Topix Editor News

Now that kids have had their fair share of Halloween candy and November is here, the Thanksgiving page needs some love from our beloved Topix editors!

It is a big day around these parts. I hit the polls early this morning, then tuned in to news on my way into the office. Election coverage is happening everywhere you look. Some of you might even be a little tired of hearing about it by this point, but we're in the home stretch. Today is the last day of pre-election coverage, so let's use it!

Today we turn the spotlight on HOGstr, an active editor who never lets the dust settle on the Offbeat news forum. HOGstr is a shining example of a Topix editor, constantly keeping the news page updated with interesting stories. Who would have ever imagined one could share a passion for both Harley Davidsons and Chihuahuas? Let’s see what she has to say!

You don't need to visit Sarah Palin's hairdresser in Wasilla to copy her "do", just visit the Halloween forum on Topix and read the article posted on a "How you can look like Sarah Palin on Halloween."

As a Topix editor, you may have had a posted story killed before.

There are the 2 main reasons why a story may be removed.

Did you know Topix has a fan page on Facebook? If you're a Facebook user, feel free to join the Topix fanbase!

Hope to see you there!

We wanted to make sure you were aware of our newest page design change and clear up any confusion.

Currently all stories that wrap around the vertical ad on news pages will not show story photos. Once there are enough stories to push your story past the advertisement, your story's photo will reappear again.

Living in Los Angeles, I've discovered that the biggest movie fans anywhere are the people who work in the film industry. (Okay, I've also heard many times the easy joke about them having plenty of time to see movies, 'cause so many of them are usually out of work.) But you can find the same affinity in many fields. My wife is a professional violinist, and her music industry friends have the largest CD and MP3 collections I've ever seen - and not just classical, but rock, pop, jazz, blues, funk and show tunes, too.

Put your site online, without much money or tech effort, using these blog and content management tools.

To help you learn some of these skills and start experimenting with online journalism, we’ve assembled a list of sites and programs that will help you quickly and easily begin using multimedia and the internet to advance your reporting and your storytelling. All of these applications are low-cost. Most are free, though some ask you to pay to access advanced functionality. All are free of spyware and adware, as far as we know (though it is always good to do an Internet search on anything you download and install to be sure). And each should make the work of creating great journalism online at least a little easier.

The biggest challenge facing the journalism industry today is not declining readership, the economy or even the Internet – it is the increased competition that the Internet has made possible.

People are reading, offline and on. People continue to demand information about the communities and their world. Despite the crashing housing market and turmoil in credit markets, billions of dollars are flowing through the American advertising and media industries. (See OJR's link last week to the latest Pew Report on the state of the news media for support for those statements.) Continue reading...