Joy’s Law for journalism
“Events by which ‘Dr. V’s Magical Putter’ came to be published are now the best argument I have for you on diversity in the newsroom. Here is what can happen when you are not diverse enough. Like it?”...
View ArticleIf we’re investing in a “networked beat,” which beat should we invest in first?
I’m in Canada next week for Post Media Network (I’m a consultant) to conduct a discussion with the Montreal Gazette’s newsroom team. The next day it’s the Ottawa Citizen. This is what I am going to ask...
View ArticleKeep me informed: parsing the logic of Ezra Klein’s move to Vox Media
“We don’t have a news system that keeps us informed and helps us grasp the stories we care deeply about. We have one that floods us with reports on a schedule that makes sense for the manufacturers.” I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Features and details of the personal franchise model in digital journalism,...
These are my notes for a talk I’m giving today at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno What I’m calling the personal franchise model in journalism is not new. I.F....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Behold how badly our political journalists have lost the freakin’ plot
I read hundreds of bylined works of journalism a week. Every so often one of them forces me to go back and read it over and over… This is usually because the writing contains within it a density of...
View ArticleFirst Look Media and the personal franchise
The bet is that a news brand can be both: its own thing and the thing that talented, driven, fully-voiced individuals want to do in journalism First Look Media, where I’m an advisor, launched its first...
View ArticleViewers Guide to David Gregory’s “Hey, I’m self-aware…” segment on climate...
I recommend that you read my guide first, then endure the ads and watch the segment, but it works fine the other way too. Viewer’s guide to: MEET THE PRESS, Feb. 16, 2014. Scientist Bill Nye and Rep....
View ArticleViewer’s Guide to Jeremy Paxman pursuing an answer from Michael Howard
Watch this famous clip. It’s two minutes: The clip is from May, 1997. Interviewing the conservative politician (later party leader) Michael Howard is the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman. The clip as edited invites...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“I want it to be 25 years ago!” Newsweek’s blown cover story on bitcoin.
“How was some guy in a basement who happens to have an obsessive interest in your subject going to bust into your peer group and start shooting up your journalism in a way that raises doubts about you...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review and comment on the launch of Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com for ESPN.
Not the most experienced editor but he’s had an experience other editors have not had. He’s successfully said to the U.S press: “Current practices could be better. These are better. Here, let me show...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When starting from zero in journalism go for a niche site serving a narrow...
In 1994 we would not have advised beginners in journalism: start your own trade magazine! Here in 2014 I do advise something like that. My colleague Lisa Williams speaks of narrow comprehensiveness—...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Giving good advice: my keynote presentation to #ISOJ. Plus: a new project...
My presentation to the International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ) in Austin this weekend was called: “Giving Good Advice: Reflections of an academic on 25 years of advising journalists and...
View ArticleTo the Snowden story system a crowning Pulitzer might have gone
The Washington Post and the Guardian won the Pulitzer Prize for public service today. There’s no prize for the network of journalists and newsrooms that brought the surveillance story forward. As the...
View Article‘Democrats argue. Republicans contend. We have no idea.’ A he said, she said...
Classic forms of he said, she said are not so much a “sin” against high practice as an increasingly crappy level of service for what is supposed to be a high end product: New York Times reporting....
View ArticleNPR downgrades and disables its ombudsman
“NPR is far stronger than this short-sighted and half-assed decision suggests. It has nothing to fear from an empowered ombudsman.” UPDATED FOUR TIMES, JULY 15 TO 19 I always read job descriptions for...
View ArticleFirst Look Media shifts direction some
And has none of this figured out. Pierre Omidyar published a blog post today that gave an update on First Look Media, the company he started with Glenn Greenwald and others and backed with $250 million...
View ArticleThe production of innocence: tale of two headlines over Gaza
“Members of Congress fall over each other to support Israel,” the AP said on Twitter. Then the AP decided that it could not say that. Why? It’s early in the game. I have only been writing about this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Listener’s guide to Christian Rudder explaining why OkCupid experimented with...
You use the product. We have the power. You can exit any time. Before then we can screw with you. Alex Goldman: Have you thought about bringing in, say, like an ethicist to, to vet your experiments?...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Wrong side of your Orwell, mister editor.” The New York Times falls down on...
These are my discussion notes to The Executive Editor on the Word ‘Torture’, a letter to Times readers from Dean Baquet, August 7, 2014. “It’s time to celebrate that the newspaper of record is no...
View ArticleWhen quoting both sides and leaving it there is the riskier call
If the weight of the evidence allows you to make a judgment, but instead you go with “he said, she said,” you’re behaving recklessly even as you tell yourself you’re doing the cautious thing. It’s my...
View Article