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11 Jan 2010 10:44

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Politics: Gawker has a couple of ideas on journalism worth heeding

  • one Newspapers are wasting their time covering time-sensitive information long after it happened.
  • two Websites should do some of their own reporting instead of relying on newspapers to do it for them.
  • three Both sides should stop being angry at each other and find some freaking common ground. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Jan 2010 09:33

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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

05 Jan 2010 10:55

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Politics: Fox News cuts off satellite feeds of politicians they don’t like

  • That was the most unrealistic loss of satellite feed we’ve ever seen. It comes up in the last 20 seconds of the clip, but it’s worth watching, because it comes out of nowhere and the Fox News host appears not to be surprised by the cutoff at all, like she knew it was coming. Rep. Joe Sestak lost his final word as a result of the kerfluffle.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 3 Comments • Permalink

03 Jan 2010 11:16

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Tech: Life after magazines: Daily Beast editor modestly kicks @$$

Tina Brown, already a vet of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, has built The Daily Beast into a hype-free News 2.0 beast in just over a year. Not bad. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Dec 2009 09:12

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Politics: Slate all weirded out by its al-Qaeda equivalent, Sada al-Malahim

  • There’s even an Explainer-like feature that answers reader questions about current topics in jihadism. (Here’s one: The prophet commanded us to expel infidels from the Arabian Peninsula. Which countries was he referring to?)
  • Slate writer Brian Palmer • Discussing the existence of Sada al-Malahim, an online magazine for terrorists. He compares it to Slate, saying that the publications have quite a few things in common. Palmer notes that while it’s not the terrorist organization’s first foray into long-form publications, “it is the first to be released on a fairly reliable schedule over a number of years.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Dec 2009 11:25

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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

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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 01:36

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U.S.: We’re going to use three circles to describe Afghan War support

  • 51% support the idea of sending more troops to Afghanistan
  • 43% prefer to keep the troops we have now – if none at all
  • 6% don’t really care either way because they don’t wanna source
  • For some reason, we had been wanting to play with a style like this on the blog for months, but only got to doing it tonight. Let us know what you think and you might see it more often. (P.S.: Not to be harsh, but if you’re reading this using Internet Explorer, this is gonna look ugly, but we’re OK with that. Maybe it’ll convince you to get a better browser or something.)
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink

06 Dec 2009 20:32

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World: Save the date: A parliamentary election hits Iraq early next year

  • 2/27/10 the expected vote date source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Dec 2009 10:22

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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
 
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