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On the Job

  1. April 03, 2008 09:00 AM

    Think You Know Your Web Traffic?

    Think again. The scramble for online measures

    By David Cohn

    If you hopped into a time machine that spat you out sometime between 1996 and now, you could almost pinpoint the year by the words used to describe an organization’s Web traffic. Hits? That would be 1998 or so. Page views? 2003-2005. Unique visitors? 2006-2007. Odds are that 2008-2009 is going to be the year of “time spent,” as in,...

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  2. January 17, 2008 09:00 AM

    Blogonomics

    Bloggers of the world, unite!

    By Chris Mooney

    As a journalist and especially as a blogger, I sure picked a hell of a time to move to Los Angeles. No sooner did I settle here late last fall than my fellow writers in the film and television industries went on strike. I’ve never done their kind of writing in a professional capacity, but the more I’ve engaged...

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  3. June 04, 2007 08:30 AM

    The Wiki Defense

    What Floyd Landis taught the press about drug testing

    By Jennifer Hughes

    It was a partisan crowd in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and they gave their local hero, Floyd Landis, a standing ovation that went on and on. The cyclist came home in March to raise money for his campaign to clear his name. Landis shot to fame in July 2006 as only the third American to win the Tour de France,...

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  4. May 08, 2007 08:30 AM

    Unspoken

    Foreign correspondents and sexual abuse

    By Judith Matloff

    The photographer was a seasoned operator in South Asia. So when she set forth on an assignment in India, she knew how to guard against gropers: dress modestly in jeans secured with a thick belt and take along a male companion. All those preparations failed, however, when an unruly crowd surged and swept away her colleague. She was pushed...

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  5. March 01, 2007 08:30 AM

    Dark Days

    Labor loses more ground in the newsroom

    By Julia M. Klein

    A week before Christmas, the mosaics and stained glass in the sanctuary of Congregation Rodeph Shalom framed a somber scene. About two hundred members of The Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, representing white-collar workers at The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, had gathered to consider a tentative contract that wasn’t exactly a holiday gift.

    The three-year...

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  6. March 01, 2007 08:30 AM

    When Beats Collide

    When an oil refinery blew, reporters at The Houston Chronicle got a lesson in synergy.

    By Lynn J. Cook

    Virtually every story can be boiled down to one thing: money. Who has it? Who doesn’t? Who’s successfully lobbying for it? Who’s disenfranchised and deserves more of it? Economics is at the heart of most stories worth reporting, and yet it is the one subject journalists, collectively, are rarely expected to understand with any depth.

    In journalism school, professors...

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  7. January 01, 2007 08:30 AM

    The Tales We Tell

    A young reporter winces when his big story lands on the Dr. Phil show.

    By Peter Holley

    I first began to notice the wisp of a girl with long black hair as I drove home from work in the evenings. She was usually standing on a corner beside a gas station in downtown Annapolis, her sliver of a face pockmarked, her dark eyes locked onto each passing vehicle. Her ragged clothes and weary demeanor were conspicuous...

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  8. January 01, 2007 08:30 AM

    Digg This

    A top 'Digger' worries about his power to drive traffic.

    By David Cohn

    As a young journalist, I begin my day by perusing stories written by top reporters at the major newspapers, as well as the offerings of some trusted blogs. At the end of my morning reading, I take about twenty minutes to zero in on three or four pieces that are particularly engaging, and then I submit them to Digg.com,...

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