Category: Journalism

Google’s Larry Page, via Claire Cain Miller at the New York Times:

I see this as our responsibility to some extent, trying to improve media. If you ask anyone about how that information’s going to be propagated, what you’re going to focus on, I think it could work a lot better than it does now.

We as an Internet community, we have a responsibility to make those things work a lot better and get people focused on what are the real issues, what should you be thinking about. And I think we as a whole are not doing a good job of that at all.

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Iain’s revamped site not only looks great, but as always, is full of good links and articles about the art of writing.

It seems this fall is the time for site redesigns.

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Sigh.

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Congrats, Jim and Peter. The site looks awesome.

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Kevin Lipe:

This is an idea I’ve had (and researched pretty thoroughly) since freshman year in the dorm: the ultimate tool for writing text. A “real” computer is overkill, and an iOS device, with its color LCD screen and multitude of apps, isn’t ideally suited to be a tool for writing text. What is needed is something closer to the Kindle: a (mostly) single-purpose, self-contained device with an always-on wireless connection (whether that’s through 3G like Whispernet or through WiFi) in which every facet of the design of the hardware and software is geared toward one thing: being an efficient tool for translating ideas into words. Essentially this device would be the translation of an application like Byword or TextMate into hardware.

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Joshua Schnell of Macgasm, discussing his struggle with Google Ad revenue falling off after a server move:

After four months of trying to wrap my head around the case of the missing ad-revenue I realized something, I probably rely more on Google than I do Apple for my daily business. Sure, Apple provides me with the news we cover on Macgasm, but Google makes the coverage possible with Google Reader. Our email … hosted at Google. Our analytics … provided by Google. Our ad-revnue … primarily courtesy of Google. My main IM client of choice for the website … Google Talk. Our number one source of traffic … Google.

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Joe Brown:

There is a photo floating around the Internet of Steve Jobs looking very ill. It’s shocking. You won’t find it here. I’m not posting it. Instead, I’m posting a picture of myself that was also snapped unexpectedly. See above.

This isn’t about journalism or ethics or taste. We have violated those precepts before to bring you a story, and we’d do it again. But this time it just feels gross.

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Earlier today, Cult of Mac writer Nicole Martinelli linked to a TMZ piece showing a photo of what appeared to be a very weak, very sick Steve Jobs. The photo looks doctored to me, but TMZ is reporting them as factual photographs.

In her article, Martinelli wrote:

We’re holding out hope that they are fakes.

After the post went live and gained a few dozen comments, Cult of Mac editors replaced Martinelli’s byline with one reading “Staff Writer.”

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Jodi Enda:

“Use of social media and electronic media obviously means that anybody with a laptop, anybody with a PDA, is a journalist,” says Roger Simon, Politico’s chief political columnist and another newcomer to news-by-tweet.

It means anyone can be a witness, not a journalist.

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The AP:

MediaNews Group will combine 11 of its daily newspapers in the San Francisco Bay area into two to save money.

The shake-up announced Tuesday at the company built by Dean Singleton will affect newspapers located across the bay from San Francisco. Beginning Nov. 2, those newspapers will shed their distinct identities and adopt one of two new brands, the East Bay Tribune and The Times.

Terrible news. Memphis was a two-newspaper town until the Memphis Press-Scimitar closed back in 1983. The city isn’t any better for it.

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Elana Zak:

Here’s another headline to add to the almost never-ending news stories about Google and the Associated Press. But this time, instead of bickering over licensing agreements and the like, the two companies have decided to team up and help student digital journalists. They just announced the AP-Google Journalism and Technology Scholarship, a new national scholarship program “targeted to individual students creating innovative projects that further the ideals of digital journalism.”

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Woohoo!

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