Category: Journalism

Shawn Blanc, on Writing

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From his first post after going full-time with his site:

Writing should be about standing behind your work and truly caring about what it is you have to say. If you happen to be good with words then congratulations. Dispassionate beautiful prose, however, is still dispassionate. Or, as Anatole France put it, “a tale without love is like beef without mustard: insipid.”

Emotion, honesty, truth, passion. These are the backbones of writing. And these are the very things that can be the hardest to put into our writing. I often find myself caring more about how I say things than what I am saying. The how and the what are certainly important, but not equally so.

What’s Next for the Engadget Crew

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David Carr at the New York Times:

Like many of its peers covering Silicon Valley, Engadget worked as a kind of permanent start-up, with 16-hour days to compete in the always-on news cycle, but AOL treated it as one more niche site. “We have been working on blogging technology that was developed in 2003, we haven’t made a hire since I started running the site, and I thought we could be more successful elsewhere,” said Joshua Topolsky, who was the editor of Engadget until the middle of last month.

So Mr. Topolsky and as many as eight of the more prominent editorial and technology staff members at Engadget have left or are leaving AOL and are about to build a new gadget site by joining forces with, yes, you guessed right, their old friend Mr. Bankoff, who now runs a federation of sports sites called SB Nation.

Jim Bankoff was working at AOL in 2005, and helped bring Engadget into the AOL fold.

Joshua Topolsky, on his personal blog:

Of course, the natural question I’m sure a lot of people have is: why SB Nation? The easy answer is that the people at SB Nation share my vision of what publishing looks like in the year 2011. They think that the technology used to create and distribute news on the web (and mobile) is as important as the people who are responsible for the content itself. And that’s not just pillow talk — SB Nation is actively evolving its tools and processes to meet the growing and changing needs of its vast editorial teams and their audience communities. They’re building for the web as it is now. From the perspective of a journalist who also happens to be a huge nerd, that’s a match made in heaven. SBN isn’t just another media company pushing news out — it’s a testbed and lab for some of the newest and most interesting publishing tools I’ve ever seen. In short, I was blown away when I saw what kind of technology they’re using to get news on their front page and engage audiences, and even more blown away when I started talking to them about what could come next.

[…]

In the coming months I’m going to be laser focused on one thing: building the best tech site in the world — and I would love to hear what you guys think the next phase in technology and gadget news should look like.

I’m excited. Guys like Topolsky and Nilay Patel are some of the best tech journalists in the industry, and I can’t wait to see what they have up their sleeves at this new gig.

Tech journalism is a roller coaster world. It revolves heavily around breaking stories and page views. Engadget simply used its journalistic weight and excellent coverage to build its reader base. I have no doubt SB Nation will enjoy similar success as AOL’s tech site.

Breaking News with iPad 2, iMovie

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Matt Tinsley at TUAW, on Robert Stephens, who captured a huge fireball on his iPhone, edited the video on his iPad 2 and submitted it to news organizations:

Stephens says, “It was iPhone to connection kit to iPad to iMovie to CNN,” apparently all within around four minutes.

According to Stephens, had this all occurred prior to the release of the iPad 2 he would simply have uploaded the raw footage from his iPhone, but since he had the iPad 2 he was able to do all the editing using Apple’s new iMovie app for the iPad.

Stephens admits he’s no journalist, but thanks to the the iPhone and iPad (and iMovie) he was able to make a rather slick “citizen-journalism” report with a professionalism akin to the pros.

This type of citizen journalism is great.

House Cuts NPR Funding

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Susan Ferrechio:

The House on Thursday voted to strip National Public Radio’s federal funding, a move that followed the release of a “sting” video showing an NPR executive criticizing the Republican Party and saying the station didn’t need millions of dollars in federal money.
The measure passed 228-192, mostly along party lines, after a vigorous debate over the merits of public radio and the need for the government to reduce spending in the wake of a $1.3 trillion debt and $14 trillion deficit that threaten the economy.

“The object of this bill is to get NPR out of the taxpayer’s pocket,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. “It is time for us to be good stewards and save the money of the American taxpayer.”

NPR receives about $90 million in federal funding annually, but the Congressional Budget Office calculated that the net savings from defunding the network would be zero.

Good job, GOP.

On Instapaper and the NYT Paywalls

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Marco:

Most people add NYT pages from the “Read Later” bookmarklet or the new in-app browser. Pages added from both of these sources are unaffacted by paywalls and login requirements since they both save copies of the page as the viewer sees it.

In other words, if you can see it, Instapaper can save it for you with the bookmarklet or in-app browser. So you’ll still need to pay for a NYT membership if you exceed their monthly thresholds for viewing.

Garrison Keillor Announces Retirement

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Carol Kaufmann at the AARP Bulletin:

Radio host Garrison Keillor, 68, told the AARP Bulletin that he’s planning to retire in the spring of 2013. But the host of A Prairie Home Companion says that he must find his replacement first. Keillor created his show in 1974 in Minnesota. It is now broadcast on 590 public radio stations across the country and is heard by over 4 million people each week.

Keillor is an icon of public radio. I will miss his voice on Sunday afternoon, when our family enjoys A Prairie Home Companion.

[via @Slate]

New York Times Announces Metered Paywall

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David Folkenflik at NPR:

The Times has embraced what’s called a metered approach — readers can click on as many as 20 different articles, slideshows, or videos a month without paying a cent. A page click through a Google search or a friend’s referral via Facebook or Twitter won’t count against you.

But as of March 28, the paper will charge digital readers who view more than 20 pages per month $15 dollars each month for web access and an iPhone application; $20 for access on the web, iPad and other tablets; or $35 for access on all three platforms. The model does not yet incorporate e-readers such as the Kindle, for which the Times has ongoing subscription plans.

It’s obvious that newspapers have to be able to make money online to survive. As print continues to die, the web will become the main outlet for journalistic content.

The reality is that journalism costs money.

I think the Times model is pretty great. It doesn’t penalize or discourage users who just show up every once in a while. People who use the site as a main news source, however, will have to pay. That seems totally fair.

Update: Be sure to check Federico’s post at MacStories for more info on what the Times is doing with iOS subscriptions.

iOS WordPress App Updated

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Dan Roundhill:

The main focus of this release is to improve the app’s performance and reliability. The app has been moved to Core Data, which is a much improved way of managing information locally on the device. Also, the methods used to communicate over XML-RPC have been updated to better handle communication issues and increase reliability of the app. In total there have been 117 changes in this release.

We’ve cleaned up the Post Editor interface to make it easier to write and edit posts and pages. Simply select the icons along the bottom of the post editor to edit post settings, view attachments and add media. You can also now upload multiple media objects at once!

One big reason I ditched my iPad was because posting to a WordPress-powered site was such a pain. For me, writing on a computer is just a far better solution.

While I’m anxious to test the new app, I’d love to see something like MarsEdit come to iOS. Lots of people rely on things like custom fields that this app just doesn’t deal with.

[via MacStories]

On Great Tech Writing

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Shawn Blanc:

If you run a tech-centric website, then, so far as I see it, there are two paces of posting schedule that your site can take: (a) the breaking news, real-time schedule; or (b) the schedule and pace that you set on your own. Most tech-centric sites opt for the former.

[…]

By making an intentional decision to not pursue a real-time schedule with my site it allows me the space to think and breathe and therefore write things which are more thought related than they are time-sensitive.

I’d rather write stories than break them.

I totally agree with Shawn here, and I wish more people would.

I’m not saying (and I don’t think Shawn is) that there isn’t a place for breaking stories. There is. In the fast-paced world where Twitter has overtaken RSS for many, hitting the publish button first means more income. I get that.

But it’s not for me. I prefer using a little common sense, and a lot of polish before I hit publish.

I think this sentiment is growing, at least in this corner of the Internet. Which is great.

On Paying for Mobile News

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Matthew Lasar at Ars:

A new study of mobile device users indicates that almost half use their handhelds to get some kind of local news or information. But will they pay for it? Here’s the latest data: just ten percent of adults who use mobile applications to get local news/info pay for these services—one percent of all adults. And most of them say they’re not particularly interested in paying much more.

More bad news for the journalism sector.