In the last year, my husband and I have had three separate weeklong furloughs (perhaps it wasn’t so wise to marry a journalist after all). These furloughs are, we’re told, what’s keeping us employed. According to my 2009 W-2, they are also making me earn the same salary as a manager working 50+ hour weeks as I did as an hourly employee two years out of college. Sadface.

(Aside: These are the times where I think back to freshman year at journalism school. I wonder what it would have been like to pick the PR or advertising tracts instead of news. Luckily, none of us went into this business to get rich.)

Furloughs have been something of a hidden blessing for some journalists. They’ve used the uninterrupted time away from work to learn new skills, take on freelancing work or send out resumes for new and better positions. Others have relished in the fact we can’t be contacted on furlough (as opposed to vacation), taking this precious time to spend with family and friends. I’ve used my time to do a bit of both.

A year ago, I had a furlough this same week. It was then that I launched Zombie Journalism to be a place for me to experiment with Wordpress, share some of the insights I learn on the job and get my name out there for future career opportunities. I hadn’t planned on it becoming a “real” blog – I don’t really have time to be a “real blogger” – but we’ve had our moments in the last year where it approached something kind of real.

I hope some readers have had an opportunity to learn something here in the last year. In the next year, I’ll try to write more and better posts that you’ll find interesting – and maybe even comment on every now and again. It started with a new URL – as I recently purchased ZombieJournalism.com (which has only become available since March 2009). I also plan a redesign very soon – so stay tuned.

If you have things you’d like to know as a fellow journalist, social media enthusiast, student, reader or stalker – let me know (it’ll certainly help with the writer’s block). Let’s make ZJ’s next year the One Where it Counts.

I’ve been temporarily sidelined by local elections and pneumonia, neither of which I can seem to put behind me even though they should be done by now.

I have lots in store, though, so don’t wander off. Fun stuff to come on Google Wave, the role of a social media editor in today’s newsrooms and lots and lots of links.

• Xark!: The betrayal of the Fourth Estate – It’s a rather bitter and angry screed about journalism, but it has some good links in there that are of note to those interested in the less-discussed parts of the industry…
• Delfi’s readers may lose the right to comment stories | balticbusinessnews.com – It isn’t in the US, but it is notable that a government may force a newspaper to shut down comments on stories altogether.
• Las Vegas Newspaper Subpoenaed to Reveal Commenters’ Identities – If you haven’t heard about this yet – it is only the beginning. We’ve heard lots of rumblings at the local level about going to court to find out who our commenters are, but it hasn’t reached this point yet. Problem is, many systems (like ours) don’t record the info the plaintiffs seek anyway.
• How Journalists Use Facebook | About – Some good ideas for how journalists can use Facebook. One note: You don’t have to close off and make FB exclusively for work or personal content – they have plenty of options to filter your data to have the best of both worlds.
• How to keep tabs on local traffic using maps and social media :: 10,000 Words :: multimedia, online journalism news and reviews – There are some great ideas here for using social media and mapping to track traffic. Your idea doesn’t have to be fancy or time-consuming. In fact, you could just create a collaborative Google Map.
• Study Finds Online Video Usage Dramatically Overstated | MediaPost Publications – This study seems to conflict with others like it, but it seems believable, at least, that it’s too early to call it quits for TV.

I’m not a developer – or even a web designer, really. I work in the online news department for the Cincinnati Enquirer. While I do build web pages within our existing servers and content management systems, this is my first crack at developing something in a new language. I have built several websites over the years (most defunct now), but this is an exciting new chance to learn PHP, Wordpress, content management and SEO.

Because of that afore-mentioned job, I might not post as often as those who do this sort of thing for a living (see the blogroll), but I hope to be a good resource for those looking for new ideas to save journalism.