What WordPress Post Forking could do to Editorial Workflows

GitHub for Journalism — What WordPress Post Forking could do to Editorial Workflows, by Ben Balter. Ben was a 2011 Google Summer of Code student, where he wrote a really great WordPress plugin called Document Revisions. Now, he’s set his sights on post revisions, forking, and merging. If he goes through with it, it could be a game-changing project.

“College Newspapers: Still Teaching Obsolescence”

College Newspapers: Still Teaching Obsolescence. “Why the hell are college newspapers still being printed on paper?” Aaron Hockley asks. In the comments, I suggest that while some journalism programs are behind the times, others are excelling, and that hyperlocal news backed by local deals and advertising keeps print revenues up and makes it worthwhile for college newspapers. (In case you don’t know my background, I was the online director at an award-winning college paper for three years.)

Via Andrew Spittle.

Questionnaire on journalism and news consumption

I’m representing WordPress.org at a conference in D.C. next week, and I’ve been presented the following questionnaire to submit beforehand. I’m working on my responses, but I’m curious to hear yours. I’ll follow up with my responses and more about the conference.


1. What are the most significant new forms of news, journalism, and reporting that you see in the current Web landscape? Which ones are of potential long-term value for research, education, and cultural purposes and why?

2. What trends do you see in community, hyperlocal, and citizen journalism that you anticipate will have significant impact in the near and mid–term (5-10 years)?

3. Describe briefly how your consumption of news has changed in the past 5 years. As a rule, where to you turn to for news—local, national, international, and among professional colleagues?