gray area. The news…

People, me among them, spend a great deal of time discussing what’s wrong with today’s news media. And why not? It’s a tale that, on any given day, incorporates murder and mayhem, scandal, politics, and religion, assuming you’re paying attention to mainstream media only. There used to be a time…

Things That Can No Longer Be Unseen — This new year isn’t fooling around. It’s dragging into the spotlight issues that have been festering deep inside the news ecosystem for years. For a long time, it was easy to ignore or overlook the problems. What we’re left with now is the train wreck we can’t unsee. POINTED THIS WAY National news…