http://tamharbert.com Award-winning journalist specialized in providing compelling, insightful content on technology, business and government Mon, 13 May 2013 14:35:26 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Lack of health insurance is the single biggest barrier to freelancing today. Unless they’re married, with an employed spouse with health insurance for the family, most journalists will think more than twice about jumping ship for a freelance career. And if they’ve been laid off, many writers dismiss freelancing as ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/will-new-health-law-set-would-be-freelancers-free/ When I said goodbye at the end of the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), held in New York City last week, there were hugs all around. Over the previous three days, I had renewed contact with former friends and colleagues as well as met new ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/asja-conference-reminds-me-how-lucky-i-am/ A report from one of the country’s preemminent journalism schools has concluded that the news business as we know it is dead. That may not be a big surprise to many reporters, including the younger generation who did not grow up in the “all the news that’s fit to print” ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/journalism-is-dead-long-live-journalists/ At first, I thought it was just my paranoid imagination. I was getting lots of static on my home phone line. I’d call my phone company, Verizon, they’d make some adjustment and it would go away. Then a few weeks later the static would be back. In the ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/pulling-the-plug-on-the-home-phone/ With all the doom and gloom in the journalism business these days, freelancers are often depicted as the desperate castoffs of publishing, taking on part-time temporary work because they have nowhere else to turn. But that’s not true for most freelancers. And somebody has finally done some research that ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/freelancing-a-choice-not-a-punishment/ In a recent essay in The Atlantic – “Siri, Take This Down: Will Voice Control Shape Our Writing?" – Robert Rosenberger ponders how voice recognition technology will affect the written word. Just as technology that enabled typing – first on typewriters and then on computers –eclipsed handwriting, Rosenberger ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/speak-to-me-how-writers-tell-their-stories/ What exactly is a blog? Ever since the term first emerged (derived from combining the words “web” and “log”), it has had sort of a squishy definition. Is it a personal diary online? Some are. Opinion and analysis on current events, or what used to be called an op-ed column? ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/the-many-flavors-of-blogging/ As we celebrate our freedoms this Fourth of July, it’s ironic that I had a very un-freedom-of-the-press experience last week. A government official asked me at a public meeting to stop snapping photos with my iPhone. Ever since I got the phone last year, I’ve been hearing how useful it ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/iphone-gives-press-more-freedom-but-makes-some-in-government-nervous/ Sometimes I pause between video chatting with my sister on my smart phone and watching the latest episode of “Grimm” on my iPad, and I marvel at the accelerating march of technology and the incredible digital revolution that we’re in the midst of. After my reporting adventures of the last few ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/big-data-is-a-big-deal/ If you want to be a better corporate employee, act more like a freelancer. That seems to be the message in a recent report by IBM. The company has been surveying CEOs every two years since 2004. The result of this year’s poll – of 1,700 CEOs in 64 countries - ... http://tamharbert.com/blog/the-ideal-corporate-employee-is-a-freelancer/