CoPress

WordPress

We’re still actively searching for WordPress themes to use for our hosted Web sites (and of course, to recommend to you). That search has turned up this recent post on Running Design listing some top-notch news themes. We also came across a plugin called Pods that allows you to manage a database of information from the WordPress back end. It’s still a bit rough, but offers a lot of potential to news organizations looking to easily manage and present relational databases.

The Journalism World

The New York Times is running a blog-style debate from some of the top minds in journalism entitled Battle Plans for Newspapers. This seems like a constructive contribution to the debate over the future of newspapers, which has been raging anew since the TIME cover story on the topic last week. Jeff Jarvis has a good summary of all of the arguments so far in a post from earlier this week.

Further, Jim Stoval argues that the death of newspapers will lead to better journalism by giving rise the the digital newsroom—allowing journalists new and better ways of telling their stories.

Upcoming Events

• BarCamp NewsInnovation galore is occurring in both Portland and Chicago this coming Saturday (Feb 21).
• The Online Journalism Review is hosting a News Entrepreneur Boot Camp in LA from May 16-21. Apply now.

Three things you must click on

• Watch The Internet has turned the world on its head because because it destroys the traditional definition of economy: “rational actors maximizing their value through the acquisition/distribution of scarce resources.”
• Listen Journalism Now podcast. Episode number two is describing a community much like CoPress.
• Read Nationwide classroom No. 1: Writing for the Web Fantastic first steps to get your newsroom writing for the Web and breaking some habits that make sense in print, but not online.