With a solid career in news design Joe Zeff, has become a top designer of apps. Formerly the graphics director at TIME, Zeff designs apps that, among other things, focus on telling stories.

His latest project is Spies of Mississippi, Free in the iTunes store. “Spies of Mississippi” is also a book and a PBS show. All tell about the state campaign to block African American voting rights during the civil rights movement. Zeff’s project, which includes documents that help tell the story, is described as “Unlike a book or documentary, this ‘appumentary’ leverages the multimedia capabilities of the iPad to enable audiences to engage, explore and respond.” We’ll talk about the marriage of traditional journalist values and storytelling with new forms and how journalists can get ready for those opportunities.

Here is a replay of the live chat.

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Rodney Curtis is not right. Like thousands of other journalists, he got laid off. Unlike all the others, though, he decided this would make a funny book, “Getting Laid (Off).” Who does that? Seriously, folks, American Society of News Editors surveys show that newsroom employment is down from a peak of 56,900 in 1989 to 38,000 in 2012. The 2013 number is expected to be smaller.

Poynter career chats feature job opportunities and strategies for journalists, but the new journalism jobs have not filled that gap and many have had to leave the industry. Curtis’ approach seems to be that if you can’t beat ‘em, tickle ‘em. Has it worked for Curtis? Can it work for anyone else?

See below a replay of our Wednesday, April 23, talk with Curtis.

Visit www.poynter.org/chats to find an archive of all past chats.

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The startup Beacon, one of the newer efforts to fund independent journalists, says it has signed up 100 journalists and several thousand subscribers.

Shane Bauer is now featured on the site, trying to attract funding so that he can cover U.S. prisons for a year. As of Tuesday night, $14,520 had been raised, 19 percent of his goal. The post says a backer has pledged to match up to $37,500. Bauer has a little more than three weeks to raise what he needs. Contributors will get access to Bauer’s stories and all the other stories on the site.

Other journalists on Beacon have told stories about climate change, GMOs, social media and countries around the world.

Could this work for you? Is this a model for supporting journalists and getting stories out? We talked with Beacon’s Adrian Sanders on Wednesday, April 2. Read the replay below.

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In remarks for the College Media Association conference in New York on March 13, Associated Press Vice President Lou Ferrara issued a wake-up call for sports reporters.

He said traditional sports journalism is changing, that game coverage is waning and that general news coverage is what the AP and others need now. Ferrara joined us in a Poynter careers chat at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday to map out the needs.

Ferrara helps the AP orchestrate coverage of big-time sports events like the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and he has some very specific tips about how sports journalists can get ready for the craft’s future needs.

A replay of the chat is below.

Visit www.poynter.org/chats to find an archive of all past chats.

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As states move to lift local bans on marijuana use, reporters and editors are increasingly faced with the question of how to cover the drug as more than a crime story.

Communities where pot is legal are faced with a complex set of issues like preventing underage access to the drug, appropriately regulating the supply chain, determining where growers and distributors should be located, and enforcing bans that prevent citizens from taking marijuana out of state in cars and on airplanes.

Journalists from two states that have legalized recreational marijuana — Colorado and Washington — talked about their approaches to covering the regulation, business, consumption and consequences of legalized medical and recreational marijuana.

Ricardo Baca, editor of The Denver Post’s marijuana website and of its pot coverage, and Bob Young, who writes about marijuana for The Seattle Times, joined Poynter’s Kelly McBride to discuss the challenges they encounter following pot’s legalization. They also shared the lessons they have learned in reporting on marijuana topics from business licensing to recipes and suggest best practices to follow in writing about legalized pot.

Find the archive of all past chats at www.poynter.org/chats.

Related training: On the Beat: Covering Cops and Crime | On the Beat: Covering the Courts Read more

Shane Snow, cofounder with two friends of Contently, manages a network of 25,000 freelancers. According to Contently’s website, the sweet spot where these freelancers thrive is creating content for “brands, nonprofits, and lean new media companies.”

Snow and his team, described as a mashup of journalists and nerds, are on the front edge of branded content or native advertising.

Forbes, a Contently client, recognized Snow this month in “30 under 30: These People are Building the Media Companies of Tomorrow.”

Snow joined us for a live chat on the opportunities, challenges and values of sponsored content.

Participants asked Snow about the ins and outs of branded content.

Twitter users can participate in any Poynter live chat using the hashtag #poynterchats. You can revisit this page at any time to replay the chat after it has ended. You can find the archive of all past chats at www.poynter.org/chats.

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