Newspapers have long used WordPress to power blogs (as if blog posts were somehow wholly different from articles), but a growing number of “old media” sites have moved their primary digital publishing activity over to WordPress, so we’re in increasingly good company. A few such sites with WordPress at their core:

• Metro UK, perhaps the largest newspaper site powered entirely by WordPress
• Bangor Daily News, one of the earliest newspaper WordPress converts
• New York Observer
• Germany’s Die Tageszeitung
• Canada’s National Post and Global News
• Tribune Broadcasting Sites

And of course, a much larger number of digital-only news sites — including many that get way more traffic than we do — use WordPress. So it’s not a question of scale, I think, but more a question of culture.

In our quest for culture change here, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the inspiration we took from Journal Register Company’s 2010 Ben Franklin Project — a bid to publish in print and online using only free tools — and Bangor’s pioneering and well–documented switch to WordPress.

Want to help us realize our own open-source digital news future? Check out our job openings in technology, design and product management.

The post Why WordPress? appeared first on Eric Ulken.

When I left the Los Angeles Times in the depths of the 2008 financial crisis — a time when the newspaper industry’s future looked particularly bleak — I wondered wistfully if I was walking away from my last newspaper job. I’d worked for newspaper companies my entire career, and despite their sometimes frustratingly slow advance into the digital age, I’ve always loved newspapers and the work they do.

Turns out, I’m not finished with newspapers. Or they are not finished with me.

I am starting a new job next month at The Seattle Times as assistant managing editor, digital. I’ll be guiding editorial efforts on the paper’s online products, including SeattleTimes.com. The Times has earned a reputation for innovation in local digital journalism, and I am looking forward to being a part of the talented team that makes it happen.

I’ve missed the newsroom, and I can’t wait to get back there.

Photo: Clock at Pike Place Market, Seattle, by Flickr user mikeensor (Creative Commons)

The post Back to the newsroom, off to Seattle appeared first on Eric Ulken.

In the four months since my last post — yes, I’m a terrible blogger — I’ve moved to Vancouver and started teaching at the University of British Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Among other things, I’m coordinating the school’s Integrated Journalism course, required of all first-year students, and advising some second-year students on their theses.

It’s been a terrific experience so far, and I highly recommend the school’s Canwest Global visiting professor program to other professionals looking to take some time away from the field and work with some seriously smart and engaged student journalists.

And did I mention Vancouver is awesome?

Photo: Cherry tree in bloom in Stanley Park.

The post Checking in from Canada appeared first on Eric Ulken.

• Today at De Nieuwe Reporter, the Dutch online journalism blog I write for, I posted a piece on InfoCamp, a terrific unconference I attended last month in Seattle. It’s about what online journalists can learn from information scientists. (And yes, it’s in English.)
• I’ve been enjoying using TwitterTim.es, an aggregator that lets you build a personalized “newspaper” featuring the posts tweeted most frequently by people you follow. (Here’s mine.) Intrigued, I interviewed Maxim Grinev, the site’s tech lead, for Online Journalism Review.
• I weighed in on the question of whether SEO practices make for dumb, boring headlines, also at OJR. (By the way, I’m working on an online course on writing headlines for the web for the Poynter Institute’s NewsU. If you have some instructive experiences to share, please let me know.)
• Finally, I wrote about recently launched redesigns at Germany’s Spiegel Online, where I worked this summer, and my alma mater, the Los Angeles Times, also for De Nieuwe Reporter.

Also, as I’m doing more writing and consulting in various places, I’ve updated my about page with the customary disclosures.

The post Posted here and there appeared first on Eric Ulken.

I’m looking forward to helping students think critically about the internet as a platform for news, and I would appreciate suggestions on how best to do that. In other words, if you had this gig, what would you teach?

The post What would you teach aspiring journalists about the internet? appeared first on Eric Ulken.

When a 71-year-old pensioner killed three people and wounded a fourth in a shooting spree last month in North Rhine-Westphalia, the police response unfolded in real time on Twitter. A user of the microblogging site, who was listening in on official radio communications taking place at the scene in the town of Schwalmtal, posted a running report of the suspect’s standoff with authorities.

The Twitter account was soon deleted, but not before much of user @JO31DH’s minute-by-minute account was repeated in blogs and other Twitter posts: “1 confirmed dead in rampage. … The commando unit has arrived on site … The forces will move to Hermmann-Löh Street in Amern … The helicopter is on Pletschweg … News channel N24 is also in Schwalmtal now.”

While listening in on police radio transmissions is legal in some countries, including the United States, it is forbidden in Germany and carries a penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment.

In the midst of the two-hour standoff, with reports coming in that the suspect had taken hostages, Philipp Ostrop, an editor at RuhrNachrichten.de, tweeted, “If there’s really a hostage situation in Schwalmtal, can the perpetrator follow along with @JO31DH on what the police are up to? Is that such a good thing?”

Other posts warned the user that what he was doing was illegal.

The anonymous twitterer claimed protection as a journalist: “I call myself the press. That’s enough… Now shut up.”

The next day the would-be journalist posted a contrite message on his blog (now also offline but quoted by the Rheinische Post): “I would like to formally apologize. I see, in spite of everything, how these social networks can be misused. I don’t feel good about this. I hope things will soon settle down and others won’t repeat this stupid idea.”

The newspaper later reported that authorities had identified the Twitter user and would file criminal charges. According to police, the man did not threaten the operation because the commando unit on the scene was using secure mobile phones to communicate.

The post Police radio play-by-play lands German Twitterer in trouble appeared first on Eric Ulken.

April was “conference month” on two continents:

• International Journalism Festival, Perugia, Italy: I participated in a panel discussion on networked journalism and gave a presentation on alternative story forms.
• International Symposium on Online Journalism, Austin: Just watched and listened.
• BarCamp NewsInnovation, Philadelphia: I led a discussion on information overload (notes here).

In May I visited old friends and colleagues in L.A. and Kansas City and family in Atlanta and Boston. I also traveled back to my alma mater, the University of Missouri (from which I’d graduated exactly 10 years earlier), to attend IRE’s excellent Django boot camp. I highly recommend this to anybody who wants to build web interfaces to newsy data. IRE offers a couple such classes a year, including at its annual conference. This one was run by a fellow Mizzou J alum, NYT’s Brian Hamman.

In June I went to Japan with my little brother. It was mostly a leisure trip, but in Tokyo I sat down with some folks from a telecom think tank to talk about paid content on mobile devices. There’s a write-up here.

That piece marks the start of an occasional column I’ll be writing for De Nieuwe Reporter, a Dutch blog that covers developments in online journalism. (I volunteered to write in Dutch, but thankfully they were happy with English. Which is good because I write Dutch at a pre-K level.)

Now I’m preparing to leave for a two-month Arthur Burns Fellowship in Germany. I’ll be working in Berlin for the web-only international edition of Der Spiegel, Germany’s leading newsweekly (and operator of the country’s most popular news website). I’ll also spend some time traveling within Germany and investigating trends in online journalism there. The orientation is next week in Washington, D.C., and I’ll arrive in Berlin Monday, July 27.

Stay tuned. I promise to check in soon.

The post Breaking the silence here appeared first on Eric Ulken.

I returned to the States earlier this week, after about three months abroad. I have lots of notes and ideas, and now I just have to find the focus to turn them into blog posts. Wish me luck.

What’s next? I’ll be visiting Japan in June, and while I’m there I hope to answer this question: How, in one of the most wired countries in the world, is the newspaper industry still thriving? (If you have any contacts in newspapers there, please let me know.)

And in July I’ll head back to Europe for a two-month fellowship in a German news organization (TBA), during which time I’ll also be traveling within Germany and blogging on trends in newsrooms there.

The itinerary is now updated to reflect all this.

Meanwhile, I’m in Austin for the International Symposium on Online Journalism. If you’re around, say hi.

The post Back in the States, for now appeared first on Eric Ulken.

“I think we will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930’s is true in 2010.”

Like any outraged citizen, my first instinct on reading this was to figure out who to blame for passing this law. So I thought I’d use WashingtonPost.com’s congressional votes database to see how members of the House and Senate voted on this bill.

The Post’s database allows users to group votes by several criteria (including some silly stuff like lawmakers’ astrological signs). The most salient stat seems to be “boomer status”: Pre-baby-boomer lawmakers were more likely to vote against the bill (especially in the Senate), presumably because many of them still remembered the Great Depression.

Maybe older really does mean wiser?

If you find other interesting trends in the data, post them here.

Update: OpenSecrets.org is a few steps ahead: Back in September 2008, they had details not only on the voting record for the banking bill but also on industry contributions to lawmakers broken down by yeas and nays. (hat tip: @bill_allison)

The post Banking law: Holding them accountable appeared first on Eric Ulken.

• I got sick.
• I started feeling better, so…
• I went to BeeBCamp 2 at the BBC on Wednesday and heard lots of interesting talk about the future and the Beeb’s place in it.
• I remained sick, but thought I was feeling better, so…
• I went to the Guardian on Friday. Got a nice tour from Kevin Anderson and chatted with some really smart tech folks, including Django co-creator Simon Willison. I even ended up giving a little LAT Data Desk show-and-tell when the scheduled Friday afternoon guest speaker flaked.
• I’ve been following the unfolding “effing-bloggers-vs.-real-journalists” kerfuffle here.
• I’m still semi-sick. (I think I’ve been sick more than I’ve been well so far on this trip.)

Health permitting, I’ve got return visits to the BBC and Guardian lined up for next week, and a trip to Oxford to take in a Reuters Institute talk on news business models.

I still intend to write full posts on BBC and Guardian visits. But I’ll spare you the sickness post.

The post What I’ve been up to appeared first on Eric Ulken.