http://tamharbert.com Award-winning journalist specialized in providing compelling, insightful content on technology, business and government Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:01:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I remember how excited I was when I first read about Verizon’s FIOS technology. The company intended to blanket the country with fiber-optic lines, bringing lightning-fast Internet, wonderful high-definition TV and low-cost, reliable phone service to millions of homes. I was especially thrilled that I’d finally have another Internet service ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/verizon-and-the-big-tease-fios/ As every freelancer knows, working from home has its pros and its cons. Among the pros: spending all that extra time with family. Among the cons: having family assume that since you’re there, you’re always available to them. We’ve all had to manage this delicate balance. I’ve adjusted to different types ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/love-those-interruptions/ I didn’t learn much about art in journalism school. The professors who taught reporting, writing and editing focused on gathering information, checking facts and writing a story that answered the five Ws: who, what, when, where and why. The art – if there was any at all – was someone ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/the-art-of-journalism/ At the Future of Freelancing conference in June at Stanford University, Richard Koci Hernandez, a Ford Foundation Multimedia Fellow at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, gave an excellent presentation on multimedia reporting. It essentially boiled down to “teach yourself.” That’s nothing new for freelancers. But doing all the research ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-multimedia-reporting/ Journalism is all about telling a great story. That hasn’t changed, and never will. That was the happy message at the “Future of Freelancing” conference held last week at Stanford University. Several sessions served to inspire the 120-plus mid-career freelancers in attendance, telling us to stay brave and persistent in pursuing ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/journalism-2-0/ I’m looking forward to attending “The Future of Freelancing,” a conference this week at Stanford University. Co-sponsored by the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists and the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the conference’s goal is to “help freelancers explore their evolving careers and stay inspired.” Well, I ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/does-the-future-of-freelancing-include-journalists/ Many of my stories are both printed in a magazine and posted on the Web. I’ve always asked editors to send me issues of the magazines, so I have hard-copy clips of my work to show potential clients. But as print disappears, more and more of my stories live solely ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/clips-become-clicks-and-then-are-gone/ As a professional journalist, I write about specific topics. Sometimes it’s a topic I’ve chosen and pitched to a publication. Sometimes it’s assigned by an editor. But either way, I have to follow that particular publication’s model, in terms of the angle on the topic as well as the tone ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/everyone-nedes-an-editor/ I wonder how much difference the new healthcare legislation is going to make in a system in which doctors are indifferent to costs and in fact often favor expensive and elaborate treatments over individualized patient care and common sense. When I see a doctor, I pay attention to prices. My high-deductible ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/the-shell-game-of-healthcare-costs/ Story structure is one of the most difficult aspects of journalistic writing. It’s also the most important. After all, structure is what makes a story, a story. Sometimes when a story’s hard to edit and I can’t figure out why, it eventually dawns on me that it has a bad ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/the-guiding-light-of-a-story-its-destination/