What break? The best in digital media from the last month

Photo courtesy of Takk/Wikipedia Commons

From the Executive Board

There's snow on the ground, near-zero temperatures in the air and the Columbia streets are suddenly much more crowded than they were a week ago. After four weeks off, spring semester is officially underway. In case you've tuned out a bit, here are a few of our favorite pieces of digital media that came out during break. Also, don't forget to come to our first general meeting of the semester on Thursday, January 28 at 6 pm. You can find more details and RSVP here.

Required reading for aspiring journalists

By Maria Davison

From Flickr user Georg Mayer

This semester I’ve been assigned to read a lot of incredible pieces of journalism. We didn’t just read things that were published yesterday, but pieces that spanned history and genres. When the semester ends, I’m going to miss having required reading because on my own, I never know what’s actually worth taking the time to read.

With every bit of advice for young journalists comes the tip that we should be reading and reading. And reading. So what should we read?

Long live long-form journalism

By Dalton Barker

As newspapers have struggled, long-form journalism
has found a home online.

Job cuts that have swept the journalism industry have led to thinner newspapers and tightly stretched staffs with more responsibilities and less time to do them. It was only inevitable, then, that many papers would pare production of in-depth stories and instead require that reporters submit two, maybe three stories per day.

However, the Web is now driving a long-form journalism comeback, according to Forbes writer Lewis DVorkin. Tablets, smartphones and the ability to share via social media what you're reading are a few factors driving the upswing, according to the article. It mentions how the first two have given publishers and online-only publications more incentive to produce in-depth pieces because more people are itching for online content.