I had the honor of participating in a panel discussion today at the Center for Nonprofit Management. The topic, “Meet the Media,” featured local reporters and editors along with yours truly as a local blogger (and admitted non-journalist). I think those in attendance enjoyed the conversation and gained some knowledge along the way, and I certainly hope they did. Here are some things I learned:

• Panel moderator and CNM President Lewis Lavine once worked on the “dark side,” public relations, as I have for the past decade.
• Editor Dave Raiford and the Nashville Business Journal are working on a new design for their print edition that will launch soon. A Web redesign will follow later this year. I’m looking forward to seeing both.
• City Paper Editor Clint Brewer has a three-week old baby at home, and he didn’t sleep so well last night. Never one to spare an opinion, he still had plenty of good and candid insight for the crowd despite his lack of rest.
• WPLN-FM reporter Christine Buttorff, and the rest of the panel for that matter, are out there reading local blogs. They dig Mike and Sean, among others, and said so by name. (I do, too.)
• By the way, check out WPLN’s pretty new Web site. I’ve apparently been listening more than visiting lately and missed this upgrade.
• Tennessean reporter Michael Cass and I are both comfortable arriving casually late (five minutes in this case), more so when we each realize we’re not the only ones who aren’t on time. I think Cass has been one of the best locally at juggling the competing duties of reporting and blogging that so many journalists now have on their plates.
• Something I haven’t learned: Is there a shortcut or subdomain for Metro Dispatch and other Tennessean blogs? The URL I found is one of the longer functional addresses I’ve come across in ages, but at least it works.
• CNM is preparing to launch its own blog later this month. Stay tuned.

There was a lot more useful information shared today, but it’s tough to take notes when you’re participating in a public discussion. (People keep expecting you to say things, you know.) If you work for a nonprofit but missed today’s session, check out CNM’s full-day new media workshop coming up in March.

Clarification: The NBJ will be launching a new version of its print edition soon and a Web redesign later in the year. I’ve corrected that in the original post above, too.