Eric Janssen

I spent my morning speaking to a class of journalism students at the University of Memphis about how the news industry is rapidly evolving and the survivors are those who learn to adapt to our new environment.

The class seemed to "get it" and we spent quite a bit of time talking about Twitter, Facebook, comments and ways to improve audience engagement. Specifically with comments we discussed ways in which comments can add value to a story when some effort is exerted to cultivate that value.

We also watched a bit of Clay Shirky's interview about his book "Here Comes Everybody" and discussed how newspapers are uniquely positioned to lead community conversations and connect local communities. Additionally, newspapers can best filter through the noise that's generated by those in a community and find the signal that's important to the local audience.

It's always good to talk to students and today's group seemed like a good one.