ChicagoCrime.org is no more. If you’re not familiar with ChicagoCrime.org (and you should be — get there quick before it disappears), you should know it was one of the first mashups, merging a Google map with Chicago Police Department crime information. It has inspired dozens, if not hundreds, of journalists and programmers, and inspired several [...]

Waiting this week for the final layoff announcement from the Chicago Sun-Times made me think “what if.” If you were laid off tomorrow, what would you do? What would you want to do? Not your immediate reaction, but your plan for the future. Would you stay in journalism? Move to something else? Try the entrepreneur [...]

Some Chicago Sun-Times employees were called at home Wednesday night and told they were being laid off. The Sun-Times said before it was laying off 32 people; since then they’ve offered buyouts, so I’m not sure how many they are actually laying off. But by phone?! At home?! After work?! That seems harsh. Anyone got [...]

Want to learn something new? Brainstorm ideas? Discuss technology? Try to figure out where our industry is headed? Teach? Questions about citizen journalism? Wondering how to start a blog? Then you should join WiredJournalists.com. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a social network for journalists. The site’s mission statement: WiredJournalists.com was created with self-motivated, [...]

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt announced on Tuesday afternoon that he will not run for re-election. There will be a lot of discussion about why, but let’s talk about the how: Blunt made his announcement on a video he posted on YouTube. The governor’s YouTube account was created two weeks ago. The oldest video — supporting [...]