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28 Feb 2011 08:36

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Politics: SAY IT AIN’T SO! Andrew Sullivan heading to The Daily Beast

  • As far as political Punditry goes, this is like LeBron James leaving the Cavs. Andrew Sullivan, who in our opinion wrote the script on what a good political site is supposed to be, is moving. This time, he’s taking “The Daily Dish” from The Atlantic (whose fortunes improved in large part thanks to his site) to The Daily Beast, and will contribute to Newsweek to boot. Andy’s grown a bit more liberal over the years – though he’ll never admit it to your face – but he’s still an essential read nonetheless. While Andy is sad about leaving a company that he helped lead to their first year of profitability in ages, “The chance to be part of a whole new experiment in online and print journalism, in the Daily Beast and Newsweek adventure, is just too fascinating and exciting a challenge to pass up.” Right now, though, we admit to having that lump in our throat knowing that our favorite team just lost its best player to the Miami Heat. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Dec 2010 22:29

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Biz: Well that’s cool: The Atlantic (on top of being great) is profitable

  • We imagined ourselves as a venture-capital-backed start-up in Silicon Valley whose mission was to attack and disrupt The Atlantic. In essence, we brainstormed the question, ‘What would we do if the goal was to aggressively cannibalize ourselves?’
  • Atlantic Media Company president Justin B. Smith • Revealing the secret that The Atlantic has used to become profitable this year after years in the red. Much of what they’ve done has not been to focus on the magazine, but to find ways to reinvent itself on the Web. The hiring of Andrew Sullivan from Time.com was a very good starting point;  from there, they’ve created really cool things to go along with that. (The Atlantic Wire – apparently a big success for the company –occasionally links to us, which is neat.) It’s cool to see a magazine like The Atlantic – long seen as the smartest kid on the block – reinvent itself for the Web. So, hey, Atlantic, since you’re thinking reinvention, whaddya think of a site that presents news in number-and-quote-and-blurb form? We hear it’s a growth market or something like that. (thanks futurejournalismproject)  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Dec 2010 23:14

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Biz: Did we really profit off Citi, or are we still in the danger zone?

  • So assuming that the banking sector doesn’t suffer another crisis in the next two years, taxpayers might be okay after all. Indeed, even if there is some loss on these guarantees, the assets would have to be pretty rotten to eat up the government’s entire $12 billion profit on the equity sale.
  • The Atlantic associate editor Daniel Indiviglio • Offering some more context on the Citi bailout numbers. While the U.S. no longer owns any shares in Citi, we do have other stakes in the company – most notably, we’re still backing a lot of their debt right now due to a program called the “Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program,” which isn’t as easy to acronym as TARP. But by the end of 2012 at the latest, we’ll be off the hook for that. Still, though, the fact that we might make any money off of TARP is impressive. “Citi was viewed by many as the big bank with the most serious problems,” Indiviglio notes, suggesting that the profit would prove that their bailout in 2008 was warranted by panic and general FUD, not “too big to fail”-type concerns.  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Aug 2010 11:06

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Politics: Ken Mehlman: Former RNC chairman says he’s gay

  • Next up: Current RNC chairman says he’s an idiot. Ken Mehlman, who was the campaign manager behind George W. Bush’s re-election, revealed the fact to family and friends, according to The Atlantic’s Mark Ambinder. Mehlman, who only recently came to that realization, admits that he was in a place to actually do something to encourage gay marriage in his former role, and regrets that he didn’t. But it doesn’t mean that he can’t encourage it in his private life. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Mar 2010 09:55

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Politics: The Atlantic: Democrats regained their health-care momentum

  • Then – Jim Bunning’s decision to put a face on Republican obstructionism in the Senate. … Bunning’s gesture of ill-will erased any credibility the GOP Senate had.
  • Atlantic writer Mark Ambinder • Regarding what he calls a “perfect storm” of decisions that have put health care back in the Democrats’ court. He names a number of reasons (WellPoint’s rising insurance rates), but Bunning’s move stands out the most notable in a series of events that have seemingly put the ball back in the Democrats’ court once again, after Scott Brown effectively took it away. However, it’s not a slam-dunk. First they have to please folks like Rep. Bark Stupak, who won’t support the Senate bill unless key abortion provisions are removed. He pushed for a compromise in that regard for the House bill. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Jan 2010 22:09

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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

15 Jun 2009 12:22

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Politics, Tech: OK, who are the crazy hackers keeping Andrew Sullivan down?

  • The Atlantic is under digital attack. Between a tweet and a two-sentence post on Andrew Sullivan’s always-interesting blog, we know that some nefarious group is apparently keeping the smart words of the blogging guru off the Interweb via a Denial of Service attack. Since it’s hard to get into, here’s the post recreated: “The Atlantic is struggling to keep the site up despite what seems to be a digital attack. Please be persistent in trying to reload.” Seriously, what did Andrew Sullivan ever do to you? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

20 May 2009 10:25

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Biz, Politics: A quickie defense of credit card companies facing regulation

  • After everything is taken into account, a rigorous, highly tested credit recommendation pops out of their risk management engine. They literally have math and statistics PhDs who are in charge of this stuff. Congress seeks to prevent such complex analysis.
  • The Atlantic columnist Daniel Indiviglio • On the reasons credit card companies policies often lean towards predatory practices, and why Congress’ plan to kill those practices is no good. Indiviglio says that the unintended consequence of the the legislation currently going through Congress is that it will leave fewer people with credit. May we make the argument that this might actually be a good thing? • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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