Journalism

Government / Journalism — No Comments
25
Jan 10

Malaise: From Virtue to Vice

I’m happy to see that Elizabeth Warren was invited to the White House.  Her advocacy for the middle class is needed in these times.   I’m still concerned with how advocating for the middle class, presumably at the cost of their Wall Street Masters of the Universe, this will be viewed by the Village.

You may recall that Jimmy Carter’s ‘Malaise Speech’ was extremely well received by Americans:

Contrary to later spin, the speech was extremely popular. The White House was flooded with positive calls. Viewers polled while watching found that the speech inspired them as it unfolded.  Read more...

Culture / Delco / Education / Government / Journalism / Local / New Jersey / News / OpEd / Philadelphia / Politicking / Polling / Technology — No Comments
4
Jan 10

Education Policy Disagreements in My Household

My wife – a special education school teacher – and I have a bit of a policy disagreement regarding teacher merit pay.

Most can agree that our Education System is broken (see anything by John Taylor Gatto) and some sort of reform is necessary (even if it rankles some of the President’s core constituents).  Sometimes that change can only be motivated through monetary incentives.  On the macro-level, I can see the potential benefits.  On the micro-level, it’s likely that her students may not ever achieve sufficiently for her to earn said bonuses.

 Read more...

Advertising / Business / Culture / Entertainment / Journalism / Marketing / Webculture / the Great Disruption — No Comments
14
Dec 09

Fast Food Content

I’m not really that concerned about Fast Food Content.  If you are not familiar with the term, here’s an explanation:

But for every link there are dozens of sites that outright steal our content with no attribution. Not just spam blogs, even the NYTimes does it. This isn’t a copyright issue – the stories are rewritten by actual people. But it’s far cheaper to simply take the news and rewrite it – if you can get away with it – than to hire people who do actual journalism. Over time, it becomes a competitive tax that is difficult to bear.  Read more...

Business / Conspiracies / Culture / Education / Government / Journalism / Organizational Dynamics / Pop Culture / Psychology / Terror / War / the Great Disruption — No Comments
11
Dec 09

What Climategate and Copenhagen are really about…

In a nutshell (Jeff McMahon at True/Slant):

info_beautiful_climate

[US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke] said unparalleled economic growth occurred in the 20th Century because of two factors: access to cheap, abundant fossil fuels and ignorance or disregard for the fact that those fuels produced greenhouse gas pollution that caused global warming. Both of those factors, he said, belong to history.

“Those days are over,” Locke said moments ago in Copenhagen. “What’s required is nothing less than completely redesigning the way we produce and consume energy…. We’re talking about creating an entirely new model of economic growth.”The world has spent a century investing in petroleum infrastructure, Locke said: refineries, pipelines, stations.  Read more...

Business / Journalism / Organizational Dynamics / the Great Disruption — No Comments
3
Nov 09

The Iron Paywall?

Saul Friedman, an 80-year old print veteran at Newsday, hops over the paywall (via BoingBoing):

Customers of Cablevision, the cable and Internet provider that owns Newsday, and people who subscribe to Newsday in print will still be able to browse Newsday.com unfettered. But Newsday recently announced that everyone else will have to pay $5 a week to see much of the site, making it one of the few newspapers in the country to take such a plunge.  Read more...

Government / Journalism / News — No Comments
11
Sep 09

White Light, White Heat?

OF COURSE Twitter isn’t journalism.  Bearing witness is a powerfully strong metaphor, as shown with Iran.  Individuals bear witness.  News is the product of an institution.   Twitter brings heat, not light.    The news – context, contrast, local angle – can’t be done in 140-characters.   Ironically, the problem with journalism is that it’s become too much like Twitter - banal, petty, and dismissive – as well as faning flames, playing on emotion and selectively ignoring facts.

Government / Journalism / Politicking — No Comments
30
Jun 09

9-0 or 5-4 is not a Chicago song?

The latest GOP talking points against Sonya Sotomayor is that none of the Justices on the court agreed with her appelate judgement in Ricci, and the fact that the ruling was overturned means she is not suitable for the bench.  As usual, they are wrong.

 Read more...

Advertising / Corruption / Government / Journalism / Politicking / Pop Culture / Technology / Web 2.0 — No Comments
23
Jun 09

On Twitter, the FTC, and Politics…

A couple of observations, which on the surface are barely related.

First, Twitter has really done nothing for the Iranian people, save giving them a place to speak.  The only other outcome has been dead Iranians.  Twitter alone is making the Iranian government do nothing other than crack down.  Hard.

In other news, the FTC is contemplating investigating blog payola, where some bloggers make compensated messages as advertising without disclosure.  The thought is that the few bloggers who are compensated have a disproportionate impact as opinion influencers.  Read more...

Business / Consumer Behavior / Economics / Journalism / News / Webculture — No Comments
9
Jun 09

Newspaper Suicide Pact: (Just) You do it to yourself…

YouTube Preview Image

Lot’s of people linking to this newspaper suicide pact article.  Of course, it will fail miserably and will actually result in more of what they are trying to avoid:

Newspapers that are turning to paywall plans today are gambling on a risky revenue stream that even the experts aren’t predicting will provide a replacement to their lost advertising revenues (their biggest financial problem is the rapid decline in advertising rates, not the slow decline in print circulation). It’s a “well, we’ve got to do SOMETHING” solution, not a logical, do-the-math solution. And since since most media companies are owned by shareholders, the resulting loss of confidence could be catastrophic.  Read more...

Journalism / Politicking / Terror / War — No Comments
20
May 09

When a blogger owns a story…

Most blogs and/or bloggers have an issue, topic, subject, or event that they simply own and dominate.  Brendan Skwire has been doing just that with the Inquirer’s disastrous hiring of John Yoo as a columnist.  Read all of his posts on Yoo, or his open letter on the subject.  As is usually the case, the Inky (in the form of Harold Jacksons) dismisses the controversy (and boycott) and blames the bloggers (via Philebrity), including Daily News journalist, author, and blogger Will Bunch:

Unfortunately, most of the critics of our contract with Yoo have their facts wrong.  Read more...

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