The Albany Times Union, a Hearst Corporation newspaper, announced Wednesday in an article that it plans two close its bureaus in Troy and Saratoga Springs and "embrace an industry trend toward mobile journalism."

The article went on to state that the change could increase the presence of Times Union journalists in New York's Capital District due to the fact that their personnel would "be equipped and trained to work as mobile journalists who can report and file stories from outside a traditional newsroom".

Further down, they bring up the notion and benefits of "coffee-shop" journalism, mentioning how Journal Register Co., which owns The Record in Troy and The Saratogian in Saratoga Springs, has been "experimenting" with the additions of coffee shops and Internet cafes to its newsrooms.

First off, good for them. It's nice to see media companies come to the realization that having physical remote offices are a thing of the past.

However, the article is a tad misleading in its structure.

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When it comes to Internet traffic, providing up-to-date, quality content is a key factor in driving the amount of page views that you can get. Being able to do that requires some kind of modern mobile technology - a resource that can be extremely valuable if you know how to utilize it.

Take last Saturday for example, when I loaned my ideaLab iPhone to our high school sports reporter Will Montgomery to cover a regional football game being played down in Kingston.

Will has always tried to keep up with his blog just about everyday and put as much useful information for readers on there as he possibly can.

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First off, I regret that I haven't updated this blog in about two weeks. Things have been rather hectic around the office as we prepared to launch The Record's Stimulus Tracker, a week-long JRC project which showcases the impact the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has had on the nation.

I've also been working to set up and manage a few photo contests that we're hoping will attract a decent level of reader participation throughout the rest of 2010.

Our Halloween contest, “Fright Night”, is currently accepting entries for anyone in the Capital Region who wants a chance at some restaurant gift certificates and a larger grand prize we hope to soon announce. Click here to check it out.

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After having success with my first ideaLab project of getting reporters to go mobile when filing their articles, which I'm continuing to encourage around the office, I've chosen to make my second ideaLab project focus on developing uses for our on-site Community Media Lab.

Our media lab at The Record is a mid-sized room located off of the main entrance to our building at 501 Broadway in Troy. At the moment it is set up with several long tables to host meetings and presentations, but we hope to soon bring some technology such as a netbook computer and television display into the environment as well.

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When we first set our ideaLab goals, I wanted to tackle having all of our reporters (news and sports) file their content from the field. My goal in this, besides just getting everyone familiar with the technology, was to help everyone realize that adjusting their work flow in this way could actually save them a fair amount of time and be more productive in their day-to-day schedules.

With our new reporters, this was a slow process due to the limited number of devices we have. I loaned out the netbook and iPad to reporters who were covering various court cases, town meetings, press conferences, and election parties – anything where they were out of the office and could take advantage of filing from the field while working on most of their articles remotely.

All of them have done this at least once now and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. They loved being able to use the netbook to take notes and write their articles as they went, rather than having to transcribe and try to read their own messy handwriting. They also like the immediacy of the process and how that especially helpful when reporting on deadline.

Sports reporters have been doing this for a while now and understand the benefits, as they spend most of every week out of the office covering their games, practices, and other events. Sometimes, such as when they're at high school games, they do not have traditional WI-FI to take advantage of or a real press box, so I'm lending them my ideaLab tools to help conquer that challenge.

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Many have that question today, across the news industry as well as at Journal Register Company.

I don't have the exact answer myself, but as I've watched our progress in recent weeks, I can safely say that I am witnessing its creation.

Thanks to the addition of high tech tools in the newsroom, we at The Record have made the digital side of news more a part of our everyday routines, as opposed to the former thinking that it was just extra work on top of print preparation.

Take this morning for example. We had an editorial board meeting scheduled with Steve McLaughlin, a Republican candidate for state Assembly, at 10 a.m. In addition to the usual group of bodies (editors, a reporter, photographer, and myself to handle social media/web updates), we were recording video from two different setups.

We had our traditional Sony HD camera on a tripod with a microphone on the table close to the candidate to record the meeting so that we could edit down and upload a video later in the day. But, for the first time locally, we also gave live-streaming a try using my ideaLab iPhone.

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In line with my goal of getting our reporters and photographers to file their content from the field over the next month, I thought I'd take a few minutes to explain some of the benefits I see coming out of this at the local level for The Record.

First off, I'm not envisioning that we are going to be the ones who report every bit of local news faster than our competition. It'll be great when it happens that way and I certainly encourage our staff to strive for that when possible, but, being realistic, we won't be doing something new in the industry so much as catching up to the numerous other news outlets across our area and the country that have been doing this for years now. They've already developed mobile journalism as part of their normal reporting routines (something I hope to see happen over time locally as well).

That being said, I think it's a great benefit to be able to provide the news as we learn it at the office, whether it's some large breaking event like a shooting or bank robbery, or simpler events like the outcome of a city council vote on local legislation.Read more »