You hear a lot said about how news organizations need to help people “make sense of the world.” I’ve used the idea myself to show how news organizations need to realize they sell convenience, not news. We all kind of know what we mean by the concept, but it doesn’t have a clear definition.
On Thursday, [...]

Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has just released a new study on news consumption habits across platforms.
The big takeaway: Americans want their news portable (33% of cell phone users now access news on their devices), personalized (28% of internet users have customized home pages) and participatory (37% of Internet users have contributed to a [...]

[Every Friday, Mark Coddington sums up the week’s news about the future of news and the debates that grew up around them. —Josh]
The iPad’s big reveal: Apple unveiled its new tablet — the unfortunately named iPad — on Wednesday, a week before the Super Bowl, and the buzz was as least as big: The Internet practically broke [...]

The AP’s Andrew Vanacore had an easily digestible story over the holidays about the problems about to befall nation’s local TV stations — and how they could spell the end of “free” TV.
Turns out, the nation’s big four TV networks are pondering ways that they can cut local affiliates out of the revenue stream [...]

[EDITOR'S NOTE: We're highlighting a few of the entries in this year's Knight News Challenge, which just closed Tuesday night. Did you know of an entry worth looking at? Email Mac or leave a brief comment on this post. —Josh]
Former Indianapolis Star software developer Chris Vannoy brings something unusual to his News Challenge application: a [...]

The New York Times today debuted its Bay Area Report, a two-page, twice-weekly spread of local news that it hopes will boost print circulation in San Francisco, already the paper’s largest market outside the Northeast. The accelerated launch puts the Times ahead of its rival, The Wall Street Journal, in their battle for national print [...]

The web has disrupted the way news organizations think about geography and concepts like “national” and “local.” National newspapers like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are planning local editions in the Bay Area and elsewhere, where online competition has weakened local newspapers. National brands like ESPN and the Huffington Post are launching [...]

With 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, there’s bound to be some useful local news in there. Finding it is another matter.
Toward that end, YouTube earlier this year rolled out a News Near You feature that showcases local stories from media outlets and independent reporters. I checked in with Steve Grove, head [...]

San Francisco-based Spot.Us is expanding its crowdfunded journalism tools to Los Angeles, a move founder David Cohn hinted at in an interview with Zach in June. 
The expansion ushers in a refocusing for Spot.Us, as the nonprofit puts its development energy into serving as a platform rather than eyeing growth as a full-fledged news organization. Cohn [...]

If there’s one place where print journalism is thriving, it’s the stoop outside my apartment building in Boston. I counted 12 daily newspapers tossed against the steps at dawn this morning. But a look underneath their plastic wrapping reveals a crucial trend: Among the dozen papers, just one was The Boston Globe. Six were The [...]

Spot.Us, the non-profit experiment in journalism funded by readers, plans to expand beyond San Francisco by the end of summer, founder David Cohn tells me in the interview above. Seattle and Los Angeles are the most likely candidates for the site’s next iteration, and in the longer term, Spot.Us is looking to the east coast [...]