Archive for July, 2009

First vet visit

Oh nos! Everything went fairly well. Some minor health issues, but she’ll be fine in a few days. We’ll be back in 10 days for another round of shots.

Timing matters when you try to charge for news

Today I asked on Twitter: If you were going to start charging for a free, ad-supported product, would you pick one of the nation’s worst economic times to start? Well, would you? People are cutting back on spending right now. I don’t understand why now — besides desperation — makes sense for news orgs to [...]

Thoughts on AP’s quest to crack down on Internet sharing

The AP is planning on encasing its content in a DRM-like “wrapper” to ensure that their content and headlines aren’t used without their consent — and without payment. Being paid for your work sounds like a good idea. But the AP is going further than ever before with its copyright claims over its content, and [...]

Not offending people is not an option for newspapers

“Not offending people is not a business model. You have to have something to say” – Dan Froomkin, PDF 2009. Inoffensive, “objective” journalism isn’t good journalism, it’s good business. At least it was before the Web. In a world where printing presses — and by extension, competition — are scarce, it’s good business to try [...]

Transparency comes before objectivity

This is a comment I left on today’s Poynter Chat on teaching social media: The notion of “objectivity” has been a big part of the downfall of traditional journalism. It turned into passionless, he said-she said nonsense. And people are smart enough to know that no one is truly objective. That’s why transparency trumps all. [...]