Tom Davidson

My friend and former colleague Bill Day and I just finished a great six-week course in entrepreneurial journalism for 18 graduate students in American University’s Interactive Journalism master’s program. We set out to be intentionally provocative, because Bill and I have seen too many great ideas for projects and products turn into smoldering wreckage because [...]

… while I started a new gig. I’m now serving as a senior director and publisher for a news and public affairs project at PBS.org. My time working with both GrowthSpur and Localist.com has been a blast. But the chance to work with Christine Montgomery and the crew at PBS was too much to pass [...]

My friends at the Online News Association put together a terrific program at the University of Alabama-Birmingham for entrepreneurial journalists and others interested in starting news and information sites. (Thanks to the Gannett Foundation for the necessary financial support.)  I spoke a bit about emerging business models to support these kinds of sites (and – plug [...]

When you check out Tigers.com this morning, you see video of a brilliant catch … but not of a badly botched call that cost a team a perfect game. Similarly, if you check out TwinsBaseball.com, you see video of home runs … but not an equally botched call that cost the Twins (disclosure: my favorite team) [...]

I’ve been preparing a presentation to the terrific News Entrepreneur Boot Camp at the Knight Digital Media Center next week. I’m part of a panel of folks who have transitioned from the newsroom to business-side roles. As part of the prep work, I’ve re-read a hefty stack of posts about emerging revenue models for news – [...]

I’m doing this, well, just because I can. (People who make up asinine policies first need to understand the underlying technology.) Hat tip @JeffJarvis – who will not seek damages for me linking to him.

Most of what I hate about the newspaper industry was encapsulated in a single session at the American Society of News (not Newspapers! Really!) Editors meeting in D.C. a few days ago. An otherwise smart agenda took the inevitable detour down the rabbit hole with yet another discussion of pay walls. Walter Hussman, publisher of [...]

My favorite ballclub opens their brand-new stadium today, so forgive me if I seem a bit preoccupied. Watching all the hoopla – on multiple media platforms at once – gives us all another lesson on the folly of the paid-content argument from some traditionalists.

Note: My friend and former colleague Bill Day is one of the sharpest sales-side guys I ever worked with. He’s adept at dealing with traditional, agency-driven advertisers and their massive buys – and maybe even better at bundling together innovative ideas like events, direct marketing and promotions to tap revenue from people who rarely advertise [...]

The gang at GrowthSpur, of which I proudly call myself a member, is having another of its introductory sessions for hyperlocal and niche site operators. We think journopreneurs – and people who just want to operate great local sites, whether or not they claim the “j” word – are one of the key parts of [...]