Tag: Tar Heel Bus Tour

THBT: Local Media, Built From Scratch

One of the things I enjoy the most when traveling is reading and watching the local news. On last week’s Tar Heel Bus Tour, I had a chance to pick up a couple of papers and wonder to myself what local media in the state would look like if it were starting from scratch today.

What if the question at newspapers with (literally) dying readerships were not “How do save the newspaper?” but instead “How do we start today serving our communities with the most accurate, relevant and efficient package of news and information?”

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THBT: More Blogs on the Bus Tour

Several of my colleagues have also posted to their blogs some thoughts about the Bus Tour. You’ll see from the blog titles that we were an eclectic group. I like eclectic groups.

Also not to be missed is the blog of my journalism colleague Jock Lauterer, who does his own tour every summer of the state’s community newspapers. He’s on the road now.

THBT: Is Journalism Good for N.C.?

Tuesday’s stops on the Tar Heel Bus Tour had us looking at different ways that private industry is partnering with Carolina, but Wednesday provided examples of partnerships that UNC is creating with public agencies in efforts to improve the lives of North Carolinians.

The stops left me wondering: Are there (and should there be) similar partnerships available in the field of journalism, and what would they look like?

It seemed to me that the first question we need to ask is, is journalism good for North Carolina?

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THBT: Academy-Industry Partnerships

One of the reasons I decided to make the move from newsroom to classroom is because there’s a need for journalism schools to be a source of applied research and development of products and processes that can help journalism be more memorable, relevant and inclusive. Today on the Tar Heel Bus Tour I had a chance to see how some of those partnerships are constructed between UNC and private business in other fields, and to think about how they might work in journalism.

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THBT: Social Media in Eastern N.C.

Rocky Mount, split by a railroad line between the white world of Nash County and the black world of Edgecomb County, was the first stop on this year’s Tar Heel Bus Tour. For me, it was a fitting first stop because it was one of the first towns in “the real North Carolina” to which I was introduced as an undergrad.

The stop reminded me that, even in an era of international, on-demand connections, so much — if not most — of what we know about the world comes from the people we call friends.

Social media is not a new concept.

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