Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on Twitter • Be a Facebook Fan • Tumble us!

05 May 2010 11:53

tags

Biz: The Washington Post could sell Newsweek. We blame this cover.

  • It’s a rough time to be a weekly periodical. And with losses spanning over years, The Washington Post may be ready to let go of its main competitor to Time. Alas, poor Newsweek. You were like a younger brother to Time. We remember how we felt the first time we heard “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard” and heard your name mentioned in it. It made us proud. It wasn’t as cool as “On the Cover of the Rolling Stone,” but Paul Simon knew the score. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 May 2010 11:03

tags

Biz: CNN and CBS News: Two great tastes that taste great together?

  • CNN The news network has been getting
    killed in the ratings, but still has one
    of the best news-gathering crews in
    the industry (when not distracted by
    fluff). And hey, Anderson Cooper!
  • CBS News The network had to cut back on
    their news staff, but sees CNN as a
    way to stay competitive. They’re
    also getting killed in the ratings – oh
    hey, Anderson Cooper! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 May 2010 10:21

tags

Politics: Times Square incident: Sunday talk shows rife with speculation?

  • When they say it’s certainly a one-off, it’s an appropriate question to say, ‘How do you know that; was this based on real briefings?’ To me, the most basic question in journalism is, ‘How do you know that?’ They won’t always tell you, but you can gauge a lot by their response.
  • Columbia University graduate journalism Professor John Dinges • Regarding the seemingly knowledgeable responses of leaders on the Sunday talk shows about an incident that happened just the night before. Many of them – including New York Sen. Charles Schumer and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano – spoke of the incident as if they had the evidence to say it was a lone wolf incident, at a point when investigators were still working. While each claimed later that they had been briefed about the incident beforehand by authorities, it still raised a lot of questions, especially since the investigation was just beginning. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Apr 2010 23:49

tags

Politics: WTF CNN? Site poses a big question on network’s soft news

  • CNN has a journalism problem. Some argue that its overly soft content focus, both online and on TV, is why the network is getting killed in the ratings. That’s what WTFCNN.com argues – it compares the CNN front page to a hard-news front page. But we have to admit, the two front page examples we hit here don’t exactly sell their argument well. Greece is a big freaking deal, but then again, so is 5,000 barrels of oil flooding the ocean daily. And hey, if a first lady is going to accuse someone of poisoning her husband, that seems reasonably important. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Apr 2010 17:10

tags

Tech: Apple learns that blocking editorial cartoonists a dumb idea

Pulitzer winner Mark Fiore had his app rejected. Now he has a second chance. “It’s not like I had a phone number for someone at Apple. Interestingly enough, I do now.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Apr 2010 10:10

tags

Politics: The professional god-like newspaper critic: A dying art form?

  • We’re all critics. If I were starting Entertainment Weekly today, it wouldn’t be a magazine, and it likely wouldn’t hire critics.
  • Entertainment Weekly founder (and iPad hatah) Jeff Jarvis • Regarding the state of criticdom. With a much wider variety of voices and the decline of the newspaper industry, the importance of movie, music, food and book critics is quickly declining, and some wonder if the nuance of the art will go away. “If Roger Ebert says it, does it carry value? Yes,” Jarvis notes. “But how many Roger Eberts are out there, and how many do we need?” Personally, we like Roger, but Metacritic gives a wider range. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink

11 Apr 2010 23:43

tags

Politics: Max Headroom: Newser’s Michael Wolff misses the point of short

  • We’ve been following the Newser/the wrap tiff with great interest. Because we find the whole thing silly. Today, the conflict took a turn for the insane, with poor Howard Kurtz right in the middle. As fellow ShortFormers, we agree with Michael Wolff’s ideals, but the problem lies with his execution. There’s no respect for the content. (Although we feel Sharon Waxman’s rules of the road are a bit extreme.)

  • the conflict First off, we want to encourage everyone to go to Mediaite for more context. (Their clips are great. Their embeds, not so much. Please fix this, guys. We love you!) Anyway, it’s clear what’s happening here. Waxman asks for something reasonable (fair attribution that encourages further reading on her site). Wolff bites her head off. Ouch!

  • Newser‘s Goals Recently, Wolff was trying to make his arguments about the shortening of content on GRITtv, and on their face, we totally agree with them. Problem is, it seems like he’s done this in a self-serving way. Look, Michael, we like short, too, but respect the sites you’re pulling from. In the long term, this lack of respect only hurts you.

  • The Wrap‘s goals This promotional video made near the time of The Wrap’s launch shows similarly lofty goals for Waxman’s brand of entertainment journalism. Seems to us there’s room for both Waxman’s ideas and Wolff’s. The problem, it seems to us, is that Newser seems to lack respect for Waxman’s work. Yo, Michael – make deals, not enemies.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

09 Apr 2010 20:55

tags

Biz: To: Media General, From: Us – Re: Your consolidation efforts

  • You know, people will notice this stuff eventually. Yesterday, newspaper chain Media General announced that it was combining the design and copy-editing efforts of its papers in Richmond, Va., Winston-Salem, N.C., and Tampa, Fla. – three papers that have nothing to do with one another geographically. They’re not the first papers to get treated this way, but they are the biggest. And it’s completely not fair to the communities. Here’s why:
  • These aren’t production jobs The nature of moves like these seems to assume that copy-editing and design functions aren’t really journalism – at least not in the same way as reporting. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the editorial process that puts distance between the journalism and the community.
  • Quality will suffer greatly The fact of the matter is, some dude copy-editing a story in Tampa will not understand the nature and nuance of a story in Winston-Salem. Nor will a designer in a similar position. While Media General is playing this as a move to maintain local focus, it won’t work. It’s a damn shame. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Apr 2010 15:32

tags

Tech: Want to print your own newspaper? In the U.K., you totally can.

By taking advantage of large newspaper presses’ offtime, The Newspaper Club has been able to turn out small print runs for anyone, cheap. (Hat tip @10000words) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Apr 2010 15:09

tags

Biz: We’re gonna use this post to link to the Nikkei’s home page

  • Why? Because they say we can’t. The Japanese business newspaper is following the lead of a lot of newspapers worldwide by adding a paywall, but their paywall is way beyond that of, say, the Wall Street Journal. First, you have to submit a written application to link to the site (which we didn’t do). And second, they’ve gone and disabled the copy function on their site. Why? Because they’ve seen American papers open the floodgates and lose readership as a result. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
<< newer 
top tags
older >>