coverage

"Newsout: Options and strategies for New England communities when the newsroom lights dim," is a one-day participatory conference co-sponsored by the New England News Forum (NENF) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Boston University College of Communication and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism. The conference will be held from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Boston University's College of Communication, 640 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, on Sat., March 21, 2009. A $45 registration fee includes a box lunch. A $45 registration fee includes a box lunch and one-year membership in the NENF.

Three political reporters discussed the perils of predicting presidential primaries, the humor of filing stories in a men's locker room and the difficulties campaigns face in managing the message in the Internet era featuring the likes of "Obama Girl" during a panel at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst on March 26. LAUNCH GOOGLE VIDEO

Increased collaboration among citzens and newsrooms requires that citizens be given precise tasks with an obvious purpose, and strong guidance, especially about how to merger observation with opinion, according to the editor of a successful New Hampshire project. New Hampshire Public Radio is reporting on its year-long "Primary Place Online" project.

Public officials, journalists, researchers and a top industry executive will assess the impact and reporting on casino gambling on New England -- the experience in Connecticut and the promise in Massachusetts -- during an evening symposium March 11, 2008, at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, conn. The event is open to the public and is free with a donation suggested. "The Big Gamble: The Costs, Benefits and Coverage of Casinos," is being co-presented by the New England News Forum at the University of Massachusetts and the School of Communications at Quinnipiac. The event will run from 7 p.m.

From the NENA event page:

Municipalities across New England have now begun working on their budgets for 2008. And that means long hours of reporter and editor time covering and informing readers about what's going on in their town government.

The New England Newspaper Association and the New England Society of Newspaper Editors will sponsor a workshop on coverage of the municipal budget process.

The workshop will run 9:15 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 6, at the Nackey Loeb School of Communications in Manchester, N.H.

The program is designed to assist reporters in all six New England states.

The Project on Excellence in Journalism's fourth-annual "State of the News Media" report is out (March 12, 2007). It's findings and trend analysis are the basis for a set of thoughtful stories in major outlets. One of the best appeared in USAToday -- with lots of quotes expressing concern that without newspapers, news will dry up. A Reuters story expands on the theme that some may must be found to finance the news on the web other than advertising.