Logan Braman

The headline on this post is for me, but if you find it helpful that’s great. I have a job (it pays the bills) and a passion I pursue 24/7 (it keeps me sane, or somewhat so).

I still feel like a slacker. It isn’t because of any external feedback. If anything, the people in my life tell me to slow down. No, it’s just me. And I think I know why there are some mornings when I wake up and think, “Slacker, slacker, slacker.”

I’ve picked up quite a few interests, passions and hobbies (too many, according to some) in life, and I want to pursue all of them. That’s when lack of time comes in and I end up making the choice to neglect one thing or another. Then the slackeritis sets in and something feels funky.

This time I think it’s because of writing. I’m still writing every day, but the vast majority of it is just sitting on my hard drive. I’d rather be working with words that are meant to be published, so that’s what I’m going to do.

From now on I’m posting at least two updates per week on this blog. It’s an initial goal, and you should definitely get on my case if I start slacking. If not, I’ll keep doing it myself.

“Turn to clear vision.” That simple phrase struck me as I looked out over the water in Saint Petersburg. I was there for a Poynter Institute seminar called “Bottom Line News: Creating Sustainable Journalism Start-ups.” It was an amazing week. I learned more than I thought I would, I met some amazing people and I found even more energy for my plans, hopes and aspirations.

The micro details aren’t important, but I did want to touch on one revelation that came unexpectedly. I’ve tried to be transparent in all things digital. All my social networks are open to the world, and I try to make sure to keep the interaction there rich and real. It came out of a shift in my personal life, one that made me feel I no longer had anything to hide.

In any case, I realized during the week at Poynter that I hadn’t applied my new way of interacting to the world to my plans for the future. I haven’t been able to figure out exactly why that happened, but I think it has something to do with a little nagging voice in the back of my head. It wants me to talk to all my friends and family about this before I put it out there for the whole world to see. I’ve done that, so now the nagging voice I shouldn’t have listened to in the first place is gone.

I, along with my three amazing co-founders, am going to start an online journalism start-up. It’s called Rooted Austin. At this point it’s just a page telling you we’ll be coming soon, but we hope to have a blog up soon so we can start getting feedback on our ideas and plans. We want Rooted to be Austin’s home page, the place you go for the best curated news and immersive storytelling. We’ll do the curation, and when you tell us you like a particular topic that’s when we know it’s time for us to go get the story and apply our particular brand of storytelling to it.

I can’t wait until Cassandra Adamson, Peter Gaunt and Becky Rother get down to Texas so Rooted Austin’s full team is here and ready to grow. In the meantime, keep on the lookout for a blog on the site and feel free to tell me what you think in the comments or send me a message at logan@rootedaustin.com if you’d like.

My vision is getting clearer by the day. I hope you’ll join me to help focus even more.

I previewed this post way back in February.

Whoops.

Thankfully, the topic is still just as timely now as it was when I first wrote about it. Some journalism schools have seen an increase in enrollment, despite the treacherous state of the industry.  The economy seems to be on a rebound, but the central questions and concerns about the business (yes, business) of journalism remain.

The time for journalism schools to evolve has come. (more…)

I got into Nashville Friday (actually, it was late Thursday but it might as well have been Friday) and I’ve been loving it ever since. I’m visiting my friend Ali (go visit her website and tell her to blog more) before I move down to Austin for good.

The funniest part of the day was the how-to shower experience. It was on the cutting edge, let me tell you.

Honestly, I probably wouldn't have gotten clean without the instructions.

(more…)

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. Not surprisingly (to me at least) I got caught up in other things. Today, the distraction came because of a plane crash in Austin, Texas. It’s an interesting story that seems to be heading in the direction of, “Guy has bad experience with the IRS, guy gets upset about bad experience, guy decides to fly his plane into a building with IRS workers and auditors inside.” Sad story, but at least no one from the building seems to be badly injured. It’s fascinating to see how the local media is covering the story, especially because I’m planning on moving there for a journalism start-up soon.

I’ve managed to get off track and it’s only one paragraph in, but bear with me. Back to journalism schools.

I graduated from Ball State University in December with a degree in journalism. Toward the end, I noticed many of my conversations were about the merits of journalism school. Oftentimes, my peers and I were wondering if journalists-to-be should even bother paying anyone for training. Most of the time we quickly decided that a formal journalism education was worthwhile, but it was difficult to come to a consensus about the specifics.

My fascination with the Austin news means this is only going to be something of a preview. I was going to write specifically about journalism school until I read this article. I decided to write about school in general after reading Kevin Carey’s somewhat cynical take on his undergraduate studies. His Chronicle of Higher Education column laments his college days, despite the fact that he “aced” them. I’ve often had similar thoughts, especially about how easy it would have been to get a degree by doing the bare minimum. So, today you’ll get my take on school and next time I’ll lay out my journalism school experience and thoughts for the future. (more…)

There’s a lot of talk about how to make newspapers profitable. I have some ideas (after the jump) but no Ultimate Solution. It’s going to take hard work and a lot of smart people to figure it out. I think it’s important for journalists to discuss what newspapers can and should do to ensure all types of important journalism have a place in tomorrow.

This is the beginning of my history of newspapers. Read on to see the entire graphic.

That said, I don’t agree with pay walls. I also don’t agree with people who argue for them in this manner.

Andrew Heller from the Flint Journal in Michigan is the latest I’ve seen calling for pay walls. He does so by writing about how they’re going to save journalism. His column showed up in my Twitter feed and I was hoping it would turn out to be worthwhile, but I was wrong. Heller doesn’t have a time machine but that seems to be the gist of his solution to the problem.

To summarize Heller: I want to go back in time and make newspapers charge for online content. I can’t, so back to the future (now). They, specifically the people at the New York Times, are starting to play with charging models and pay walls. This is good, because a product shouldn’t be free and newspaper stories are undoubtedly products. Also, I’m not an expert on the Web but I have common sense because I know you just don’t give anything away for free.

It’s a sad argument that makes for a depressing picture of the current crop of newspaper journalists. I’ve been down the newspaper path, first as a reader of two dailies in my hometown, then in various positions at my high school and college student newspapers and finally in a stint as an intern at a professional paper. I loved working at the professional paper because of the people and environment, but I knew the business end of things was in trouble.

Does this make me an expert on journalism, newspapers or anything else? Hell no. At least no more (or less) than Heller. I do have one thing going for me, however.

I can’t imagine giving money to a newspaper for any reason.

I’m a news/information junkie and former newsprint lover who thinks newspapers deserve every bit of hardship coming down on them. It’s going to be scary, but read on if you dare. I have some ideas and  you can check out the rest of that graphic that’s previewed to the right. (more…)