Capture Kern wins EPpy award

Got some good news today: The Bakersfield Californian's Capture Kern County project earned an EPpy award for excellence in journalism.

Capture Kern was among four finalists in the ungainly category of "Best Crowd Sourcing or Citizen Journalism with under 250,000 unique monthly visitors." Other finalists in that category were Fort Wayne Newspapers, Deseret News and the City University of New York School of Journalism's partnership with The New York Times. Here's a complete list of winners in the competition, which is sponsored by Editor & Publisher magazine (hence the EPpy award). 

Capture Kern was recognized for its wide reach and celebration of all things Kern County. In short, the project has, to date, enticed more than 1,200 photographers to submit more than 25,000 photos representing life in our county, and then allowing thousands of people to vote and comment on those photos, with the best and most popular being published in a 128-page full-color book. 

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Screencast of Bakersfield Californian e-edition

Here's a simple screencast I created recently to help explain the features of the desktop version of The Bakersfield Californian e-edition. 

I used the free version of Screenr to capture a 5-minute screencast. There are a few sections where audio and video is clipped but those burps don't dilute the overall message. For a free product, the simple Screenr tools deliver pretty good results.  

I'd like to do a screencast for our iPad app but I'm unaware of integrated software that captures iPad movements. All I've seen are videos shot from above the screen, an angle that while it captures hand movements, is hard to get right because of screen glare. Please let me know if you're aware of a screencast tool that works on iPad; it seems to be one of those "holy grail" products that no one has been able to produce. 

Curiosity separates great journalism and lazy journalism

Journalism is a business where there's always something to do, stories to cover, deadlines to meet.

It's work that can be a grind, particularly when you wait for stories to land in your lap. But journalism can be magic when you dive into the unknown, led only by a single tip that may or may not pan out. 

Sadly, I regularly encounter journalists and other professionals who lack one key trait that separates the average from the great: curiosity. 

Tim Layden of Sports Illustrated is a great journalist. Case in point is "The Forgotten Hero," an extraordinary tale that started with a solid tip about a long-forgotten small-college athlete but grew into a much larger story about a dying man whose zest for life inspired everyone around him. 

"The Forgotten Hero" is Mike Reily, who played football at Williams College in the early 1960s. His life was cut short by Hodgkin's disease, and by all accounts the world lost a great one. 

But that's just a small piece of the story. 

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