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

11 Jan 2010 09:33

tags

Biz: Online newspapers: Not many pay, but those that do pay handily

  • 2.4% of print newspaper subscribers are willing to pay money to get their traditional journalism online
  • anything the amount they can charge; those who pay are willing to pay whatever source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

10 Jan 2010 22:09

tags

Politics: We’re going to cut down an Atlantic story about cutting down stories

  • 89 ShortFormBlog’s word count
  • 1,844 Michael Kinsey’s word count
  • one Newspaper stories are too long and filled with too much flowery language.
  • two Too much space is devoted to attributing quotes and trying to balance the story.
  • three People are often quoted saying obvious things to push the story’s main points.
  • four Back in the day, journalists used inverted pyramid writing style; now we don’t.
  • five Michael Kinsey wrote a long story about how stories are too long. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Jan 2010 11:41

tags

Tech: The Skiff newspaper e-Reader: Half-baked or wholehearted?

  • Is Skiff the future of the news? As with any of these e-Reader devices, it’s too early to call, but it’s closer than most. TechCrunch says it’s an attempt to put the genie in the bottle again. We like the fact that it does nice newspaper layout. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Jan 2010 21:08

tags

Politics: Caving in to the TSA: Should bloggers fight to protect sources?

  • Anyone working with Frischling now knows that he’ll respect your confidentiality, just so long as it’s not inconvenient to his liberty. And that’s not respect at all. He let all bloggers down the other day when he willingly handed over his computer to the government.
  • TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington • Regarding travel blogger Steven Frischling, who caved to TSA investigators regarding documents that he released in the wake of the underwear bomber last week. Arrington feels that Frischling let down a lot of bloggers by not fighting the subpoena and instead caving in. The situation has been resolved, with the TSA dropping the subpoenas (fellow travel blogger Chris Elliot didn’t cave), but Arrington feels that bloggers need to fight to protect their sources in cases like this – and as a tech blog on the front line of situations like this (although not as life-or-death), he has some experience with this. We’re with him, but would like to point out that there’s not a lot of institutional support for many bloggers in the same way as traditional journalists. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Dec 2009 11:25

tags

Tech: RSS pioneer: Google Reader (and other products) failed RSS

  • It wouldn’t make you smarter, happier, worth more, have more friends, get laid more often, go to heaven or become a saint. Reading every story is a meaningless concept.
  • RSS co-inventor Dave Winer • Discussing how the syndication technology has been interpreted all wrong by feed readers, specifically Google Reader. The programs are designed like e-mail programs, which has had the end effect of making it so you’re encouraged to read everything, like e-mail. Winer continues, saying that Twitter has essentially nailed down the news-reading model RSS was trying for. “Twitter found a way to put both the authoring tool and the reading tool on the home page. Had I cracked that nut in 2002,” he says, “Twitter might have happened a few years earlier.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink

15 Dec 2009 08:50

tags

Biz: Editor & Publisher goes out with a bang, gets Warren Buffett

buffett1215

  • The owner of The Buffalo News will be featured in the magazine’s final issue before it goes off the stands. He takes the news industry to task for becoming complacent and says that top priority should be finding an online revenue stream. “It is so easy when you’ve got a wonderful business,” he said. “Complacency is pretty easy and it is why they weren’t looking over their shoulder at what was happening.”  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Dec 2009 11:20

tags

Biz: BREAKING: Editor & Publisher ceasing operations. Oh no!

One of the best publications ABOUT newspapers is gone. You know the newspaper industry is in bad shape when THAT happens. Le sigh. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

09 Dec 2009 10:31

tags

Culture: Dave Eggers latest work of staggering genius? A newspaper

  • We don’t pretend to have the solutions. We’re just asking a few questions. We admit how little we know, but we’re trying to luxuriate in print and maybe remind people of everything it can do.
  • Bestselling novelist and McSweeney’s founder Dave Eggers • On his latest gambit, the San Francisco Panorama, a 300-page newspaper he’s selling for $16. He had a little help from his friends – over 150 freelancers worked on the project, which is just as much a testament to the newspaper form as it is amazing art project which might get people excited about newspapers – and journalism in general – again. We know we are. Now where to we buy one of these? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

05 Dec 2009 10:22

tags

Tech: Reuters’ redesign is one of those designs that starts slow, gets better

Screen-shot-2009-12-05-at-10.11.32-AM

  • The interesting thing about Reuters’ redesign is the same thing that’s interesting about “All My Friends” by LCD Soundsystem: It starts out not looking like much, but as you get further down the page you realize that there’s a ton going on here. That’s how it starts, the way it does in bad films. Except the part where the motor kicks in. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Nov 2009 20:26

tags

Biz: Lawsuit: The Washington Times get $40 million a year from Moonies

  • That’s more than half the paper’s operating budget. Ever wonder if a bunch of really weird #&(& was going on at The Washington Post’s more conservative, religion-backed adversary? Based on a lawsuit that editorial page editor Richard Miniter is filing, it sounds like a fun place to work. Among other things, he says that the paper forced him to take part in religious ceremonies he was uncomfortable with. Hmm. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
<< newer 
top tags
older >>