Category: Journalism

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.

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This is just crazy, but it’s what happens when you have companies that are so secretive, they lie to cover things up that leak. I believe CNN over Google any day of the week.

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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.

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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.

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From its Twitter account:

Language evolves.Today we change AP style from e-mail to email, no hyphen. Our editors will announce it at #ACES2011 today.

Thank goodness.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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Gruber:

Walt Mossberg has a 500-word section on “Drawbacks” in his review today of the iPad 2. The whole thing is a crock, an example of trying to be fair/balanced/objective by bending over backwards to find negative things to say about the device. No one is arguing that the iPad 2 is beyond criticism. But almost nothing in Mossberg’s list of drawbacks is valid.

It needed to be said, and Gruber has said it well.

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