Patrick Beeson

Latest blog entries

• 'Practical' tips for working with Django

  Everything I did building the content management system for this Web site was wrong.

  Actually, that might be an overstatement since this Web site works quite well (better than it did in Movable Type). But in the course of building a new Django content management system (CMS) that will drive the new, soon-to-be-launched Young Professionals of Knoxville Web site, I've learned a lot of useful techniques.

  Much of my new-found knowledge is due to Django Release Manager James Bennett's wonderful book "Practical Django Projects."

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  • Patrick Beeson
  • July 10, 2008
  • 5 p.m.
  • Nine comments

• Online journalism skills: then and now

  Traditional skills still rule among online journalists working in North Carolina newsrooms.

  No, we haven't time-warped to 2005. Rather this statement is the result of a study currently being conducted by Ryan Thornburg, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

  Thornburg also found that most online journalists skew young, with most having less than 10 years of experience. And the majority, 82 percent, have at least an undergraduate degree with 19 percent having post-graduate education.

  I've never worked in a North Carolina newsroom. But I did get most of my post-graduate online journalism experience working for The Roanoke Times/roanoke.com.

  So how does Thornburg's findings compare to my own skill set while working as a young online journalist?

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  • Patrick Beeson
  • July 10, 2008
  • 8:06 a.m.
  • No comments

• Twittering newspaper layoffs

  The Palm Beach Post, a Cox Newspapers owned publication in the real-estate embattled Florida, dropped a bomb on their employees today by eliminating 300 of 1,350 full-time positions from the newsroom, advertising, production and circulation departments.

  Boom.

  Unfortunately, this isn't the first large-scale newspaper layoff recently. It's just one of many happening in media outlets across the county.

  But for the first time, I read the carnage as it happened via Online Innovations Editor William Hartnett's Twitter updates.

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  • Patrick Beeson
  • June 25, 2008
  • 9:04 p.m.
  • Four comments

About me

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• Resume (PDF)