An e-mail I sent around today about the Webinar we're having in Lee Hills on Wednesday:

Want to know what the heck that subject line is about? Want to know how the Semantic Web can help us build readership at ColumbiaMissourian.com?

If so, then you'll want to attend this Webinar on Wednesday. We'll meet at 1 p.m. in Lee Hills 308 (the Missourian conference room). Anyone and everyone may attend.

From the NewsU Web site:

What will I learn? The Semantic Web has the power to transform the way readers find what they are looking for online -- whether they know they are looking for it or not. For journalists, advances in the Semantic Web will dramatically change digital news. You’ll have the power to go beyond simple “tagging” and build rich connections among all your content: articles, images, motion and audio. But how can online journalists consistently and comprehensively semantically tag and, more importantly, semantically associate assets? How can you thrive in the Semantic Web?

In this one-hour Webinar, digital consultant Diane Burley will:

    * Explain tagging, taxonomies, authority files and knowledge bases
    * Show how to expose this rich metadata to create a better user experience
    * Explore ways to research or package news with greater ease
    * Look at some of the online tools and companies that can help Web editors and publishers automatically tag and associate


Want to learn more? Click here.

I received two pieces of really sad news this week:

1. Layoffs at the Tulsa World resulted in two former students being laid off. Both of them are hard-working, talented journalists, both of whom I enjoyed working with very much during their respective stints at MU. Here's hoping both land on their feet.
   
2. My old newspaper, the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, laid off two newsroom employees this week. This is especially disturbing considering that layoffs like this never happen there or at many family-owned papers. 

Oh, and the Rocky Mountain News is about to tank. At least one person in Denver is trying to do something about it.

Want to really see something depressing about the state of the media? Follow this Twitter feed.

If you hadn't heard, the Missourian is alive and well.

OK, so alive and well is a bit of an overstatement. The Missourian still loses a lot of money, but at least we're being given the opportunity to continue to turn that around.

We've received one hell of a commitment from the MU administration given the potential for disaster the next legislative session will likely involve. Basically, the state is looking at a major deficit, and MU is going to have to take some funding hits. We're doing our part by dropping two days of publication. I hate to see the Weekend Missourian go, but cutting the Monday paper is no loss in terms of advertising or content. The best elements of those two papers -- the Monday feature, the long-form features of the Weekend Missourian -- can potentially be incorporated elsewhere.

Am I happy about the decision to cut two publication days but continue 24/7 on the Web? You bet:

• Cutting two publication days gives us a chance to totally reinvent ourselves for print. Right now, we still fill the paper the way a traditional newspaper does it. We take our fair share of chances, but ultimately we're not that much different than any other daily in America. And if you hadn't heard, a lot of dailies ain't doing so well.
  
• This will give a staff that has been stretched pretty darn thin a chance to breathe and get to those things that are so important to the future of our industry, like refocusing our online efforts. That means lots of training, both in storytelling and in how to operate the darn software.
  
• Personally, I hope to find a way to reshape the opinion section into a "conversations" section. I want to spark thought and dialogue about whatever is important to our community -- sometimes that's state government, sometimes it's national, sometimes it's local. This change will give me the chance to refocus how space is allocated, come up with some innovative ideas for conversation starters, and potentially revamp our lineup of regular columnists. 
• I'm hoping this also gives us the chance to go tabloid in size (but not content). The smaller papers just feel more modern, and the potential for design is greater with a (mostly) square pallet than a vertical rectangle.
  

So, if you have any ideas on how we can totally revamp the Missourian into something people will want to read and advertisers would like to frequent, hit me up with a comment or an e-mail.