Category: Uncategorized

Some Ads Don’t Make Good Neighbors

Some Ads Don't Make Good Neighbors

The Journal News hired armed guards after its staff was threatened for posting names and address of gun owners. The New York Times has some (automated) shopping advice to go with the armed guards. The wire story in the screengrab* isn’t showing up now and probably shouldn’t have been posted since it repeats a staff article from earlier today.

*Image courtesy of eagle-eyed Ed Kohn.

Gift That Keeps On Giving: Dropkick Murphys Live in the Lab

The Dropkick Murphys played a holiday set at the hometown Boston Globe Digital Lab in early December. I’d prefer the full concert but that may be a minority view. Instead, it’s a video playlist with individual songs, including the classic Irish Rover (embedded below).

This should have taken a couple of minutes to post. Instead, I learned a lot more about the limits of WordPress.com video and the vageries of the Brightcove player then I could have imagined. The solution I went with meant skipping the manual embed that would give me more control over the post, giving the player access to my WordPress account and publishing immediately, then going into the post to update. It’s also a dead-end video sans playlist. Oh, well, the results still rock.

Looking For Clarity In 2013? Not Gonna Happen

We live in a time of unprecedented access to entertainment, news, information — even to each other. But that access requires navigating a digital labyrinth, with toll booths, hidden doors, gates that only open in one direction, false exits, and misleading turns — along with some clear paths and dazzling topiary. I wish I could say that will get easier in 2013. It won’t. And if there’s one prediction I feel safe in making, clarity isn’t even in our mid-range future.

Why? I explain as part of the Nieman Jopurnalism Lab 2013 predictions project. (Thanks for including me, Josh.) Lots more on a variety of topics from much smarter people.

The Apple Version of Baby Jail

An unwillingness to upgrade to iOS 6 has landed me in Apple’s software baby jail – a virtual playpen where I can go only so far without permission or swearing allegiance to the iOS flag. I can’t upgrade iPhoto or certain other apps unless I upgrade to flawed iOS6.  Irksome but I can live with that until I’m ready to make the switch.  Worse, no matter how much I’ve invested in Apple devices — hint:  typing this on my third MacBook Air 11” about an issue discovered on iPad 3 while iPhone 4S on the table – or iTunes apps,  I can’t upgrade an app I’ve already paid for unless I accept the latest change in iTunes terms and conditions.  This is on top of producing a new iOS that double-dog dares you not to install it because, as is so often the case with Apple, improvements and breakage come in the same package.  (Before anyone jumps on me, I know Apple isn’t alone in breaking features but it leads the pack in making life without OS upgrades difficult. Try watching an Apple video without the latest version of Quicktime.)

It isn’t a new frustration but it’s a reminder of the kind of thinking that sent me to Microsoft and DOS from Apple IIC years ago.  Apple’s version of the walled garden is considerably broader than it was back then when I went over the wall because it blocked the kind of software development encouraged by Microsoft. But it’s still a control freak’s paradise that requires a series of “Mother, may I’s” or “Please, sir, may I have anothers?” Today I blend them – I’m using Windows 7 on this MacBook Air and our other household computers are PCs. Every time I think about diving in, say going Mac for my new desktop, I run into a reminder that life in the virtual playpen is meant to work best when you don’t challenge the limits.

If ‘It’s Not A Conversation,’ You’re Not Doing Your Job

This quote from Craig Silverman’s excellent exit interview with Arthur Brisbane explains so much. When the public editor of The New York Times chooses to believe that he is not in a conversation, you get the kind of remoteness and disconnect that marred Brisbane’s tenure. Even before social media, the best people in the role of ombudsman or public editor at any media outlet were the ones who mixed engagement with expertise and explanation.

I preferred the paradigm that says there’s an article, there’s a complaint, and there’s a point of view that I’m going to arrive at and express, and that is the process. … It’s not a conversation. I can fully appreciate that one might say it is a conversation, and it goes on and on and on. That’s fine if somebody wants to take that approach. It’s not the approach I took.

Note: a little WordPress confusion led to a delay in publishing.

The other side of Bryant Park

Midway through my time at ContentNext Media I made it through — barely — a singularly uncomfortable lunch that easily could have been an end point. It was at the Bryant Park Grill, a lovely place that for a long time after raised only the most negative emotions. I’ve been back to the park for a couple of social occasions but this afternoon, drawn by the kind of gorgeous New York day that comes only after a horrible storm, I’m sitting here feeling a kind of peace I couldn’t have imagined back then. This time the view is from the Southwest Porch, across the park from the Grill. The others at that lunch are in the midst of new ventures (It turned out I stayed the longest. Go figure.) the company has been sold twice and I’m in a place between the edges of decompression and what’s next.

It’s not a bad place to be even though it’s freaking my dad out. The temptation to walk from one job directly into the next was strong. The need to break the cycle I’ve been in for so long — and break the station — was stronger. It’s not easy to change course when you’re on a treadmill.

Today I’m challenging my perspective in New York, tomorrow I head for San Francisco to do the same at ONA12.

A virtual room of my own

I’ve spent the last eight years blogging but most of that was on behalf of paidContent. Six years ago I stopped my own blog, Trust But Verify, convinced that if I had time to write, it had to go to paidContent. That was part of my 24/7 approach to the job of reporting, editing, planning and building a company.  I wrote some personalized posts, which helped, but most of the time, unless I thought it fit on one of our sites, I mentally spiked what I had to say.  Twitter, and to a lesser extent Facebook,  provided

I wrote my last post as editor of paidContent last month . While my work can be published in other places (and will be), it’s time for me to once again have a virtual room of my own. I’ve kept the name Trust But Verify, one of the guiding principles I offered when I started helping other journalists move online. It has even more meaning in today’s real-time-on-steroids world — when news and gossip are mixed with information, misinformation and disinformation at a pace we couldn’t imagine even a few years ago; when eyewitnesses, sources and brands have the same tools as journalists; when spoofing identities is a sport; and when the power of the press potentially belongs to anyone who can hit send.

One difference between versions is that in addition to writing about journalism, technology, sports and life, I’ll also use this virtual room for some posts I once would have reserved for paidContent. My interests come with me, including the transformation of media in a multiplatform world; the creation, evolution — and devolution — of companies that change the way we connect with each other and with content; the people and the technology that make it all happen. I was a subscription addict, a gadget geek and a sports junkie when I got to paidContent and that hasn’t changed. None of these interests are going dormant just because I’m changing pace and place.

Mind the gap: I’ve moved to WordPress from Typepad, bringing my small archives along because I like a lot of those posts and I don’t like erasing the web. Breaking links is bad enough. I hope the gap between eras won’t be too confusing.

The site itself is a work in progress, particularly in terms of design and functionality. I’m looking forward to furnishing my new room.

Tsunami Revisited: Evelyn Rodriguez

Getting to know Evelyn Rodriguez, who translated suriving last year’s tsunami into something personal for those of us light years away, was one of the best parts of BlogHer for me; even better was the late afternoon we spent in Palo Alto a couple of days later. I’ve been incredibly remiss in not mentioning her anniversary trip back to Thailand, where she came so close to losing her life. This time, Evelyn’s  journalistic mission is no accident. — she’s on the scene as a solo journalist, also as a participatory journalist and a citizen journalist as long as we’re tossing terms around.. (Yes, I still shudder at the cj description but I’ll honor others’ choices.)

Evelyn explains: “I’m collecting stories of resiliency, growth, faith, and grassroots action – and whatever unfolds once actually there. I’ll offer (and hopefully via in-kind donations leave behind equipment) to teach locals to tell their own first-person stories in their own words on their own blogs long after I’m gone. … I’ll delve into how people are rebuilding emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. I believe their stories can teach all of us and shed light for anyone confronting with loss in their own lives. And now with Katrina and worldwide disasters in Guatemala, Mexico and Pakistan/India, it seems all the more relevant to learn from those thriving post-tsunami.”

You can follow her journey through her blog Crossroad Dispatches. And you can give yourself a (insert holiday of your choice) present by supporting Evelyn’s efforts via the tipjar or Paypal (less admijnistrative cost for her), as I have.

A call for professional journalists

Here’s something you don’t see every day — a call for more professional journalism. Russell Beattie uses the upcoming launch of Newsvine, which will combine straight news with blog-like conversation, to explain the need for professional journalists compared to blog-columnists like him:

Forget all this “social news” crap where lazy people read a bunch of
news sources, add a bit of uninteresting, usually uniformed opinion or
analysis and throw it out there as a story. There’s a real need for
professional journalism, but published with a blog-like versatility,
accessibility and accountability. We don’t need more columnists – we
need more journalists, willing to get their hands dirty, keep their
opinions to themselves as best as possible and help inform the rest of
us of what’s going on in the places we live.

Can’t agree about the more columnists but he raises an interesting idea — and not simply because I think he’s describing what we do at paidContent.org. (one difference: we include opinions although news is always our prime focus.) Russ’s focus is on local news, where those willing to accept the responsibilities that come with committing journalism may be able to make the biggest difference.

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