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ulken.com · Eric Ulken’s adventures in online journalism

One debate, two famous Larrys

I went to the Democratic presidential debate Thursday night at USC. I was one of the few lucky students to get a seat, since I'm in a politics class this semester. Larry King was the moderator. Before the broadcast began he came out to introduce the candidates ...

Germans hit the brakes

If you've always dreamed of accelerating your Benz to 200 km/h on one of Germany's autobahns (and doing it legally), you might want to start making your travel plans. Because, from the looks of it, the days of the speed demons' reign over the road there may be numbered. My ...

Originality gap

A quick google on the phrase "credibility gap" yields about 32,000 results in the past three months, most frequently in reference to the president. (To be fair, though, the term is applied to the media in a few instances.) This reminds me of the epidemic spread of the words "lurid" ...

California, here I come!

I'm starting the new year with a new adventure... Tomorrow (New Year's Day) I'll set out on a road trip to Los Angeles, where I'm entering grad school in communication management at USC's Annenberg School for Communication. If all goes well, I'll be in Lala-land Sunday night.

A semi-smoggy day in L.A.

The ‘Berg burns

New design

Fun facts about left-handedness

To An Anxious Friend


January 25th 2011
Category: News No Comments

Back to the newsroom, off to Seattle

When I left the Los Angeles Times in the depths of the 2008 financial crisis -- a time when the newspaper industry's future looked particularly bleak -- I wondered wistfully if I was walking away from my last newspaper job. I'd worked for newspaper companies my entire career, and despite ...
January 23rd 2011
Category: Views One Comment

Libraries: An appreciation

If I couldn't be a journalist, I think I'd be a librarian. I decided this after spending a lot of time in libraries in the last couple of years and interacting with some very smart (and completely unstuffy) librarians. Maybe it's because, as it turns out, journalists and librarians have a ...
August 20th 2010
Category: Idea file 3 Comments

Flash in the pan?

I am an ex-Flash user. I uninstalled the Flash plug-in on my primary browser about a month ago, and I haven't looked back. Here's how it happened: Back when Apple announced that its forthcoming iPad would lack Flash support, it sounded to me like a boneheaded move. If a device built ...
March 21st 2010
Category: Events No Comments

Continue the discussion here

Thanks to all who turned out today at UBC Robson Square for my workshop on online tools and techniques for journalists. I'm creating this post as a way to continue the discussion online. If you have questions or comments on the topics we discussed, please share them in the comments, ...
March 6th 2010
Category: News No Comments

Checking in from Canada

In the four months since my last post — yes, I'm a terrible blogger — I've moved to Vancouver and started teaching at the University of British Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. Among other things, I'm coordinating the school's Integrated Journalism course, required of all first-year students, and advising some ...