To quote the description: "No description available."

UPDATE! The video has been taken down, to fix this!

Good morning! Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat at noon.

 Today we're talking about how to improve a newsroom's engagement efforts.

 The live feed is posted below. But you can also follow the chat here or here or also here. And you can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, just post a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

Type your question in the box below if you want some clarification.

The Freeman is set to unveil a new system for comments, using Disqus as the new platform.

We believe this system dramatically improves the way conversations take place, because it gives you the power to choose how you read the comments, it integrates whatever account you want to use and keeps the conversations in one thread.

Without a thread, you would get something like this:


But the best way to showcase how the system works is to show you how it works, so I've put that very system on this blog.

You can see it at the bottom. It looks like this:

The main difference between my blog's system and the Freeman's is that I don't moderate or require registration. The Freeman will maintain its current system. The sorting system and "Likes" are ways to give you the power to display the comments the way you want to see them. 

In short, you are in control.

So how about using this system and this space to voice your concerns, ask questions and for clarification about. What do you think?

UPDATE: It's live! Go over there and comment away!

Where:


View Shaupeneak Ridge in a larger map

What it looks like:

Source: Uploaded by user via Ivan on Pinterest

Here's the 180 degree view:

Trail map:

Source: scenichudson.org via Ivan on Pinterest

More info: http://scenichudson.org/parks/shaupeneakridge

"Urban Chicken" by John Coulter

Did you know that Kingston is considering clarification for its rules about urban chickens?

It's true!

The Kingston Times, which broke the story, notes that city code officer Mike Madsen is seeking clarification about the rules concerning raising chickens within city limits.

Though I have yet to find someone in the city who raises chickens  — and if you do, give me a call for a real story at (845) 331-5000 x502 or at ilajara@freemanonline.com — I took the issue directly to the person who brought it up.

This all happened on Twitter, obviously.
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Good morning! Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat at noon.

 Today we're talking about collaboration in journalism: with other news organizations, groups, the public; how to do it, why,  how it can improve journalism and more.

 The live feed is posted below. But you can also follow the chat here or here or also here. And you can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, just post a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

Type your question in the box below if you want some clarification.

ALERT! There is a troll using my avatar called @LVANLAJARA (with lowercase ‘L” so it looks like it’s me) who has been trying to derail the chat. Here’s how to block it from thechat, depending on what you are using

This was a topic we tried to address during last week's Digital First Media chat. I've condensed and curated some of the answers for clarity.
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As you might be aware, I host the Digital First Media Twitter chat, #DFMchat, at noon on Wednesdays, in which journalists and anyone who wants can discuss issues as they relate to our current digital environment.

Unfortunately, for the past weeks, a troll impersonating me, @Lvanlajara, which uses a lowercase "l" so it looks like me, with my avatar, has been bombing the hashtag, dropping irrelevant tweets and a whole bunch of curses.

The first thing to if you are encountered with a troll is to block and report, which is easily done on Twitter.

Hashtag blocking can be easily accomplish like this:
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infographic created with visual.ly

infographic created with visual.ly

Good morning! Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat at noon.

 Today we're talking about engagement in journalism: why it is important, how it improves journalism,  how to do it and — and often overseen thing — how to find time to do it.

The live feed is posted below. But you can also follow the chat here or here or also here. And you can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, just post a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

Type your question in the box below if you want some clarification.

Here's a quick and practical way to use social media newcomer Pinterest to add images to specific parts of your story. This is helpful if your Content Management System is limited and doesn't let you add images to specific parts of your story.

Obviously, you'd need to have a Pinterest account. 

1. Find or create the images you want and upload them into a board.

Create your board. Give it a name. Then find or upload your images. You can also add images with   the 'Pin It' button.

Example: I wanted to write a column about Google search auto-complete fails. So as I was performing searches, I took screenshots and saved them.
(Tutorial within tutorial! To save your screenshots, press CTRL+PrintScrn on PC, and paste (CTRL+V) in Paint or Photoshop. This is Command+Shift+4 on Macs, you select the area and you have an image on your desktop.)

Source: Uploaded by user via Ivan on Pinterest

2. Grab embed code. The next step is easy. Once your image is pinned, you can just grab the code and post it in the code (HTML) part of the story on your content management system.

3. Paste code wherever it fits in the story. 

What you get is something like this:

Note that I took the liberty of cleaning out the credit paragraph in the code to make the column flow better. (In the code, that's all the stuff starting right at "<p style=" ).
If you click on the image, you are still sent to the pin. But You should only do this with your own images, otherwise it's just not nice.


If you are using a web-first CMS like Wordpress or Blogger, you are probably scratching your head, because you can already do this (or use Picasa or Photobucket albums and embeds to do similar things). This is primarily for those CMSs who don't allow for this. But there are some added benefits.


Why Pinterest? 

1. Because it also allows you easily add more submissions into a neatly organized board. Again, I understand that you can do this with other sharing sites. 
2. If done right, it will increase the visibility of your site. And you can showcase some of your other and even older work posted in other boards. 
3. You can also crowdsource images before and after a story, add Pinterest contributors.
4. You can also make boards with your old photos and offer prints for sale (just put some low resolution images of your scans). 

Ideally, you could open up your newsroom's library in your Community Media Lab, scan your old photos (or images from old pages from microfilm), upload them or have your fans do so — as payment for access and high res versions of what they want — and then offer your old images for sale while you are digitizing your old archives.

Win-win.

I should stress, this is just one way of doing something you can do with other third-party platforms. And obviously, if you have your own proprietary software, you should use that.

Some things to know:

Source: graphicsfairy-crafts.com via Ivan on Pinterest

Source: mashable.com via Ivan on Pinterest

Source: dl.dropbox.com via Ivan on Pinterest

Good morning! Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat at noon.

 Today we're talking about social journalism: tips, tricks, tools and how tos. And yes, why too. If you're on the fence, this is for you.

The live feed is posted below. But you can also follow the chat here or here or also here. And you can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, just post a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

Type your question in the box below if you want some clarification, though I encourage you to do in ON THE TWITTERZ!

Facebook has recently unveiled Timeline for pages, and we thought it would be cool to feature your images of the Hudson Valley on a rotating basis. Send us your photos!
You can uploaded them directly to the Freeman's Facebook page, or send me a photo via email at ilajara@freemanonline.com.
Any other ideas are welcome as well. We're tinkering with Then and Now photos, old Freeman pictures and more. But we want it to be yours, so do please let us know what you'd like to see featured there. Storify post with images follows.
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But why?
Well, there's only one thing a respectable journalist can do.

Love @NYTMetro and @Applebome, but you link to Red Goat page and not where "Bloods, Crips, goats" came from. GUYS! bit.ly/yzRuGJ

— Ivan Lajara (@ivanlajara) March 3, 2012

And, of course:

Seriously:

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