Participatory journalism in an unlikely (or likely?) place: Adrian Holovaty talks about consuming as-it-happens news from where you least expect it, and also getting it from the sources that you least expect.

A Near-Perfect Flash News Portal: People are nitpicking this site under entirely unfair assumptions and agendas, and not looking at the site in the context of its audience: newly converted broadband customers.

Little Murders: Thirty years ago, editorial illustration in our mainstream media was provocative and smart, driving the words as often as following them. Today much of it is literal and safe, more decorative than idea-driven. How did this happen in an age where image is everything?

I am beginning to enjoy my array of available posting purgatories, along with the public transparency and cross-pollination of links and sources. Now I can have multiple levels of filtering, yet I (and everyone else) can see the original sources, such as my personal editorial process: scan all the content sources (bloglines.com/public/magnetbox), filter out the interested portions (del.icio.us/magnetbox), and decide what the general public gets to see (magnetbox.com).

I can’t help but think it would be amazing if content sources (news organizations?) did sort of the same idea, so that people could decide for themselves what level of news/filtering fits them best.

Curse of Youth: Two new Dallas papers are keeping tabs on the little futhermuckers: If you want your newspaper to appeal to young people, you must be willing to print the word “fuck.”

Eric Celeste writes about how to to appeal to the “younger crowd”, not by being brief and glossy, but by understanding their reading habits, writing smart, being useful, and reflecting the world they live in.

Commence skimming: “Much has been made of the dumbing-down of newspapers and magazines in this age of computers and television, but the main thing that gets my, and apparently only my, goat is the mass encroachment of subheads on the written word.”

News-Images.com: The days news in only images, scraped from news Web sites across the world.

Public broadcasting helps audience sort fact, fiction: NPR, PBS audience holds most accurate views of Iraq war, says new study. Fox News viewers were almost four times more likely than public broadcasting’s consumers to hold misperceptions about the war.

News Cycle: A look at some of the ownership links and content-sharing partnerships among major newspaper organizations shows their global reach. (See also: From Big Five to Fab Four?)

Web helps compete in community publishing: Even the smallest community newspapers can use the Web to compete not only against metro dailies, but against television as well. Here’s a look at how four newspaper sites take advantage of the Web, and some lessons that can be learned from their experiences.