Whispers of the Hackopalypse

"Let me see if I have this straight: Instead of coming up with a smart strategy and innovating,..."

Wed, 20 May 2009 10:18:08 +0100

“Let me see if I have this straight: Instead of coming up with a smart strategy and innovating, they’re going to Google to help fix their own mess. If an industry can’t think for itself, well, what do you call it? How about dumb, fat and lazy?”

- Newspapers: Dumb, Fat & Lazy?

"I think the institutional belief is that if we work for a major publication or broadcaster that not..."

Tue, 19 May 2009 18:52:38 +0100

“I think the institutional belief is that if we work for a major publication or broadcaster that not only do we have a de facto audience but that we deserve an audience. It’s the height of institutional arrogance and self-importance, and it’s obvious to anyone who even has one foot outside of the bubble of institutional journalism that this is the case. But therein lies the rub. For many journalists, we never get outside of this bubble. I think it’s one of the reasons that journalists are bewildered by the fact that viewership and readership numbers are declining. Journalism matters, we say, and it does. But we are too often the authors of our own increasing irrelevance. We trivialise the important and amplify the trivial. In this noisy age, we don’t help our audiences find the signal but instead make a vain attempt to drown out the noise, often with self-serving arguments about our own importance.”

- Strange Attractor » Blog Archive » Overcoming journalists’ sense of entitlement to an audience

"You see, the problem here is the myth of regular readership. When I started newspaper sites, I had..."

Mon, 11 May 2009 13:33:50 +0100

“You see, the problem here is the myth of regular readership. When I started newspaper sites, I had publishers on my rear because they expected people to read them every day, just as (they thought) people read newspapers. But just because the thing plops on the front porch every day, that doesn’t mean everybody reads everything - or sees every ad. That was the myth that fueled overpriced ad rates and overinflated editorial egos. Online, we get to see what people really read - and what it’s really worth to them - and that’s a lot less than we ever thought.”

- Bring it on, Rupert « BuzzMachine

"I have long argued that we will eventually move from print to screen. What worries me, however, is..."

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:50:39 +0000

“I have long argued that we will eventually move from print to screen. What worries me, however, is that the transformation is being threatened by the immediate economic crisis. I fear that the death of print products will lead to the demise of the related online platforms too. Anyway, are regional publishers really prepared to make the switch from one to the other? Are they devoting enough of their receding revenues to building vibrant online news outlets that will do the job of holding local power to account? Are journalists, for their part, thinking about a post-print world?”

- Roy Greenslade: Cuts should not blind us to papers’ online future | Media | guardian.co.uk

"I am a college journalism professor. When I got into this field a half dozen or so years ago, after..."

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:54:47 +0000

“I am a college journalism professor. When I got into this field a half dozen or so years ago, after 17 years as a journalist, I was excited to enlighten young minds and inspire them. And I have, and hope I still do. The problem is this: I feel like I’m teaching them something that will be as useful as Sanskrit when they graduate. I am trying to get them involved in learning the latest technology as well as teaching them important writing and life skills, so they will be employable. But every morning I read stories about how huge, venerable newspapers will likely be shuttered by the end of the year, and it absolutely freaks me out.”

- Why teach journalism if newspapers are dying? a Since You Asked column by Cary Tennis | Salon Life

"Incisive Media, the publisher of Computing and Accountancy Age, has just asked its 2000 staff to..."

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:18:16 +0000

“Incisive Media, the publisher of Computing and Accountancy Age, has just asked its 2000 staff to take a week’s unpaid leave. That came within days of a similar initiative by Euromoney, owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. Euro-money, publisher of about 100 titles mostly in the finance sector, announced that staff earning more than £25,000 would be required to take seven days’ unpaid leave over the 2009 Christmas period, during which the company intends to close its offices.”

- Even trade magazines are feeling the squeeze in the recession | Business

"But consider this - the cost to a rival, a group of bloggers or some other outfit to set a site up..."

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:58:03 +0100

“But consider this - the cost to a rival, a group of bloggers or some other outfit to set a site up and get it running would be as close to zero as you could imagine. There may be no threat on the horizon right now, but how distant is that horizon? Imagine a rival publisher moving in with a guy on the ground, some citizen journalists being paid per click and some pretty smart open source software. How long do you think this would take? And how long would it be before your ”not particularly internet savvy” readers would migrate? How long would it take these guys to kill your print edition?”

- CounterValue - » Web last: The Bowling Green Daily News

"The problem with too many journalists — and especially those journalists inside the Beltway — is..."

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:34:37 +0100

“The problem with too many journalists — and especially those journalists inside the Beltway — is this: they do not write what they’re thinking. The reporters do not tell us what they know. The columnists and analysts do not tell us what they believe. Their resulting work is boring, uninformative, and manipulative.”

- Scott Rosenberg’s Wordyard » Blog Archive » Noonan agonistes — or, journalists should write what they know and think

"These are interesting times for folks in my line of work. By “my line of work” I mean people who..."

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:04:50 +0100

“These are interesting times for folks in my line of work. By “my line of work” I mean people who write and draw things and publish them…and by “interesting times” I mean that I’ve added weight training to my workout regimen, so that next year I can get a job loading trucks at the UPS depot and maybe start earning a decent living wage for once.”

- Andy Ihnatko’s Celestial Waste of Bandwidth (BETA) - The blog of Andy Ihnatko, internationally-beloved technology pundit.

"Here’s the point: it doesn’t matter whether the video is real or staged. People are increasingly..."

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:04:30 +0100

“Here’s the point: it doesn’t matter whether the video is real or staged. People are increasingly savvy and sceptical: they believe what they want to believe and they know that the first casualty of war is the truth. If you don’t respond to their comments asking about verification, or address the suggested ballistics explanations, then you have no claim to ‘the truth’: to them you’re just another desperate news pimp falling for a gory video.”

- YouTube and the first casualty of war | Online Journalism Blog

"But as the NUJ prepares to unfurl its battle flag once more, there has to come a point when it needs..."

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:26:53 +0100

“But as the NUJ prepares to unfurl its battle flag once more, there has to come a point when it needs to recognise it might be fighting a lost cause. The provincial newspaper industry is broken beyond repair.”

- A word for the NUJ. You can fight yesterday’s wars and lose… Or you can fight tomorrow’s battles and help us all win. » Out With A Bang

"Saying that journalism means “picking up the phone” means that journalism is a social..."

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:15:57 +0100

“Saying that journalism means “picking up the phone” means that journalism is a social thing. Most of the job isn’t writing - it’s finding and cultivating sources, getting to know people, and getting to that point when you can pick up the phone and talk to someone about what you need to know. As Danny points out, this means that lots of things which bloggers do are really journalism, and, contrariwise, lots of professional journalists don’t really do journalism.”

- Technovia: Journalism is picking up the phone

"Editor & Publisher has a 3,000-word special report on the newspaper industry’s prospects that..."

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:15:24 +0100

“Editor & Publisher has a 3,000-word special report on the newspaper industry’s prospects that doesn’t turn up much new ground but documents the panic that has set in across the business”

- As Panic Sets In, All Options Are On the Table | Newspaper Death Watch

"in the beginning there was the media who had journalists who produced news.” No, in the beginning..."

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:50:01 +0100

““in the beginning there was the media who had journalists who produced news.” No, in the beginning journalist reported the news, today journalist produce news. There is a difference.”

- A comment on Citizen journalism: a rethink needed

"A story is no longer a single page: it is a network of pages"

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:59:11 +0100

“A story is no longer a single page: it is a network of pages”

- Technovia: A news story is not a single page: it’s a network

"CheapEasyGlobal is the big story. And it’s here now. It has arrived. And it’s permanent...."

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:20:44 +0100

“CheapEasyGlobal is the big story. And it’s here now. It has arrived. And it’s permanent. And there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it, save for a nuclear holocaust.”

- gapingvoid: “cartoons drawn on the back of business cards”: cheapeasyglobal

"More importantly, it won’t be long before other newspapers realize there’s potential..."

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:03:19 +0100

“More importantly, it won’t be long before other newspapers realize there’s potential (and some easy money) in duplicating the Pharmalot model. There are thousands of business reporters covering hundreds of beats at newspapers across the country. And odds are there’s at least one who would pose a competitive threat to any B2B publication you could name.”

- paulconley: A threat from an unlikely place

"Failure to build community is one of the many reasons so many newspapers are in so much trouble..."

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:40:25 +0100

“Failure to build community is one of the many reasons so many newspapers are in so much trouble right now. Yeah, the Internet this and the economy that and television blah blah blah, but don’t overlook “failure to lead.” Far too many newspapers have either intentionally abandoned or simply lost interest and wandered away from the mission. If you actually do research — something that is depressingly rare in the world of Internet punditry — you’ll discover that in pretty much every American city there’s a deep need for social connections that isn’t being met for a lot of folks.”

- Bzzzzt! Wrong! Community should be job #1 | yelvington.com

"It’s as if, when the telephone first arrived, only a few hobbyists had seen the point of it, and had..."

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:39:35 +0100

“It’s as if, when the telephone first arrived, only a few hobbyists had seen the point of it, and had at first enthusiastically chatted to one another on it, while grander people in “mainstream institutions” had sneered. Have you actually listened to the drivel that these phoners say to each other?, said the mainstream institutions. No, said the mainstream institutions, it’ll never catch on. We, said the mainstream institutions, give it five years, then it’ll be gone, and good riddance. And then five years later, they all had their own telephones. Which for all I know is what really happened.”

- Brian Micklethwait

"The dirty little secret of newspaper journalists is that a lot of them can’t write very well...."

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:57:25 +0100

“The dirty little secret of newspaper journalists is that a lot of them can’t write very well. That’s by no means universally true, but it’s true enough. I was a copy editor for years at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, where slot chief Vickie Kinney kicked my butt until I learned to be pretty good at it, and at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. I didn’t just write headlines and hook paragraphs. I transformed some real trash into publishable writing, saved my paper and some writers from professional embarrassment, and introduced relatively few errors on my own.”

- Death of copy editing, or death of specialization? | yelvington.com